Dancing Agencies in Structures of Verification Exploring Compliance Through a Lens of Sociomateriality

Abstract

The current literature on compliance and regulatory mechanisms offers a variety of conceptualizations on how we build structures around verification. Yet, little attention has been paid to what it produces. This is unfortunate since we until this day see an increase in regulatory mechanisms and third party audit in all industries. To this end, we employed an exploratory study based on interviews conducted with professionals within the domain of compliance to see how the study of compliance can be informed by sociomateriality. The findings show that there are three different paths in handling compliance issues that firms adopt; Remain Compliant, The Process of Compliance and The Race to Compliance. These distinct categories were found by studying the subject of compliance through a lens of sociomateriality, where the imbrication of human and material agency is central. First, by applying sociomateriality and the idea of imbrication of human and material agencies on compliance a distinctive pattern of categorisation emerges. Even though the firms face different laws and regulation they all have compliance in common. Secondly this is only true to some extent, compliance as such differ depending on how you view compliance; as a state or a continuum. This has implications on how firms relate to questions regarding compliance and how internal processes, routines and artefacts develop. Furthermore, the study contributes to practice by providing deeper insight into the field of compliance by identifying three distinctive categories on how firms relate to the work regarding compliance. The use of sociomateriality and imbrication applied to the study of compliance constitutes the contribution to literature on compliance and sociomaterial.