Malicious compliance

Malicious compliance (also known as malicious obedience) is the behavior of strictly following the orders of a superior despite knowing that compliance with the orders will have an unintended or negative result. It usually implies following an order in such a way that ignores or otherwise undermines the order's intent, but follows it to the letter.^[1][2] It can also describe a willful act of regulatory interference, for example when a corporation releases a compliant but inferior version of a product in response to new legislation. A form of passive-aggressive behavior,^[3] it is often associated with poor management-labor relationships, micromanagement, a generalized lack of confidence in leadership, and resistance to changes perceived as pointless, duplicative, dangerous, or otherwise undesirable. It is common in organizations with top-down management structures lacking morale, leadership or mutual trust. In U.S. law, this practice has been theorized as a form of uncivil obedience.^[4][5]

Malicious compliance was common in the Soviet Union's command economy; examples are used in the studies of behavior, management, and economics to hypothetically show differences between the Soviet command economy and a free market.^{[6][unreliable source?]}. As of the 2020s, the term is often used to describe commercial response to digital governance, for example the response of American big tech to the European Union's requirement for informed consent in their General Data Protection Regulation^{[citation needed]}.

There is no universally agreed-upon definition of malicious compliance. Among those ventured, a principle characteristic includes establishing 'malice' as a behavior "always meant in some way to damage, humiliate or threaten the established power structure, regardless of what level that may be".^[3]

Fundamental to establishing malice is whether there is any financial or other remunerative incentive in acting contrary to good practice, as well as the likelihood of penalties and their severity for non-compliance, both of which mitigate the charge.

Another fundamental characteristic is that the malicious action can be taken without overt risk, as one is complying to the letter of a directive.^[3] Nevertheless, repercussions may follow, often indirectly, whether from the supervisor, co-workers possibly burdened by the consequences of malicious obedience, or others higher in the management structure.^[3]

The definition becomes grey when countering motivations are introduced, such as complying with what may be construed as a wrong-headed directive with the intention of drawing attention to the consequence, as to highlight an inefficient procedure or the managerial inadequacies of a superior.^[3]

Some perceive malicious compliance as a tool for effecting change, such as social change,^[7] or meeting goals, such as production quotas, even at the expense of efficiency and the organization.^[8]

Other motivations include office politics, jealousy, revenge on a supervisor,^[3][9] and simply "sticking it to" an organization one is unhappy with.^[5]

This article may be confusing or unclear to readers. In particular, more about perverse incentives than some passive-aggressive intentionality underlying compliance.... (May 2024)

Some possible examples of malicious compliance include:

• A group of U.S. firefighters who were required for safety reasons to wear self-contained breathing apparatus against their will. In response, they merely wore the equipment on their backs but did not use it, complying with the letter of the mandate. This made their work less efficient than if they had not been wearing the equipment at all. A subsequent mandate required them to wear and use the gear.^[10]
• An artist resorting to "a conspicuous and hyperbolic compliance with established laws, rules, and mandates"^[5] to strike back at what he perceived as an unfair tax code. Angry at being denied certain deductions on his tax returns, California artist Lowell Darling undertook a "series of creative endeavors exploiting uncivil obedience" intending to deconstruct the so-called hobby loss rule of the U.S. Tax Code. By employing fictional art projects and organizations, he "rigorously and ironically" fulfilled those factors said to indicate a profit-seeking intent. He later challenged electioneering norms and campaign finance rules in a mock run for governor.^[5]
• A project manager going along with a project, knowing it is impossible to complete. While the rest of their team knows the task is insurmountable, they cut corners to achieve some sort of result.^[11]
• Malicious compliance is common in production situations in which employees and middle management are measured based on meeting certain quotas or performance projections. Examples include:
  • Employees at a factory shipping product to customers too early so their inventory is reduced to meet a projection;^[8]
  • Production plants refusing shipments of raw material at month-end so that monthly completion projections are met, even if doing so causes a negative impact on customer deliverables and overall production figures.^[8]
• In various jurisdictions around the world, including the United States, laws and policies have been implemented mandating that gender-specific public bathrooms may only be used by people according to their sex assigned at birth. As the physical appearances of many transgender individuals are not distinguishable from cisgender people^{[citation needed]}, certain transgender individuals have engaged in malicious compliance with such bathroom policies, in order to highlight the situational discomfort that the policies were ostensibly designed to prevent.^[12] For example, a transgender man entering a bathroom designated for women.

It has been theorised that managers might avoid malicious compliance by not making excessive, contradictory, or incomprehensible demands of employees as well as clarifying policies.^[13]