Benjamin Van Rooij

• PhD
• Professor at University of Amsterdam

Studying compliance, in terms of the business responses to legal rules, is notoriously difficult. This paper focuses on the difficulty of capturing the behavioral response itself, rather than on difficulties in explaining compliance and isolating particular factors of influence on it. The paper argues that existing approaches to capture such compli...

There is widespread recognition that organizational culture matters in corporations involved in systemic crime and wrongdoing. However, we know far less about how to assess and alter toxic elements within a corporate culture. The present paper draws on management science, anthropology, sociology of law, criminology, and social psychology to explain...

There have been strong proponents and opponents in academic debates about the use of social science in legal practice. However, in such academic discussions, little attention has been paid to what legal practitioners think about social science and its use in law. The present study shows that legal practitioners have complex views about social scien...

Background setting Punitive approaches to deter offending remain popular despite limited evidence of their effectiveness. This study investigated what effect presenting empirical criminological findings about the effectiveness of deterrence to a general public has on their punishment preferences. It builds on earlier research showing that such pres...

Honesty, defined as freedom from fraud or deception, is widely valued in many aspects of life, from personal relationships to professional settings. Yet acts of dishonesty remain widespread, including political and corporate scandals, misinformation, personal betrayal, and so on. Understanding honesty and the factors that influence it provides insi...

People vary in the extent to which they generally feel obligated to obey the law. The Obligation to Obey the Law (OOL) plays a major role in how people respond to legal rules and whether they comply or violate such rules. Most existing research on OOL has been non-comparative. The present paper explores national differences in OOL by analyzing data...

This paper showcases an organizational life-cycle analysis of corporate offending behavior in small businesses. It analyzes two small food and hospitality firms in China, drawing on deep ethnographic data collected during three years of fieldwork. The paper investigates these two businesses as they go through three phases: pre-existence, existence,...

To mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic many countries have adopted mandatory social distancing measures, but in China, social distancing was implemented only as an advisory guideline. This article seeks to understand whether, and why Chinese citizens adhered to such social distancing advice. The data, derived from a survey in the 2020 local outbreak in...

Criminology has a strong potential to impact criminal justice policy. It is thought that criminology fails to shape policy because of the political context of such policies. The present study analyses, however, whether criminological knowledge has the capacity to shape policy decision making in the absence of an explicit political context. We do so...

To understand the question why people obey or break rules, different approaches have focused on different theories and subsets of variables. The present research develops a cross-theoretical approach that integrates these perspectives. We apply this in a survey of compliance with COVID-19 pandemic mitigation rules in Israel. The data reveal that co...

Are shorter or more accessible anti-bribery Policies more effective? We did a field experiment amongst over 1200 employees at a large tech company. We found that the policies (long, short or infographics) had no significant effect on employee knowledge of appropriate norms, even when compared to a fourth group that received no information about the...

To understand how compliance develops both in everyday and corporate environments, it is crucial to understand how different mechanisms work together to shape individuals’ (non)compliant behavior. Existing compliance studies typically focus on a subset of theories (i.e., rational choice theories, social theories, legitimacy theories, capacity theor...

Compliance, or the behavioral response to legal rules, has become an important topic for academics and practitioners. A large body of work exists that describes different influences on business compliance, but a fundamental challenge remains: how to measure compliance or noncompliance behavior itself? Without proper measurement, it's impossible to...

Compliance, or the behavioral response to legal rules, has become an important topic for academics and practitioners. A large body of work exists that describes different influences on business compliance, but a fundamental challenge remains: how to measure compliance or noncompliance behavior itself? Without proper measurement, it's impossible to...

Compliance, or the behavioral response to legal rules, has become an important topic for academics and practitioners. A large body of work exists that describes different influences on business compliance, but a fundamental challenge remains: how to measure compliance or noncompliance behavior itself? Without proper measurement, it's impossible to...

A crucial question in the governance of infectious disease outbreaks is how to ensure that people continue to adhere to mitigation measures for the longer duration. The present paper examines this question by means of a set of cross-sectional studies conducted in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic, in May, June, and July of 2020. Using...

One of the core challenges in compliance measurement is to assess and analyze undetected instances of illegal behavior. This chapter discusses interview strategies to best capture such deviant conduct and the factors of influence on it. It discusses two core approaches. First is the informant approach, where multiple rounds of interviews with key i...

A major question in corporate compliance research and practice is how to establish the effectiveness of compliance programs and policies on promoting desirable outcomes. To assess such effectiveness requires proper measurement. This chapter, which is the introduction to an edited volume on corporate compliance measurement, discusses the trade-offs...

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 sect...

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 sect...

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 sect...

The relationship between incarceration and crime has had a long and contentious history in criminology, with answers about the extent to which incarceration has general and/or specific deterrent effects on the crime rate and offending somewhat elusive. This chapter provides a broad overview of the literature in this area with a specific focus on ho...

The perceptual features of criminal penalties are crucial to their capacity to deter, at least in theory. This chapter devotes attention to the accuracy of people’s perceptions about criminal penalties. The empirical findings from so-called perceptual calibration studies are summarized, focused on people’s understanding of the statutory applicabili...

This chapter explores the importance of verifiability to contractual provision of incentives for contract performance or compliance. The crucial role of evidence and evidence-disclosure decisions is highlighted. Parties to a contract dispute convey information to the court by disclosing evidence. Actions taken by the parties in the productive phase...

Many studies into rule compliance use the method of self-reports about compliance or non-compliance among people or organizations that have to comply with given rules. This chapter discusses a number of validity threats associated with this method. Three major sources of distortion are discussed: misinformation, misunderstanding, and misleading. In...

A key objective of policy evaluation is assessing the efficacy of public policies. When evaluating public policy, compliance is treated both as an indicator of policy effectiveness and as a necessary intermediary outcome for achieving policy goals. Given the importance of compliance within broader assessments of policy efficacy, scholars have dedic...

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 sect...

The widespread use of business codes raises the questions of what we know about codes and what they do. This chapter presents an overview of what we currently know about the definitions, functions, and effectiveness of business codes. The chapter shows that business codes are an important method of self-regulation, that the many studies into the ef...

Social norms, what most people do or approve of, can be leveraged as a powerful tool for gaining compliance. This chapter reviews the behavioral intervention literature to describe and summarize the different ways that social norms can be operationalized to obtain compliance, the underlying motivations and mechanisms driving these effects, and poss...

Naming and shaming offenders is often considered an effective strategy to improve compliance. Shaming exposes an offender to condemnation by a community of stakeholders. The threat of negative publicity, reputational damage and social disapproval is perceived as a sanction, and can in theory be more powerful than a formal legal sanction. This chapt...

Corporate compliance programs have become increasingly criminalized. In the truest of ironies, companies have adopted compliance protocols that are motivated by and mimic application of the law they seek to avoid most. This approach to compliance – using the precepts of criminal enforcement and adjudication to govern employee conduct – is inherentl...

This chapter, cowritten by senior members of the bar who teach in the leading public procurement law program in the United States, discusses corruption, compliance, and debarment in government procurement. When a government procures goods or services, it must decide questions of price and quality, and – equally importantly – whether the contractor...

In this chapter we review the body of operations management (OM) literature that studies compliance issues. Researchers in OM focus on how operational-level decisions (such as process improvement, capacity, quality, and risk mitigation) impact performance outcomes in business and society. In recent years there has been growing interest among OM sch...

The tort system is a mouse with an other-worldly roar. —: 1287 Abstract: This chapter assesses whether tort liability can have a deterrent effect and reduce risky and harmful behaviour. It discusses insights from key reviews of empirical work across regulatory domains. These reviews show that this body of empirical work, in all but one of the domai...

In criminology, compliance is a central focus of the deterrence and rational choice perspectives on crime. In turn, these perspectives have been guided by traditional microeconomics. Behavioral economics, a recent branch of economics which pivots from and amplifies economic theories, has increasingly informed decision-making on a range of matters,...

This chapter explores the conceptual, measurement, and incidence issues surrounding the costs and benefits of compliance. At the conceptual level, foundational questions are not fully resolved. For example, when speaking of compliance, do we mean compliance with the law or something else (e.g., an ethical code or industry standard)? What a firm is...

In psychological theory and research, compliance is generally seen as the most superficial and weakest form of behavioral adaptation. The current contribution examines how the social context of work – the organizational culture – can be organized to stimulate ethical business conduct. By reviewing social psychological theory and research, we illust...

Abundant research has investigated general deterrence, a process whereby threats of punishment reduce crime rates. This chapter has several purposes: 1) to briefly explain the rational choice perspective on deterrence; 2) to highlight several empirical challenges to the causal estimation of deterrent effects; 3) to evaluate the evidence for general...

It is natural to think of compliance in terms of liability risk management. In the face of potentially massive liability exposure, it behooves boards of directors and senior executives to take costly steps to reduce these risks for the sake of the firm and its shareholders, akin to other serious enterprise risks. The liability risk management persp...

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 sect...

This chapter reviews the evidence on whether procedurally just treatment of citizens by agents of the criminal justice system (CJS), usually the police, has the effect of increasing the citizen’s compliance with the law. There are many operational definitions of procedurally just treatment, but all share the common characteristics of CJS agents tre...

This chapter outlines the history and use of monitors in various contexts, beginning with the original conception of a court-appointed monitor and ending with the more recent development of the public relations and modern-day court-ordered monitor. It next discusses how the specific type of monitorship alters the duties and confidentiality expectat...

Notable business leaders and institutional investors have begun to support the idea that companies should be run for the benefit of all stakeholders – customers, employees, suppliers, communities, and shareholders. After decades of focus on maximizing shareholder value, corporate social responsibility (“CSR”) and initiatives relating to environment...

During the emergence of the legal socialization field, the obligation to obey the law was central in theoretical and empirical approaches. Scholars in the last 50 years often noted that the obligation to obey the law (OOL) is vital for compliance, yet studies rarely empirically examined factors that promote the OOL. This study used data from 1000 a...

This paper seeks to understand the transmission and reception of legal rules as a component of the regulatory compliance process. It adopts a frontline approach (Almond and Gray 2017) to regulatory compliance that traces the grassroot functioning of compliance processes from regulator, to compliance managers to individual employees. Through a multi...

A crucial question in the governance of infectious disease outbreaks is how to ensure that people continue to adhere to mitigation measures for the longer duration of the pandemic. The present paper examines this question by means of a nationally representative cross-sectional set of studies conducted in the United States in May, June, and July 202...

1. Introduction Law has massive potential. If successful, contemporary law can protect our property, it can keep our environment free from pollution and degradation, it can safeguard our markets and financial institutions, and it can keep us safe from violence and damaging behavior. To do so, law must shape human and organizational conduct, and red...

During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, mitigation measures compelling people to keep a safe social distance led to a massive, unprecedented behavioural change across the globe. The present study seeks to understand what variables made people comply with such mitigation measures. It systematically reviewed 45 studies with data about complia...

In the month of June, the Netherlands had continued its singular trajectory in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. After the transition from the "intelligent lockdown" into the "1.5 meter society," the month of June heralded further relaxations of the prior mitigation measures. Building on our previous surveys during the month of May, this paper repor...

After its relative lenient, "intelligent lockdown" approach to the COVID-19 coronavirus, the Netherlands has continued its singular trajectory in combating the pandemic. The month of July introduced further relaxations to prior mitigation measures, but also saw a resurgence of infections. This working paper examines how these developments are refle...

This paper investigates why Israeli citizens complied with measures taken to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 virus in early April. At the time, Israel had relatively stringent mitigation measures that encouraged people to stay at home and keep a safe social distance. The data of 411 adult participants, gathered using survey research, showed tha...

Regulatory studies assume that citizens can act as regulators to complement or correct failing state and market forms of regulation. Yet, there is a growing literature that shows that in reality citizens may fail to be effective regulators. This paper systematically analyses how power inequalities obstruct citizens in their regulatory roles. It com...

In the month of May, the Netherlands moved out of the “intelligent lockdown”, and into the “1.5 meter society”, which aims to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic by means of safe-distance measures. This paper assesses how Dutch citizens have complied with these social distancing measures. It analyses data from two surveys conducted in May (between 8-14...

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Dutch government has introduced an “intelligent lockdown” with stay at home and social distancing measures. The Dutch approach to mitigate the virus focuses less on repression and more on moral appeals and self-discipline. This study assessed how compliance with the measures have worked out in practice and...

The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly influenced daily life all over the world. The present study assesses what factors influenced inhabitants of the United Kingdom to comply with lockdown and social distancing measures. It analyses data from an online survey, conducted on April 6-8, 2020, amongst a nationally representative sample of 555 participants...

The COVID-19 mitigation measures require a fundamental shift in human behavior. The present study assesses what factors influence Americans to comply with the stay at home and social distancing measures. It analyzes data from an online survey, conducted on April 3, 2020, of 570 participants from 35 states that have adopted such measures. The result...

Purpose Legal socialization is the study of how individuals develop their attitudes towards the law and its authorities. While research on perceptions of legal authorities has increased, studies have not adequately examined developmental trends in youths’ obligation to obey the law in particular. Methods This study uses a cross-sectional sample of...

In the period from May to July, the United States repealed statewide and local lockdown measures, reopened society, and became the global leader in reported infections and deaths from the coronavirus COVID-19. During this timeframe, the country saw some of the largest civil rights protests in United States history, and increasing politicization of...

The study of criminology has mostly focused on understanding criminal behavior, including the processes of criminalization as well as why people engage in criminal conduct. Here criminology has a particular focus that (while not always present) has been dominant. The focus has been on behavior that is in violation of criminal law (and thus legally...

Scholars and politicians often complain about how weak administrative law enforcement is in China. To better understand the challenges in law enforcement, as well as variation in actual practices and influences on such practices, the current paper analyzes Chinese pollution law enforcement data from the last two decades as well as in depth qualitat...

This article extends the study of regulatory enforcement on three levels. First, it separates enforcement style elements during inspections and sanction decision‐making work, creating a more realistic measurement. Second, it focuses on how these elements function in a context where it is hard in practice to achieve deterrence. Third, it assesses ho...

This article analyses centralizing trends that may be able to reduce the negative influence of local protectionism on environmental law enforcement in China. The article finds that as centralizing trends unfolded, enforcement over time has become stricter and more frequent, however with only minor effects in reducing pollution. Moreover it finds a...

Deterrence threats are essential mechanisms for affecting behavior, yet they are often ineffective. The literature is beginning to consider individual differences underlying differential susceptibility to deterrence. The present study sampled 223 adults from Amazon Mechanical Turk and used an experimental cheating paradigm to examine the role of 3...

This article seeks to understand how reported mediation rates in Chinese courts are produced and what they actually signify. It analyzes data obtained through prolonged fieldwork at a court in central China. The article finds that the court has directly responded to central level mediation incentives by enhancing its overall mediation rate. It has...

The study of compliance has been predominantly Western, and we do not know whether existing theories and findings also apply elsewhere. As a first venture in developing a comparative view on compliance, this study seeks to gain a comparative understanding of compliance decision making amongst Chinese and American students. It studies their decision...

There is individual variation in the extent to which individuals believe it is acceptable to violate legal rules. However, we lack a specific measure that assesses this key internal element of legal decision-making and offending. This paper describes the development, validation, and testing of the Rule Orientation scale. At its core, the construct...

This paper provides a sociolegal overview of law and lawmaking in China. It combines existing studies with original data published by the National People’s Congress as well as new case studies of recent lawmaking processes. The paper focuses its analysis on the development of regulatory laws that seek to prevent and control risk, including environm...

This article, in a study of amoral cost–benefit analysis, legitimacy and capacity to obey the law, seeks to understand why Chinese farmers obey or break pesticide rules. It uses data gathered through intensive fieldwork at a local level, including interviews with 31 pesticide experts and officials and 119 vegetable farmers in central China. It unco...

This article applies crisp set qualitative comparative analysis (csQCA) to gain insight in the compliance motivations and compliance behaviours of 101 Chinese farmers. It seeks to understand how eight motivations (capacity to comply, legal knowledge, deterrent effect of sanctions, cost-benefit analysis, descriptive social norms, morals, general dut...

This article analyzes how cost-benefit calculation influences compliance with pesticide regulation by Chinese farmers. Building on a study including 150 farmers and experts, it studies how operational costs and benefits and deterrence affect compliance. Moreover, it studies what variation in cost-benefit perceptions there are with different types o...

This article analyzes why Chinese lawyers report a high level of perceived deterrence in relation to tax evasion even though enforcement is weak. It finds that deterrence here originates from multiple sources, most directly through clients and more distantly through the firm and the state. Lawyers have highly contextual notions of detection probabi...

Over the last decade, Chinese citizens, judges, and prosecutors have started to take action against industrial pollution, pluralizing a regulatory landscape originally occupied by administrative agencies. Regulatory pluralism here has an authoritarian logic, occurring without the retreat of party-state control. Under such logic, the party-state bot...

Retraction: Yifan Shi and Benjamin van Rooij, Prosecutorial regulation in the Global South: Environmental civil litigation by prosecutors in China compared to Brazil. Regulation & Governance 9 (3): 294–307, DOI: 10.1111/rego.12059 The above article, published online on 10 October 2014 in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com ), has been ret...

China’s many conflicts over land acquisition highlight China’s growing gap between rich and poor, between a small group of powerful land-hungry elites and the masses of powerless farmers. They show that despite the current stronger formal recognition of farmers’ land use rights and the introduction of devolution and participatory processes includin...