Examining Procedural Justice and Legitimacy in Corporate Offending and Beyond‐Compliance Behavior: The Efficacy of Direct and Indirect Regulatory Interactions

• Author: Mark A. Cohen,Michael P. Vandenbergh,Sally S. Simpson,Melissa L. Rorie
• Published date: 01 April 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lapo.12100
• Date: 01 April 2018

Examining Procedural Justice and Legitimacy in

Corporate Offending and Beyond-Compliance

Behavior: The Efficacy of Direct and Indirect

Regulatory Interactions

MELISSA L. RORIE, SALLY S. SIMPSON, MARK A. COHEN, and

MICHAEL P. VANDENBERGH

Tom Tyler’s Procedural Justice Theory has received support in a variety of studies using

criminal justice authorities as the research focus. To date, the theory has not been empirically

tested using corporate malfeasance as an outcome, despite evidence that procedural justice is

important in achieving regulatory compliance. This study uses factorial survey methods to

examine whether corporate behavior is predicted by professionals’ perceptions of procedural

justice and legal legitimacy. We find that procedural justice and legitimacy considerations are

salient only when managers have direct contact with regulatory authorities. This supports John

Braithwaite’s argument that effective regulation is enhanced by microlevel interactions in which

procedural justice can be effectively leveraged to promote compliance.

I. INTRODUCTION

The large-scale physical and financial consequences of corporate environmental viola-

tions are undeniable. In 2015, for instance, Volkswagen was found to have installed soft-

ware on some of its diesel models that allowed the cars to pass emissions tests while

producing up to forty times more emissions than allowed. Aside from the obvious use of

deceptive advertising and the financial harm suffered by Volkswagen investors and car

owners (Chew 2015; Greene and Foley 2015; Shah 2015), it has been estimated that these

actions will cause sixty premature deaths, thirty-one cases of chronic bronchitis, and

thirty-four other cases of serious cardiac and respiratory illness in the United States (Chu

2015). Volkswagen’s actions are not an isolated incident. On April 20, 2016, for instance,

Mitsubishi Motors announced that it too had supplied inaccurate fuel consumption test

data on 625,000 of its automobiles (Onyanga-Omara 2016). According to media

accounts, tests on many other diesel car models demonstrated that many manufacturers

had understated vehicle emissions (e.g., Carrington 2015). Cases like these are clear exam-

ples of corporate environmental noncompliance and remind us of how little scholars

know about corporate motivations and environmental offending.

The authors gratefully acknowledge the anonymous reviewers of Law & Policy, previous reviewers, and partici-

pants in the panel presentation of this research at the 2016 American Society of Criminology’s Annual Meeting

in New Orleans, LA. All reviewers provided insightful comments that improved the article tremendously. All

errors, of course, remain our own.

Address correspondence to: Melissa Rorie, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 4505 S. Maryland Parkway,

Box 455009, Las Vegas, NV 89154 USA. Telephone: (702) 895-0014; E-mail: melissa.rorie@unlv.edu; Fax:

(702) 895-0252.

LAW & POLICY, Vol. 40, No. 2, April 2018 ISSN 0265-8240

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doi: 10.1111/lapo.12100

A common theory of compliance argues that law enforcement authorities can motivate

compliance by using fair procedures when dealing with offenders. Treating offenders in a

“procedurally just” manner imbues violators with a sense that authorities and the law are

legitimate and that compliance is normatively desirable. Tyler (2006), in his well-regarded

monograph Why People Obey the Law, suggests that people often comply with the law

because they believe it is the proper thing to do. Offenders evaluate the justice (or injus-

tice) of their law enforcement encounters by taking into consideration factors unrelated

to legal outcomes per se (e.g., being fined or arrested), including whether they are given

the chance to state their case and whether they are treated with dignity and respect by

legal authorities. Procedural Justice Theory has received much empirical support in tradi-

tional criminological studies—that is, studies of crimes involving individual offenders, a

formal police response, and (often) nonfinancial motivations—but there have been far

fewer attempts to use this approach to explain why corporations and their employees

obey the law (see, e.g., Tyler 2009, 2014; Tyler and Blader 2005) or take actions that far

exceed regulatory requirements (referred to in the literature as “overcompliance” or

“beyond-compliance behavior”).

1

In this study, we test whether procedural justice and legal legitimacy predict corporate

environmental behavior. Specifically, we examine noncompliance (“offending”) as well as

beyond-compliance behavior. Consistent with Procedural Justice Theory, we argue that

regulators, similar to their law enforcement counterparts, may leverage their contact with

offenders and potential offenders to motivate compliance in a variety of situations.

II. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

A. AN OVERVIEW OF PROCEDURAL JUSTICE

According to Tyler’s (2006; see also Tyler 2014) conceptualization of procedural justice,

people obey the law for two reasons. First, people view legal authorities (both legislative

institutions and actual law enforcers) as deserving of the power to dictate behavior (i.e.,

as being “legitimate” authorities). Second, they want to behave in line with their own per-

sonal morality (see Gezelius and Hauck 2011). Normative issues are the main crux of pro-

cedural justice—even when the certainty of detection or sanction is low, people who view

the law as legitimate follow its dictates because they consider it their responsibility or obli-

gation to do so.

Considering how constrained law enforcement and regulatory resources are, society

must be populated by people who comply with the law willingly—that is, without coer-

cion. Although coercion is certainly important for short-term or situational compliance

in some instances, coercion is limited because it only promotes compliance in the short

term, sends a message of distrust to the parties involved (as well as to the larger commu-

nity), and depresses informal social control efforts by alienating potential allies in moni-

toring (Tyler 2014). Thus, enhancing intrinsic motivation for compliance is an important

component of social control. One such intrinsic motivation is legitimacy, defined as “the

belief that those in power deserve to rule and make decisions influencing the lives of every-

one” (ibid., 268–9).

2

When regulated groups confer legitimacy on legal authorities (and

the laws those authorities represent), individual members of regulated groups are more

likely to monitor and discipline others’ violations of norms, as well as obey authorities,

because regulatees believe that it is normatively desirable to do so (Tyler 2014; Zelditch

2001; see also Gezelius and Hauck 2011).

Rorie et al. PROCEDURAL JUSTICE AND CORPORATE CONDUCT 173

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