REINTEGRATIVE SHAMING AND COMPLIANCE WITH REGULATORY STANDARDS*

Abstract

Australian nursing home inspection teams are partitioned into those with an enforcement ideology supportive of reintegrative shaming, those who believe in being tolerant and understanding when confronted with noncompliance with the law, and those with a more stigmatizing ideology toward noncompliers. Nursing homes visited by teams with a reintegrative shaming ideology display significantly improved compliance in the period following the inspection. Nursing homes visited by inspection teams with a more stigmatizing attitude toward noncompliance display an approximately equal drop in compliance. The performance of homes visited by tolerant and understanding inspection teams falls between these two extremes. A more specific test of the theory shows that when interdependency exists between the nursing home and the inspection team, reintegrative shaming has a stronger positive effect on improving compliance. In nursing homes with no link between the home and the inspection team, reintegrative shaming has no effect on compliance levels. These effects demonstrate both the importance and the limitations of reintegrative shaming as a theoretical concept worthy of further empirical investigation.