Compliance Guidelines and their Cultural Context

Abstract

Cultural influences are aspects that cannot be resisted, even in an internationally networked and globalized world. This raises the question, to what extent compliance regulations and guidelines are also influenced by national cultures? With the help of a qualitative document analysis of three compliance documents from the EU, the US and China and the cultural dimensions according to Hofstede as the theoretical underpinning, the author was able to find identical elements in the compliance programs, such as training and auditing, but also national focuses. The design of the national guidelines is characterized by the trade-off between international legal standards or the same legal attitudes of countries, which is why existing guidelines may be used as a template for other countries, and the respective national priorities and cultural differences at the same time. However, from a cultural perspective, hardly any specifics could be identified in the documents. The results intend to represent an initial starting point for further research to determine whether (at least in the textual formulation) compliance guidelines should be given cultural adaptations in order to achieve a stronger compliance intention, whereby compliance documents for multinational companies or a group of states such as the EU certainly may pose challenges.