An Ethics Bubble – 2009 Ethics Resource Center Survey Results
The Ethics Resource Center recently came out with their 2009 National Business Ethics Survey. Their findings? We’re in an ethics bubble because of the recession. According to their research, ethics improve when times are tough; they lapse when times are good. This is an interesting conclusion.
Do ethics have a cycle, just like the stock market? Is there really a correlation between ethics and the stock market? I’m having a hard time seeing how the cycles of the stock market coincide with ethics. If this is the case, then we can predict stock market cycles through ethics surveys. There must be another explanation for the rise in ethical conduct. Perhaps in good economic times there are more opportunities to be unethical. Perhaps employees are more judgmental in good economic times because of a feeling that they’re not getting their fair share. It just seems that there must be more to the story.
The other conclusion in the survey seems pretty obvious: work on creating an ethical culture and misconduct goes down. I’m glad to hear this. If the opposite were true, then we should just throw our hands up in the air and call it quits.
The advice in the survey: create an ethics committee on the board, recruit ethics professionals for the board, establish financial incentives for ethical leadership, encourage disclosures about corporate ethical culture, emphasize culture and principles. These are good suggestions, but I wonder how much these solutions will help.
Most boards are already full of committees. I don’t know how much an ethics professional will contribute to a board. Money is the wrong incentive for ethical leadership. I like the idea of disclosures. It creates accountability. Which brings me to the last one – emphasize culture and principles.
This is where the difference can be made. I’m not talking about more manuals and policies. I’m talking about innovation in communication. There must be better ways of communicating these principles that inspire and are memorable. I don’t see these in the industry right now.