In the wake of spectacular economic scandals, there has been a surge in interest about rule-breaking in organizations and the question of how to prevent such violations. More and more organizations are setting up ‘compliance management’ positions that are responsible for monitoring compliance with rules, sanctioning deviations from the rules, and establishing and interpreting new rules. The motto here is: from now on, we’ll do everything by the book! In this book, we show why the hopes associated with compliance management are often overstated, while the risks are typically underestimated. Compliance management needs to be managed and discursively designed; it cannot ensure complete control.

In the wake of spectacular economic scandals, there has been a surge in interest about rule-breaking in organizations and the question of how to prevent such violations. More and more organizations are setting up ‘compliance management’ positions that are responsible for monitoring compliance with rules, sanctioning deviations from the rules, and establishing and interpreting new rules. The motto here is: from now on, we’ll do everything by the book! In this book, we show why the hopes associated with compliance management are often overstated, while the risks are typically underestimated. Compliance management needs to be managed and discursively designed; it cannot ensure complete control.