Since the 1970s a number of influential regulatory scholars have suggested that it ought to be possible to empirically identify internal management structures, decision making processes, employee training and other practices that can effectively prevent misconduct in corporations. Moreover, it has been suggested that it should be possible to design government or voluntary regulatory programs that would force or encourage corporations to self-regulate by putting in place these corporate compliance management systems. In this contribution to the edited collection, Explaining Compliance (Parker and Nielsen eds), we briefly describe the main empirical research questions regarding corporate compliance management systems that scholarly regulation literature attempts to answer. These questions concern the extent to which corporations actually do implement compliance systems, why they do so, and what impact, if any, these systems have on compliance behavior. We suggest that in order to answer these questions, it is useful to use the generic sociological concepts of structure, culture and agency. That is, it is important to study the interaction between the adoption of formal systems for compliance management (one component of structure), the perceptions, motivations and strategies of individuals within the corporation in relation to compliance (agency), and the local norms and habituated practices (culture or cultures) that mediate between corporate structures and individual agency. We summarise our own qualitative in depth interview studies of large organizations' implementation of compliance management systems and other empirical literature on corporate compliance management systems to show how structure and agency interact through culture at three nodes: top management decisions to implement a compliance system; the compliance strategies of specialised compliance managers; and, the ways in which compliance systems are communicated to and experienced by individual employees. The paper concludes by summarizing a preliminary attempt to more systematically identify and test structure, agency and culture in compliance system implementation, and their effects.

Compliance has become key to our contemporary markets, societies, and modes of governance across a variety of public and private domains. While this has stimulated a rich body of empirical and practical expertise on compliance, thus far, there has been no comprehensive understanding of what compliance is or how it influences various fields and sectors. The academic knowledge of compliance has remained siloed along different disciplinary domains, regulatory and legal spheres, and mechanisms and interventions. This handbook bridges these divides to provide the first one-stop overview of what compliance is, how we can best study it, and the core mechanisms that shape it. Written by leading experts, chapters offer perspectives from across law, regulatory studies, management science, criminology, economics, sociology, and psychology. This volume is the definitive and comprehensive account of compliance.

'Taking a broad view of regulation, and covering a wide range of issues and industries, this collection is the most innovative effort to date to understand the responses of business firms to regulation. The book brings together an impressive group of scholars who analyze the concept of compliance and offer theoretically informed studies of its assumed links to regulation. A must read for both academics and practitioners, this ground-breaking collection firmly establishes a scholarly field of compliance studies.' Ronen Shamir, Tel Aviv University, Israel 'Business responses to regulation is a key area of social science research. Parker and Nielsen's collection brings together an excellent group of scholars with innovative, and I believe highly influential contributions that problematize the relations between regulation and compliance. The collection is a highly welcome addition to our field, that will redefine the research agenda on compliance. A significant achievement that will help to improve policy making and frame the scholarly research agenda for the years to come.' David Levi-Faur, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel and the Free University of Berlin, Germany 'A timely and important set of analyses on how and why businesses respond to regulation in the way that they do from some of the leading authors in the field, covering business responses to both state and non-state regulatory systems.' Julia Black, London School of Economics, UK Explaining Compliance consists of sixteen specially commissioned chapters by the world's leading empirical researchers, examining whether and how businesses comply with regulation that is designed to affect positive behaviour changes. Each chapter consists of reflective summaries on business compliance with different state or voluntary regulation, and the theoretical lessons to be drawn from it. As a whole, the book develops understanding and explanations of how, why and in what circumstances, firms come to comply with regulation, and when they do not. It also uncovers the complexity, ambiguity and transformation of regulation as it is interpreted, implemented and negotiated by firms, their stakeholders and internal constituencies in everyday business life. This unique and detailed resource will appeal to academics, graduate students and senior undergraduates in law, political science, sociology, criminology, economics, and psychology, as well as business and interdisciplinary areas such as law and society, and law and economics. Anyone researching business regulation, corporate social responsibility, regulation and compliance, enforcement and compliance, and public administration, will also find this book beneficial.

Master's Thesis from the year 2014 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 2, Donau-Universität Krems (Department for economic- and management sciences), language: English, abstract: This Master Thesis deals with the impact of change management practices on the implementation or revision of compliance management systems in companies. The main target of the Master Thesis is, to elaborate on the question: “which implications does the definition of Compliance management as a change management process have”? Derived from that, the Compliance Management Systems of four selected companies have been reviewed. The Master Thesis also includes a theoretical part in which the basics of the topic have been evaluated. To answer the research question, an online survey with Compliance employees of the selected companies and other companies has been conducted.

How to induce corporate compliance with regulations? Harsh punishments will cause companies to disguise violations, and mild punishments will cause companies to report their violations and make weak efforts to avoid them. In this book, Sharon Oded canvasses the history of thinking about corporate compliance, and he proposes his own candidate for the best law. This is a sophisticated account of legal incentives that will repay any reader interested in corporate compliance. Robert Cooter, University of California, Berkeley, US The effective control of corporate misconduct is a vital but elusive task for regulators, given the complexity of organization structures and the need to find the right balance between deterrent- and cooperative-based enforcement policies. In this powerful and comprehensive study, Sharon Oded argues for combining different approaches and boldly advocates, in particular, the use of third-party independent corporate monitoring firms to implement self-policing strategies. This will be essential reading for those involved in the theory or practice of regulatory corporate enforcement. Anthony Ogus, University of Manchester, UK and University of Rotterdam, The Netherlands This book considers how a regulatory enforcement policy should be designed to efficiently induce proactive corporate compliance. It first explores two major schools of thought regarding law enforcement, both the deterrence and cooperative approaches, and shows that neither of these represents an optimal regulatory enforcement paradigm from a social welfare perspective. It provides a critical analysis of recent developments in US Federal corporate liability regimes, and proposes a generic framework that better tailors sanction schemes and monitoring systems to regulatee performance. The proposed framework efficiently induces corporate proactive compliance, while maintaining an optimal level of deterrence. This insightful book will appeal to academics in law and economics, behavioral economics, criminology, and business, as well as to practitioners and policymakers.

Master's Thesis from the year 2015 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1 / A / Distinction, ( Middlesex University in London ), course: Compliance Management, language: English, abstract: This research reports on the current situation of compliance management among business organisations. Compliance management aims to ensure that all participants of a company observe laws and regulations. It is a business process to help the management and the employees to meet requirements and governance guidelines. The following research aims to increase the awareness of compliance management in companies and among the society to decrease business crime and ethical and legal offences. Therefore, the dimension of compliance management is discovered in this work. The first result is that the extension of the topic compliance management is very low. Mostly, just bigger and international companies have already implemented a compliance management as smaller companies suffer under the high costs of the implementation. Different standards evaluated by various institutions provide orientation on how to do responsible business by complying with these standards. It is suggested that compliance management is to be seen beside risk management and ethics, more, compliance management should be seen as requirement for risk management and ethics. A comment way of implementing a compliance management into the structures of the company ́s business is proposed. In this context the GRC – Governance-Risk-Compliance - approach is introduced. As the implementation of compliance management is a very costly process, companies need to be motivated by benefits of this process. In this research the avoidable costs and the return on investment are named to be the biggest benefit of compliance management. To get an idea of how a compliance management process might look like, two frameworks are distinguished with the necessary steps that need to be considered. The management and the employees are considered to the most important part of companies. Therefore, also in terms of compliance management the people involved are the source of success. To narrow the research, its focus is put on the analysis of the tourism industry in Germany. Compared to the generalisation, extreme differences cannot be determined in terms of compliance management. Confirmed is the aspect that the number of big companies implementing a compliance management is higher than the number of small companies.

This book is very practical in its international usefulness (because current risk practice and understanding is not equal across international boundaries). For example, an accountant in Belgium would want to know what the governance regulations are in that country and what the risk issues are that he/she needs to be aware of. This book covers the international aspect of risk management systems, risk and governance, and risk and accounting. In doing so the book covers topics such as: internal control and corporate governance; risk management systems; integrating risk into performance management systems; risk and audit; governance structures; risk management of pensions; pension scheme risks e.g. hedging derivatives, longevity bonds etc; risk reporting; and the role of the accountant in risk management. There are the case studies through out the book which illustrate by way of concrete practical examples the major themes contained in the book. The book includes highly topical areas such as the Sarbanes Oxley Act and pension risk management. * provides a cross European perspective (because current practice and understanding is not equal across international boundaries) on the key issues of risk management, internal control and governance * covers the implications of Sarbanes Oxley Act for European companies and the associated risks * explains what the current risk reporting practices are and what the analysts are really looking for * looks at the key issues you need to address in order to manage your company's pension risk