Toward the Understanding of the Appropriation of Compliance Support System in Organizations

Considering the complexity of compliance environment, only focusing on control-oriented actions through compulsory or disciplinary measures, as many firms did in the past, does not help firms tackle imminent challenges. Applying adaptive structuration theory to corporate compliance management, this study focused on identifying antecedents of compliance support system appropriation and investigating their impacts on compliance performance. As a result of surveying 192 multi-business firms in Korea, this study found that regulation environment and compliance championship as meta-structuring contexts shape compliance culture as an institutional structure and require key features of compliance support system (CSS) as a structure to be appropriated by users, which ultimately enhances the compliance performance of the firm. The findings contribute to making the previous adaptive structuration theory more applicable and providing useful directions to improve compliance performance for corporations.