Engaging Qualitative Research Approaches to Investigate Compliance Motivations: Understanding the How and Why of Compliance

The decisions firms make surrounding compliance drive the work of academics and practitioners alike as they respond and seek to understand those actions. Fundamentally, compliance is about behavior, which necessitates not only measuring the what, but also the why and the how. Often, this measurement elicits quantitative research techniques to offer insights into compliance behavior. We argue that measuring compliance must include an understanding of the why and how decisions surrounding compliance are made, and qualitative techniques, including interviews and focus groups, enable a deeper understanding of compliance behaviors and decisions. In this chapter, we conceptualize compliance as a process between individuals and organizations and that a qualitative research approach enhances understandings of the how and why of compliance. We offer brief descriptions of both qualitative interviewing (including semi-structured and elite interviews) and focus groups and provide examples of how these techniques can be employed to examine compliance. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each methodological approach. We conclude by making a case for integrating these approaches alongside other research methodologies as part of a multi-method pursuit of compliance measurement.