The Compliance Revolution: How Compliance Needs to Change to Survive

Chapter 2General Model of Regulatory and Compliance Development

It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.

—Charles Darwin

Introduction to Development Models

Charles Darwin set out a general model to describe the evolution of species and the principles of competition and natural selection. Adam Smith, similarly, provided a general model of economic development and described the operation of comparative advantage.

So development models usually have two basic components:

1. An overall direction and stages of development
2. Processes underlying change.

Regulation and compliance needs an overall picture of its development, including the major stages in that journey and an explanation of the processes by which change occurs. A general model is proposed here to help explain the pathway of change and to uncover the processes driving development. This in turn gives a clearer view of the future.

The usual caveats about models apply: there are variations in the fine detail, different cultures and jurisdictions develop at different rates, and progress is rarely linear. But models provide an easily comprehended picture that we can then re-complicate, adding all the appropriate variables to apply it to our own situation and circumstances.

Crucially, a model gives us vision, a way of summarising the past and helping us deal with future uncertainties. This is what compliance needs so badly: a narrative about where it has come from, and ...