The Unexpected Link Between Diversity and Compliance

Diversity is often discussed in the context of inclusion, fairness, and organizational culture. Less obvious—but equally important—is its potential role in strengthening compliance and preventing misconduct.

Recent work by the OECD’s Gender Inclusive Competition Policy Toolkit highlights a surprising connection: group diversity can reduce the likelihood of economic crimes such as cartels. This insight not only broadens the case for diversity within organizations but also reshapes the way companies think about compliance frameworks.

Diversity and Group Dynamics in Misconduct

The OECD notes that social context and group dynamics are critical to understanding how anticompetitive collusion emerges and persists. When individuals within a group share highly similar characteristics—such as background, career paths, or even perspectives—the risk of groupthink and collusion rises.

Importantly, the OECD makes it clear that misconduct is not a matter of gender. Men and women alike can engage in economic crime. What matters is homogeneity. Groups that lack diversity are more prone to align behaviors, close ranks, and create environments where illegal practices like cartels, bid-rigging, or other forms of collusion can thrive.

Conversely, introducing diversity—whether in gender, ethnicity, age, professional experience, or cultural background—adds different viewpoints to decision-making. Diverse groups are less likely to fall into the traps of conformity and unchecked consensus.

Compliance Benefits of Diversity

From a compliance perspective, diversity acts as a reinforcing factor. It supports organizations in building stronger safeguards against violations, not by replacing existing compliance systems, but by adding another protective layer.

Think of diversity as a structural strengthener:

• More perspectives mean that questionable decisions are more likely to be challenged.
• Broader representation helps prevent blind spots that may exist in homogeneous groups.
• Inclusive cultures promote transparency, accountability, and psychological safety—key elements in preventing misconduct from being ignored or concealed.

This goes well beyond antitrust. Companies that embed diversity into their culture are often better prepared to anticipate and prevent risks in areas such as anti-corruption, money laundering, responsible AI, and human rights.

The Problem with Siloed Compliance

The OECD’s findings also highlight a broader issue: the way most companies approach compliance today. Too often, organizations design compliance programs in silos. Anti-corruption policies are developed separately from competition compliance. Diversity initiatives are pursued independently from AML. Human rights due diligence is disconnected from data privacy.

This fragmented approach can create gaps, inefficiencies, and even contradictions. For example:

• A company may proudly launch a gender diversity program while ignoring power imbalances that increase corruption risks.
• Antitrust compliance may focus narrowly on pricing collusion without considering how lack of diversity in leadership structures fuels homogeneous decision-making.
• ESG reporting may highlight human rights commitments but overlook how opaque procurement processes expose the company to bribery or fraud risks.

A holistic compliance framework addresses these overlaps. Instead of viewing each risk area as isolated, it recognizes that they are interconnected and often reinforce—or undermine—each other. Diversity, in this sense, is not a standalone initiative but part of a broader compliance and integrity ecosystem.

Rethinking Compliance in Practice

What does a holistic, diversity-aware compliance framework look like? Several principles stand out:

1. Integrated Risk Mapping
   Map risks for different regulatory frameworks that interact with each other, rather than creating separate unrelated matrices. This helps identify leverage effects—where one initiative strengthens another.
2. Culture as a Compliance Tool
   Compliance isn’t only about controls and policies. A culture that values openness, diversity, and accountability reduces the likelihood of misconduct and increases employees’ willingness to speak up.
3. Cross-Functional Ownership
   Compliance should not live only in the legal or compliance department. Involving HR, procurement, finance, and leadership ensures that compliance and integrity culture are embedded across functions.
4. Technology-Enabled Monitoring
   Modern compliance requires continuous monitoring. Automated systems can spot red flags, track key risk indicators, and connect dots across silos that humans alone might miss.

Where Technology Makes the Difference

Managing compliance in an integrated way can be overwhelming without the right tools. The volume of data, the number of frameworks, and the complexity of interactions make it nearly impossible to handle manually.

👉 At Naltilia, we streamline repetitive compliance tasks with generative AI, helping compliance officers save time for what truly matters—like building a culture grounded in diversity and integrity.

Our platform:

• Covers multiple regulatory frameworks (anti-corruption, penal compliance, antitrust, responsible AI, among others).
• Breaks down the silos of traditional compliance programs, enabling organizations to see risks in context rather than isolation.
• Automates heavy, time-consuming work such as risk mapping, policy generation, and reporting, freeing compliance professionals to focus on strategy and culture.

In short: diversity strengthens compliance, and technology makes it scalable. Together, they allow companies to move from reactive compliance to proactive integrity—creating organizations that are not only compliant, but also resilient, trusted, and sustainable.

* See also Abate and Brunelle, Cartel behaviour and boys’ club dynamics: French cartel practice through a gender lens. https://www.oecd.org/daf/competition/gender-inclusive-competition-proj-3-cartel-behaviour-and-boys-club-dynamics.pdf