Self-reporting untoward events to external controllers: accounting for reporting failure by a top tier chemical plant

This paper explores the reasons of hazardous organizations for responding to state rules requesting them to report untoward events to public regulators. The literature on external reporting of untoward events remains remarkably limited, and this paper contributes to it by providing a rare empirical account of the micro-level factors and processes behind reporting failures. It builds on empirical research on a case in the French chemical industry. The paper discusses a reporting failure by addressing principally managers' motivations and how they are shaped by the regulatory context, the regulator-regulatee relationship, and the organization's policies and rules. The paper provides also a vivid picture of patterns of over-compliance, compliance and non-compliance by the same regulated organization, and makes suggestions on the power and limits of self-regulation to help fulfil regulatory goals such as self-reporting of untoward events.