Enforced Compliance in A Fragile Institutional Field: A Qualitative Analysis of Corporate Tax Compliance in Romania

Abstract

This study examines the sociological mechanisms underlying corporate tax compliance in Romania. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with managers across diverse economic sectors and survey data measuring perceptions of fiscal legitimacy, we show that tax compliance in Romania operates within a fragile institutional field characterized by low procedural and distributive legitimacy. Our findings identify five key themes: compliance as instrumental survival strategy, structural distrust coexisting with high formal compliance, legislative instability as a driver of adaptive behaviors, sectoral normalization of gray-zone practices, and the ambivalent effects of fiscal digitalization. The results suggest that compliance is predominantly sustained through coercion, digital surveillance, and resource dependency rather than through internalized norms or institutional trust. These findings have significant implications for understanding tax behavior in post-socialist transition economies and for designing more effective tax policy interventions that address the normative foundations of compliance.