Enron, Arthur Anderson, WorldCom, Adelphia….

These are not unknown organizations flying under the radar. Yet within the last ten years they have fallen victim to…what? Corporate greed? Stupidity?

Depending on who you speak to, corporate ethics is a) a human resources function, b) not a human resources function, c) a legal issue, d) everyone’s responsibility.

I’d like to think it is a concern of every employee and stakeholder within an organization; however, that might be a bit naïve.

Well, according to a national business ethics study conducted by ISR, a leading global employee research and consulting firm, there’s been a “dramatic five-year increase  in how employees perceive their company’s ethics.” This was from surveys completed by more than 200,000 U.S. employees.

The survey found that from 2001 to 2005 employee opinions on company integrity increased by 11%.

But are perception and reality aligned?

According to an article in the December 2006 issue of Internal Auditor, “Until honest top management stops pretending that fraud exists only in other companies, and abandons its whitewashing of the issue with fancy corporate codes and public relations campaigns, the public’s opinion of corporate citizenship will never be reversed.”

Yeah, that’s what I thought. Corporate Ethics start at the top.

So then the question that begs to be asked is how do we ensure that top management really is honest?

Sure, formal ethics programs are important; however, it is vital that those at the helm routinely talk about the importance of ethics, inform employees, keep promises and model ethical behavior.

Some companies, such as WorldCom’s new company brand, MCI, have placed their focus on “the new financial accountability standards in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, making the corporate culture more transparent and expanding the company’s ethics function.”

Whatever road a company takes towards corporate ethics is fine by me, as long as they choose one and follow it to the end. Holding each other accountable for our behavior, whoever we are and however we do it, is important to who we are as individuals and as corporations.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 7th, 2007 at 10:45 am and is filed under Company Culture, Employee Relations. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.