When Compliance Workarounds Backfire
MIT Sloan Management Review, Wednesday, October 7th, 2026
Cases from Glovo, Deliveroo, Airbnb, Uber and Meta reveal four signals of when minimal-compliance fixes will fail.
Companies facing new regulation often reach for minimal compliance, but in algorithmic businesses such workarounds leave auditable traces and can spread beyond leaders' control, inviting the redesign they tried to avoid.
A central example is Glovo's app redesign to sidestep the presumption of employment under Spain's Rider Law.
Drawing on cases from Glovo, Deliveroo, Airbnb, Uber and Meta, the authors identify four signals that indicate whether a workaround will hold or whether leaders should prepare for a costly redesign.