We employ institutional theory to develop and present a framework – involving institutional drivers, organisational reactions, and outcomes – to examine and further understand misconduct resistance in public sector organisations. This framework is applied to an examination of efforts in the Western Australian public health service to prevent misconduct in the management of restricted drugs. We begin by clarifying a definition of misconduct resistance and then synthesise the extant literature develop a typology and framework of corruption resistance. The second part of the paper is a study in which the framework is applied to an examination of why and how the Western Australian public health service has endeavoured to prevent misconduct in the management of restricted drugs. Top-down imposition of regulations rather than shifts in individual employee attitudes is found. The paper concludes by outlining the potential contributions to theory and practice in approaches to increasing misconduct resistance in public health care organisations.