Kagan, Robert A.; Gunningham, Neil; Thornton, Dorothy --- "Fear, Duty, and Regulatory Compliance: Lessons from Three Research Projects" [2011] ELECD 932; in Parker, Christine; Nielsen, Lehmann Vibeke (eds), "Explaining Compliance" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Explaining Compliance

Editor(s): Parker, Christine; Nielsen, Lehmann Vibeke

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848448858

Section: Chapter 2

Section Title: Fear, Duty, and Regulatory Compliance: Lessons from Three Research Projects

Author(s): Kagan, Robert A.; Gunningham, Neil; Thornton, Dorothy

Number of pages: 22

Extract:

2. Fear, duty, and regulatory
compliance: lessons from three
research projects
Robert A. Kagan, Neil Gunningham and
Dorothy Thornton*

INTRODUCTION

Sociolegal explanations of law-abidingness among regulated business
enterprises, as well as among individuals, point to three basic motivational
factors: fear of detection and legal punishment; concern about the con-
sequences of acquiring a bad reputation; and a sense of duty, that is, the
desire to conform to internalized norms or beliefs about right and wrong.
In this chapter, we will draw on three research projects of our own con-
cerning environmental regulation, supplemented by references to other
scholars' research, to explore the interaction of these variables in shaping
compliance and `beyond compliance' behavior by business firms.
What it means, exactly, to `comply' with regulation is not always
straightforward. Sociolegal scholars have emphasized that `compliance'
is socially constructed within the regulated enterprise, sometimes in dia-
logue with regulatory enforcement officials (Hutter, 1997; Edelman et al.,
1991). But not infrequently, regulatory officials differ among themselves
as to what is required. When mismatches between regulatory standards
and particular contexts occur, some (but not all) dedicated enforcement
officials may classify `substantial compliance' as adequate (Bardach and
Kagan, 2002 [1982]: chapter 5). Furthermore, due to variation in reporting
by both regulators and business firms, the regulatory agency databases
that researchers use to measure noncompliance vary in quality, while
researchers who rely on those databases often differ in what they treat as
significant noncompliance.
In the three research projects we refer to throughout this chapter, ...