“Behavioral compliance”: the will and the way

“Behavioral ethics” information and ideas have, to date, been used far more to identify ethical challenges than to design approaches to address such challenges. In “Behavioral Ethics, Behavioral Compliance” (which can be downloaded for free here ) Professor Donald C. Langevoort of the Georgetown University Law Center takes up this latter task, and provides a  number of practical suggestions for compliance-and-ethics (“C&E”) professionals to consider in applying this body of knowledge to their day-to-day work.

Among these are:

– Certifying compliance in advance – rather than after the fact – of the conduct in question.

– Using behavioral insights – particularly concerning loss aversion – to identify monitoring strategies and priorities.

– Avoiding too much monitoring, as that can “crowd out the kind of autonomy that invites ethical thinking.”

– A more behaviorally attuned approach to compliance incentives and interventions.

Perhaps most importantly, Professor Langevoort offers this broader perspective on what exactly is meant by “behavioral compliance”:  “To be clear, it is not some new or different brand of compliance design, but rather an added perspective. Just as compliance requires good economics skills, it requires psychological savvy as well, to help predict how incentives and compliance messages will be processed, construed and acted upon in the field… The behavioral approach to compliance offers some concrete interventions to consider, but is mainly about doing conventional things (communication, surveillance, forensics) better.” (I agree with this view and in prior posts  – collected here  – have offered suggestions of several other ways to use behavioral insights to do conventional C&E things better.)

But more than the sum of such parts, I believe that the real significance of the field lies in the potential that its overarching message – “we are not as ethical as we think” –  can help corporate directors and senior managers appreciate the need for C&E programs generally.  While know-how is important here, what’s most wanting in many companies is making C&E a top priority. By showing the C&E risk that is seemingly inherent in the human condition, behavioral ethics can help make this case.