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Value-based argumentation for justifying compliance

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Abstract

Compliance is often achieved ‘by design’ through a coherent system of controls consisting of information systems and procedures. This system-based control requires a new approach to auditing in which companies must demonstrate to the regulator that they are ‘in control’. They must determine the relevance of a regulation for their business, justify which set of control measures they have taken to comply with it, and demonstrate that the control measures are operationally effective. In this paper we show how value-based argumentation theory can be applied to the compliance domain. Corporate values motivate the selection of control measures (actions) which aim to fulfil control objectives, i.e. adopted norms (goals). In particular, we show how to formalize the audit dialogue in which companies justify their compliance decisions to regulators using value-based argumentation. The approach is illustrated by a case study of the safety and security measures adopted in the context of EU customs regulation.

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Notes

  1. We noticed that under the definitions of Atkinson et al. (2006) there is no formal connection between goals and values; the two are only indirectly connected through the valuation of actions.

  2. As an aside, we would like to make the point that methodologically, not only new approaches or logics deserve to be studied; also applications and empirical valuation of existing approaches deserves attention.

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Acknowledgment

We would like to thank our colleague Huib Aldewereld and the reviewers for helping us to improve the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Technology, Policy, and Management, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Brigitte Burgemeestre, Joris Hulstijn & Yao-Hua Tan

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  1. Brigitte Burgemeestre
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  2. Joris Hulstijn
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  3. Yao-Hua Tan
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Correspondence to Brigitte Burgemeestre.

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Burgemeestre, B., Hulstijn, J. & Tan, YH. Value-based argumentation for justifying compliance. Artif Intell Law 19, 149 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10506-011-9113-4

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