Selective Regulator Decoupling and Organizations' Strategic Responses

Jonas  Heese; Ranjani  Krishnan; Frank  Moers

Article | Academy of Management Journal | December 2016

Selective Regulator Decoupling and Organizations' Strategic Responses

by Jonas Heese, Ranjani Krishnan and Frank Moers

Abstract

We posit that nonprofits that provide a greater supply of unprofitable services (beneficent nonprofits) face lenient regulatory enforcement for mispricing in price-regulated markets. Consequently, beneficent nonprofits exploit such regulatory leniency and exhibit higher mispricing. Drawing on organizational legitimacy theory, we argue that both regulators and beneficent nonprofits seek to protect their legitimacy with stakeholders, including those who demand access to unprofitable services. Using data from hospitals, we examine mispricing via "upcoding," which involves misclassifying ailment severity. Archival analysis indicates less stringent regulatory enforcement of upcoding for beneficent nonprofit hospitals, defined as hospitals that provide higher charity care and medical education. After observing regulator leniency, beneficent hospitals demonstrate higher upcoding. Our results suggest that lenient enforcement assists beneficent nonprofits to obtain higher revenues in price-regulated markets.

Keywords: Regulator leniency; nonprofit organizations; beneficence; mispricing; upcoding; Nonprofit Organizations; Health Care and Treatment; Revenue; Health Industry;

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Citation:

Heese, Jonas, Ranjani Krishnan, and Frank Moers. "Selective Regulator Decoupling and Organizations' Strategic Responses." Academy of Management Journal 59, no. 6 (December 2016). (Selected for Best Paper Proceedings of the 2015 Academy of Management Annual Meeting. Winner of the Healthcare Management Division of the Academy of Management 2015 Best Paper Award.)

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Selective Regulator Decoupling and Organizations' Strategic Responses

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