The Bitter Fruit of Power. An Ethnographic Study of Corporate Compliance

Abstract

Compliance is a field that has recently achieved increasing complexity and significance in business. This paper addresses the issue of how compliance mechanisms are negotiated and accepted within corporations I will present the results of ethnographic research conducted with six compliance officers from five companies located in Hungary. I will argue that due to their task, as well as to the social and cultural features of business in the region, compliance officers are gaining increased power that needs to be negotiated in ways that sometimes endanger the actual objectives of corporate compliance.