Managing ethics and legal compliance: what works and what hurts

Article Abstract:

This survey of employees at six large American companies asked the question: "What works and what hurts in corporate ethics/compliance management?" The study found that a values-based cultural approach to ethics/compliance management works best. Critical ingredients of this approach include leaders' commitment to ethics, fair treatment of employees, rewards for ethical conduct, concern for external stakeholders, and consistency between policies and actions. What hurts effectiveness most are an ethics/compliance program that employees believe exists only to protect top management from blame and an ethical culture that focuses on unquestioning obedience to authority and employee self-interest. The results of effective ethics/compliance management are impressive. They include reduced unethical/illegal behavior in the organization, increased awareness of ethical issues, more ethical advice seeking within the firm, greater willingness to deliver bad news or report ethical/legal violations to management, better decision making because of the ethics/compliance program, and increased employee commitment. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Social values, Compliance, Compliance (Psychology)

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Corporate ethics programs as control systems: influences of executive commitment and environmental factors

Article Abstract:

Research was conducted to examine the factors affecting corporate ethics programs. Archival and survey data taken from 'Fortune 500' companies were investigated to analyze how formal ethics programs reflect environmental pressures and top management's commitment to ethics. Results indicate that both management's ethical commitment and external pressures affect corporate ethics policy. Management commitment was the stronger determinant of control orientation while environmental factors were the stronger influences on scope.

Research

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The stakeholder research tradition: converging theorists - not convergent theory

Article Abstract:

Jones and Wicks' assertion that their convergent approach can be used to integrate divergences in stakeholder theory is fairly questionable. Jones and Wick, after all, have failed to prove that there exists a plausible empirical stakeholder theory that can be integrated with normative theory. Furthermore, their attempt to create a convergent theory has done little to advance stakeholder research beyond its current limitations.

Models, Analysis, Executives, Business enterprises, Organizational behavior

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