Compliance Framework Research Articles

A Composite Framework for Behavioral Compliance with Information Security Policies

To combat potential security threats, organizations rely upon information security policies to guide employee actions. Unfortunately, employee violations of such policies are common and costly enou...

Treatment compliance under physician-industry relationship: a framework of health-care coordination in the USA

Factors associated with treatment compliance have been well studied. However, no study has examined treatment compliance under the context of physician-industry relationship. This study developed a conceptual framework of physician-industry relationship and treatment compliance, and empirically tested patients' treatment compliance and affordability under the physician-industry relationship in the USA. We first proposed a conceptual framework to analyze different scenarios, where the physician-industry relationship could impact patients' treatment compliance and affordability, taking into consideration the role of health insurers. We then employed a nationally representative data set to investigate these relationships. Multivariable logistic regressions were employed to examine the physician-industry relationship and the physicians' perception of patients' treatment compliance. 2008 Health Tracking Physician Survey. Our results showed that physicians with closer industry relationships were more likely to report rejection of care by insurers [odds ratios (ORs): 1.24-1.85, P < 0.001], patients' non-compliance with treatment (OR: 1.34, P < 0.01) and patients' inability to pay (OR: 1.42, P < 0.01) as the major problems affecting their ability to provide high quality care, when compared with physicians without industry relationships. Our results shed light on the lack of articulation among industry, physicians and health insurers in the USA. It is important to make sure that different agents in the health-care marketplace, such as physicians, industry, and health insurers, coordinate more efficiently to provide quality and consistent care to patients.

Establishing the zero-carbon performance of compact urban dwellings

This paper presents an analysis of the zero-carbon performance of a case-study building which is representative of a growing number of new buildings that are being built on redevelopment sites in inner-city areas in the UK. Compact urban dwellings are apartment style buildings with a floor area of ∼50 m2 per dwelling, often based over two floors. The constraints of this type of building on achieving zero-carbon performance in the context of the Code for Sustainable Homes is discussed and the shortcomings of the code are demonstrated in terms of the target heat and electricity demand targets for the design of the building systems. A graphical representation of the simulation results is used to present the findings. It has been demonstrated that in specific urban contexts, zero-carbon performance as defined within the current UK compliance framework may be very difficult to achieve in practice given the assumptions used in the simulation here. Therefore, it is very likely that zero-carbon compact urban dwellings may require a net off-site import of electrical and/or thermal energy.

General reproductive properties in pigs

Pig breeding is usually undertaken for fat and meat production, but different sectors (cosmetics industry, pharmaceutical industry, medical sector, etc.) can also use pigs for alternate purposes. Pork is evaluated based on the status of an amended law regarding butchers' meat in Turkey. There have been 25 pig farms registered in Turkey since 7 July 2006 in the framework of compliance with the European Union. On average, a sow has 2.3 farrowings per year, producing 9.5 to 12.5 piglets per litter. It is important that high proportions of selected replacement gilts reach puberty at an early age in order to easily become pregnant and enter sow groups at weaning. A sow has an average of only 3 litters before her productivity wanes and she is sent to slaughter at an age of 24-30 months. Due to prolonged confinement, lack of exercise, and selective breeding for large size, culled sows often experience lameness, foot injuries, weakened bones, muscle atrophy, and painful abrasions.

Powerful authorities and trusting citizens: The Slippery Slope Framework and tax compliance in Italy

The Slippery Slope Framework of tax compliance postulates that citizens’ compliance depends on the power of the authorities to enforce compliance and/or trust in the authorities and voluntary cooperation. While trust is widely recognized as a strong determinant of cooperation, empirical evidence is less clear on power: severe fines may lead towards compliance or even have the opposite effect. We propose a thorough investigation of the nature of power (coercive versus legitimate) within the theoretical framework of tax compliance to shed light on the ambiguous results and to clarify the complex relation between power and trust. We use structural equation modeling to test the assumptions of the Slippery Slope Framework by taking into account coercive power and legitimate power on a sample of N=389 self-employed Italian taxpayers and entrepreneurs. We found evidence that trust is positively related to voluntary tax compliance. Trust was found to be negatively related to coercive power and positively related to legitimate power. Both coercive power and legitimate power were correlated with enforced compliance. However, the effect of enforced compliance leads to increased evasion. The results evidence the multifaceted nature of power and trust and their relation with tax compliance, and the importance of power and trust in political regulatory strategies.

Level of Compliance on PASs and PFRSs Disclosure Requirements of Publicly-Listed Companies in the Philippines

This paper tackled level of compliance on the Philippine Accounting Standards and Philippine Financial Reporting Standards disclosure requirements of selected publicly-listed companies. It seeks to evaluate empirical evidence on compliance of subject companies based on two compliance frameworks namely: reliable financial reporting and complete disclosure requirements. The examination delved into the findings on financial disclosures complied and not complied by selected service and industrial businesses based on their 2009 audited financial statements. It employed the descriptive type of quantitative research since it utilizes a checklist of financial reporting disclosures used as a guide in the review of the 2009 audited reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The researcher found out that majority of the selected publicly-listed companies did not comply with the PASs and PFRSs notably on the area of presentation of financial statements (PAS 1), financial instrument disclosures (PFRS 7), and rules and regulations covering the form and content of financial statements (SRC Rule 68 & 68.1). Using the chi-square test, it was also found out that there is no significant difference in the non-compliance of selected listed firms on the PASs and PFRSs disclosure requirements when grouped by the type of business. There is a need to enhance high-quality corporate financial reporting capabilities which would require a concerted effort and effective implementation by all parties concerned, top management, financial audit executives, and government regulatory agencies. For future study, it is recommended that a follow-up research be conducted on the improvements of non-compliance rate of the same subject companies with regards on the review results of disclosure requirements for the 2010 audited annual reports. It would also be significant to determine the level of quality and quantity of financial reporting disclosures on the 2010 audited financial statements of publicly-listed companies utilizing a macro level approach across all industries.

Trust and power as determinants of tax compliance: Testing the assumptions of the slippery slope framework in Austria, Hungary, Romania and Russia

The slippery slope framework of tax compliance integrates different determinants of tax compliance and assigns them to one of two major dimensions. Accordingly, tax compliance depends on the factors perceived trust in the authorities and perceived power of the authorities, but trust on the one hand fosters voluntary compliance whereas power on the other hand leads to enforced compliance. The present study tested these main assumptions of the slippery slope framework in four European countries differing in terms of cultural and economic settings (Austria, Hungary, Romania and Russia) by presenting participants with different scenarios of trust and power. As predicted, the highest level of intended tax compliance and the lowest level of tax evasion were found in conditions of high trust and high power. In addition, participants in conditions of high trust indicate more voluntary compliance just as participants in conditions of high power indicate higher enforced compliance. The present results support the assumptions of the slippery slope framework and confirm the role of trust and power as important determinants of tax compliance.

Towards an analytical framework for forest law compliance

SUMMARY This paper proposes an analytical framework for forest law compliance to advance scholarly investigations of an important and growing problem. An inductive approach is taken to integrate the existing research on compliance in forestry with multiple theoretical models of rule compliance. Specific compliance models are drawn from economic, socio-institutional and psychological perspectives on compliance behaviour. The proposed framework highlights the individual as a decision-maker that is influenced by multiple motivations, which are in turn affected by external context specific variables. In general, the motivations that are proposed to influence the compliance decision include: instrumental benefits and costs, social and personal norms, and legitimacy. The degree to which each of these is incorporated in the decisionmaking process depends upon the social, political and economic variables that characterize the external environment. The analytical framework lays the groundwork for a structured rese...

Global implementation of Good Participatory Practice Guidelines for biomedical HIV prevention research: charting progress and setting milestones

Background In 2007, UNAIDS and AVAC developed the Good Participatory Practice (GPP) Guidelines with the aim of ensuring community and stakeholder engagement in HIV prevention research. The second edition, launched in 2011, provides the first standardized framework for GPP compliance. Five years after initial publication, it is possible and necessary to evaluate milestones in adoption of the guidelines at trial site, sponsor, country, and international levels in order to gauge progress and next steps.

COMPLIANCE PROGRAM IN LATVIAS’ BANKING SECTOR: THE RESULTS OF A SURVEY

Regulators more than ever believe an efficient compliance function is a prerequisite for good corporate governance that should restore trust, integrity, and responsibility in the banks, findings in academic research has confirmed mentioned above in many countries. Compliance is key facet of governance because it shows how actually bank meets corporate responsibilities. The new guidelines in September 2011 had been issued by European Banking Authority with more attention to the compliance function. Compliance is very complex function and covers different areas: Anti-money laundering, investment protection, consumer protection, data protection and etc. Compliance complexity arises from several factors. As human society becomes more complex, the complexity of regulation also increases. Compliance as an element of order follows the same development as regulation. Compliance organizational complexity is related to the fact that regardless of the compliance functions origin and make-up, regulators are demanding that compliance is built into the business process. With respect to banks complexity can be measured along three dimensions. Vertical complexity is the number of levels in organizational hierarchy, horizontal complexity is number of job titles or departments across organization, and spatial complexity is the number of geographical locations. From the organizational view point traditional compliance organizational structures are crumbling under the weight of ever-increasing regulations that drives greater accountability and transparency. Banks are building new and improved structures that support and enhance this new compliance environment, and best practices are emerging. The complexity of banking business and compliance function urges compliance and other bank managers to use the concepts of „systemic thinking“, the bases of the new management culture of the twenty–first century. There appears exist a common approach that makes it possible to understand better and describe better the organized complexity – “systemic approach” that rests on the conception of “system.” Banking as any other business process is a socio – technical system, executed by humans and machines. Research problem of this paper is compliance program as a first-level element of the compliance management system in order to organize and manage human part of the banking business process in area of compliance. Basel Committee survey confirmed that regulators in some countries promote use of such system as a compliance organizational framework. Compliance management system in a context of organization consists of three interdependent elements: Board oversight, compliance program and compliance audit program. The objective of this paper is to address organizational aspects of compliance program and evaluate its current status in compliance regulatory framework and practical application in commercial banks in Latvia. The goal of the survey is to identify how compliance program is organized and how banks are designing this program as a compliance risk management tool to better prepare for demanding regulatory requirements. The results of a survey highlight lack of concept of compliance program in regulatory framework and necessary organizational improvements are recommended, especially for small and medium size banks. Research methodology: Theoretical update of publications related to compliance program issues in banks. Empirical research is performed by survey of all commercial banks in Latvia. The survey is carried out through a structured questionnaire to get information on presence of the compliance framework and its implementation. Questionnaire is divided into several sections: status and profile of the compliance top manager; organizational issues of compliance function: status of compliance program; level of education, knowledge and experience of compliance specialists, compliance training, number of compliance and overall staff, reporting lines and role of the board. For evaluation is used 10 point scale, where 1 – fully disagree, 10 – fully agree. The survey data are analyzed by help of descriptive statistics (indicators of central tendency or location, indicators of variability and cross – tabulations). In the survey performed in all commercial banks of Latvia (22) were received 19 responses (response rate 86,4%). It is found that in general, banks in Latvia are responding positively to regulation developments and following global compliance risk management trends. The banks interviewed underline the need to have more clear and updated guidelines from regulator regarding compliance program. The survey supported development of agenda for newly established Compliance Committee in Latvian Commercial banking Association and has indicated that the respective Compliance Committee will have to do a lot of work. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eis.0.6.1612

Exploring sustainability compliance of sub-suppliers

Focal firms face the challenge of ensuring compliance with their corporate sustainability standards (CSS) within their own organization, by their suppliers, and higher tiers of upstream sub-suppliers - all the way up to suppliers of basic raw materials. Supplier management strategies are key to increase suppliers' sustainability performance. While focal firm's sustainable supplier management practices towards their first-tier suppliers have been studied relatively extensively, little is known on how firms may approach suppliers beyond the first-tier level, the sub-suppliers. Focal firms' challenges range from the mere identification of sub-suppliers to little opportunities to enforce sub-suppliers' practices. This paper investigates the sub-supplier management practices of two focal firms in the electronic and retail industry by case study research. It proposes that by actively managing sub-suppliers through assessment and collaboration firms can improve sub-suppliers' compliance with their CSS, that (1) public attention, (2) risk management, and (3) channel power are antecedents to sub-supplier management, and that stakeholder involvement amplifies the effect of sub-supplier management on sub-suppliers' compliance with their CSS. This paper is novel in addressing the management of higher tiers of upstream sub-suppliers, proposing a framework for understanding sustainability compliance in sub-supplier management.

Enterprise architects concern legal requirements for the compliance with the law

This paper addresses enterprise architecture (EA) compliance framework. A meth-odology to check EA non-compliance with laws and regulations is still a challenge. We think that a compliance methodology should take into account “shared” relevant laws and a requirements engineering framework. We continue discussing the view of enterprise architects on legal informatics which was proposed by Reinhard Riedl. We reflect mainly on two articles: Riedl (2011) and Čaplinskas (2009) who proposes a vision driven approach on requirements elicitation in the context of enterprise engineering.

The Fundamentals of Hospice Compliance

This article, Part 1 of a 2-part series, provides an overview of the current Medicare compliance climate and its implications for hospice providers. Content focuses on the 7 elements of a comprehensive compliance framework as defined by the Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General in its 1999 Compliance Guidance for Hospices. A brief case example is provided and serves to set the stage for Part 2, which will explore hospice-specific risk areas and specific risk-reduction strategies.

Private hospitals in South Africa: A compliance framework

The primary compliance risks faced by private hospitals in South Africa were analysed. Compliance for private hospitals fell into three categories: patient care, regulatory compliance and human resources. The results of this study indicated that these hospitals are struggling to ensure compliance as a result of the complexity of and constant changes to applicable legislation. The study confirmed that private hospitals face compliance risk. A compliance framework was developed, which could reduce compliance risk of private hospitals in South Africa. Outsourcing could be considered in order to focus on core business activities and to reduce the cost of compliance.

동사 유형 분류에 관한 소고

Korean EFL tend to consider English sentences in the paradigm of five pattern classification. This tendency often leads them not to recognize the influence of multiple meanings of a verb on the determination of a clause pattern. Also, it limits their understanding of the diversity of complements selected by a verb. Thus, the purpose of this study is as follows; 1) to point to the problems of learners limited framework of compliance in the classification into intransitive and transitive verbs, 2) to emphasize the importance of the consideration of the interaction of syntactic and semantic properties of verbs in a discussion of the classification of verb types and clause patterns, and 3) to show the interrelationship between grammatical restrictions and semantic types of verb (phrases) based on aspectual meanings. This approach will be able to contribute to enhancing learners linguistic competence and analytical skills by making them look into the diverse factors which are involved in classifying verb types and understanding the structure and meaning of relevant clause patterns.

Shariah Compliance Process and Corporate Governance in Islamic Banking Institutions (IBIs): A Proposed Model

Banking, by its very nature, entails taking a wide array of risks. One such risk is reputational risk, which arises from operational failures, i.e. failures to comply with the relevant laws and regulations, or other sources. Reputational risk is particularly damaging for banks since the nature of their business requires them to maintain the confidence of the depositors, creditors, and the general marketplace. Thus, the compliance issue is one of the most crucial factors in determining smooth and successful banking operations. Shariah compliance is a distinct feature of the Islamic banking industry. The need to have comprehensive and rigorous mechanisms in place to ensure shariah compliance as well as an effective and reliable shariah review process are the two key contributing factors for the industry to further progress. Indeed, the shariah compliance process is one of the areas upon which Islamic Banking Institutions (IBIs) must focus as part of the overall corporate governance. The purpose of this paper is to propose a shariah compliance framework for IBIs drawing from the present requirements on corporate governance (CG) in Malaysia. The framework proposes that the compliance process for IBIs is done through the internal auditing framework by establishing an internal shariah audit team. The framework proposes the Internal Shariah Audit Team (ISAT) to be a special cell of the Internal Audit Committee (IAC), which will review operations and transactions relating to shariah matters on a regular basis. The team should have bilateral functional interactions with both the IAC and the Shariah Supervisory Board (SSB).

Do Fund Managers Keep Their Promises?: The Case of Shari’ah Equity Funds

This paper examines the compliance of a large sample of faith-based ethical funds – Shari’ah equity funds (SEFs). SEFs screen their investment for compliance with Islamic law, where riba (conventional interest expense), maysir (gambling), gharar (excessive uncertainty), and non-halal (non-ethical) products are prohibited. Using a set of stringent Shari’ah screens similar to those of Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) Islamic, we find less than one-third of the equity holdings of SEFs are Shari’ah-compliant. While most (95%) of the fund holdings pass the business screens, only about 42% pass the total debt to total assets ratio screen. This finding suggests that, in order to overcome a significant reduction in the investment opportunity set, Shari’ah principles are compromised, with SEFs adopting lax screening rules in an attempt to achieve financial performance. An implication of our results is that SEF investors may be exposed to Shari’ah compliance risk since the fund managers do not always fulfill their fiduciary obligations as promised in the prospectus. While younger funds and funds that charge higher fees and are domiciled in more Muslim countries are more compliant, funds that have greater disclosure of the Shari’ah compliance framework are not necessarily so.

Decision framework for the analysis and selection of appropriate transfer pricing for a resilient global SME manufacturing operation – a business case

The purposes of this article are to help prevent problems related to transfer pricing, add some clarity to an important tax issue and decrease small and medium enterprise's (SME's) exposure to double taxation and tax penalties for a global SME operation. Staying within compliance of transfer pricing rules and regulations is one of the challenges to SME's resilience. Various transfer pricing methods were applied to specific examples and an integrated decision framework for transfer price compliance and selection of appropriate transfer price methods was developed and applied to a global SME operation. This article will contribute to industry by creating a more seamless flow within the SME supply chain by avoiding problems that may arise. It will help SMEs to become more resilient to uncertainties within the server business conditions they are currently facing. Finally, this article will also help the related tax authorities by informing managers of tax regulations in the US and what is required to comply with the regulations.

Genomic databases access agreements: legal validity and possible sanctions

Large-scale, public genomic databases have greatly improved the capacity of researchers to do genomic research. In order to ensure that the scientific community uses data from these public resources properly, data access agreements have been developed to complement already existing legal and ethical norms. Sanctions to address cases of data misuse constitute an essential part of this compliance framework meant to protect stakeholders in genomic research. Yet very little research and community debate has been done on this most important topic. This paper presents a review of different sanctions that could be invoked in cases of non-compliance from data users. They have been identified through comprehensive research and analysis of over 450 documents (journal articles, policy, guidelines, access policies, etc.) related to this topic. Given the considerable impact on users of even the milder sanctions considered in our paper, it is essential that stakeholders strive to achieve the highest degree of standardization and transparency when designing controlled-access agreements. It is only fair, after all, that users be able to expect that the border between acceptable and unacceptable conduct is clearly delineated and predictable in controlled-access policies. This suggests the importance for researchers to undertake additional empirical studies on the clarity and accessibility of existing database access agreements and related policies in the near future.

Beating the privacy challenge

Organisations today need to address the multiple elements of privacy compliance as an urgent priority if they are not to fall foul of privacy legislation or disclosure obligations – and potentially suffer fines, penalties, reputational damage and loss of customer confidence. Some recent high-profile cases have drawn attention to the often competing desires for personal privacy by individuals, better-targeted product and service offerings by organisations, and access to personal information in the fight against terrorism and cybercrime by governments. Grega Vrhovec of the Information Security Forum (ISF) believes that putting a structured data privacy compliance framework in place will help organisations ensure – and demonstrate – that they are meeting data privacy obligations.