Longitudinal patterns of regulatory violations in chemical corporations

Abstract Unlike criminal career research into the criminal behavior of natural persons, longitudinal research into regulatory violations by corporations is still scant. The few available longitudinal studies mostly suffer from either a small sample size or a short follow-up period, limiting the generalizability of their findings. The present study uses longitudinal data on rule violating behavior of 567 chemical corporations having to comply with the EU Seveso Directive in the Netherlands, derived from yearly inspections (N = 5.975) of the relevant safety, occupational health and environmental agencies between 2007 and 2021. The study aims to gain insight in the patterning of regulatory violations by Dutch Seveso corporations, and the extent to which these patterns are associated with sector and corporate characteristics. The results show that regulatory violation is common among Dutch Seveso corporations. A small minority of chronically violating corporations however, is responsible for a disproportional share of all observed regulatory violations. Using group-based trajectory modelling (GBTM) we distinguish several longitudinal patterns of regulatory violations in our data. Available sector and corporation characteristics are found to be only weakly associated with the patterns of regulatory violations identified.