Compliance and Ethics Programs in Department of Defense Government: Relationship Between Compliance and Ethics Programs and Contracting Fraud Penalty Cost
La’Donna R. Davis1, Juritsa Ford2
1La’Donna R. Davis, School of Business, Hampton University, Hampton, Virginia, USA.
2Dr. Juritsa Ford, School of Business, Hampton University, Hampton, Virginia, USA.
Manuscript received on 16 September 2022 | Revised Manuscript received on 29 September 2022 | Manuscript Accepted on 15 October 2022 | Manuscript published on 30 October 2022 | PP: 1-9 | Volume-9 Issue-2, October 2022 | Retrieval Number: 100.1/ijmh.B1527109222 | DOI: 10.35940/ijmh.B1527.109222
Open Access | Ethics and Policies | Cite | Mendeley | Indexing and Abstracting
© The Authors. Published By: Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Abstract: Compliance with regulatory directives has been at the forefront of concern regarding federal contract spending. Private firms, federal agencies, and scholars allocate tremendous amounts of time, effort, and resources to produce efficient methods and strategies to combat the proliferation of compliance infractions, that often result in sanctions. The purpose of this research is to assess the performance of companies with C&E programs and those without C&E programs. A literature review of historical and current unclassified government data was collected from several public U. S. Government systems to determine the statistical relationship between Compliance and Ethic programs and non-Compliance and Ethic program penalties. The population under study consisted of 49 DoD contractors totaling an aggregate value of $212.4 billion obligated contracting dollars. A total of 364 fraud cases and $6.2 billion in fines were identified in this study. The study concluded that companies with Compliance and Ethics had a statistically significantly higher penalties and a penalty ratio than those without Compliance and Ethics. However, there were no differences in dollars obligated based on Compliance and Ethics programs. The implication of Compliance and Ethics programs decreasing fraud penalties in DoD contracting supports the need for effective regulatory oversight within organizations and future research on the compliance and ethics programs of firms contracting with the DoD.
Keywords: Compliance, Effectiveness, Ethics, Compliance and Ethics Programs, Department of Defense (DoD) Contracting, Fraud, Regulatory Oversight, Penalty Cost, Penalty Occurrence
Scope of the Article: Business and Marketing