Anti-corruption and compliance policies: A behavioural approach

Grabher-Meyer, Nikita (2025) Anti-corruption and compliance policies: A behavioural approach. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

Fraud, corruption, and regulatory noncompliance impose significant costs on organizations and society. Across three chapters, this thesis explores how different governance instruments — a legal directive, an integrity training program, and a supplier code of conduct — shape perceptions and, through them, influence ethical conduct and compliance behaviour in public, professional, and private organizations.

The first chapter evaluates the short-term effects of the 2019 EU Whistleblower Protection Directive’s transposition into national law on corruption perceptions. Using panel data for 27 EU Member States and their regions from 2010 to 2023, the analysis exploits the gradual timing of transposition in a Difference-in-Differences design to identify early impacts. Results show a modest deterioration in expert-assessed corruption among early adopters, with no clear changes in reporting or actual corruption, but with rising scepticism about enforcement, consistent with greater expert scrutiny.

The second chapter tests whether an integrity training course for Ukrainian law students reduces corrupt behaviour. In a field experiment, students were randomly assigned to receive the training or not. They later participated in a bribery game as intermediaries in a potential corrupt transaction. Some (randomly selected) students were also told that most peers had completed the training. While the training alone had little effect on corrupt behaviour, those receiving the information treatment overestimated peers’ integrity and behaved more ethically, aligning with a misperceived social norm.

The third chapter uses a contextualized online experiment simulating a multitier supply chain to test whether framing and incentivization of buyers’ compliance requests affect first-tier suppliers’ behaviour through fairness perceptions. Deterrence sustains high monitoring of sub-suppliers, while collaborative framing reduces strict monitoring, and incentives further erode fairness perceptions and compliance.

Collectively, these chapters show how perceptions shape the translation of rules and expected standards of behaviour into action.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economics
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	20 May 2026 13:10
Last Modified:	20 May 2026 13:10
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/103117
DOI:

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