Ethics

Dozens of the world’s biggest publicly traded companies fall short in cementing ethical culture through their code of conduct, according to new research. The annual report by LRN, an ethics and compliance training provider, rates the effectiveness of codes of conduct of nearly 200 publicly traded companies around the world, finding that two in five don’t meet basic expectations for...

Here’s an easy question: What are your organization’s core values? Another easy one: What’s your mission statement? Try a tougher one: What does that mission statement look like in practice, and what feelings do those values inspire in internal or external stakeholders? Leadership consultant Krystal Hardy Allen looks at the ongoing row between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Walt...

Attorneys Benjamin Britz and Sean Mason unwrap Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s fishy defense of a lavish, billionaire-funded trip. For international anti-corruption lawyers and compliance professionals trained by years of vigorous enforcement activity, American domestic political practices can seem surreal.  What is criminal abroad may be acceptable, even constitutionally protected, here.  Recent revelations that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito accepted...

While half a million dollars in fraud might not seem like a lot of money in the tech world, the indictment of Mansueto Ventures’ director of people and resources last month by federal prosecutors is a reminder of the two most important elements in preventing misconduct: Values and governance — the “G” in ESG. These elements are essential to preventing...

This year alone, more than a dozen states have enacted anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, many of them seeking to curtail the freedom of transgender people. Hundreds more bills remain up for consideration across the country. It’s little wonder, then, that many trans workers feel unsupported, whether politically or professionally. But, as Cameron Zayne of the NeuroLeadership Institute argues, businesses that fail to...

As workers and companies continue to embrace flexible arrangements, including a mix of in-person and remote work, the focus is often on enabling job functions from a technical perspective. But intangibles like ethics also need to remain a focus. Asha Palmer, Skillsoft’s senior vice president of compliance solutions, offers tips on creating an ethical, equitable environment regardless of where your...

Denmark remained the least corrupt country in the world for the fifth year running, according to the recently released Transparency International corruption perceptions index for 2022, while the U.S. improved its score for the first time since 2016. The Berlin-based anti-corruption advocacy group’s annual analysis of public perception of corruption on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very...

More than two-fifths of companies (44%) say they have fired or disciplined senior leadership for unethical conduct in the past year, according to a survey by ethics and compliance training firm LRN. LRN’s 2023 ethics and compliance program effectiveness report includes surveys of more than 1,800 compliance and ethics professionals at large organizations around the globe. According to the research,...

The case of Steve Easterbrook, the former CEO of McDonald’s, is a salutary lesson in the dire consequences of failing to be fully transparent with investigators in the hope that one may be able to “get away with it,” writes Lloydette Bai-Marrow, an anti-corruption expert and economic crime lawyer. What can the failures of Easterbrook and McDonald’s teach us about...

A pandemic-era increase in workplace bullying continued in 2022, according to a report from business think-tank Ethisphere, which found that most other types of misconduct declined when compared to the period before Covid-19. Ethisphere’s 2023 Ethical Culture Report found a nearly 13-point increase in the percentage of workers who said they’d witnessed workplace bullying, and bullying surged to become the...

Though its name has origins on the playground, bullying is a very real (and risky) concern in the workplace. Morale, productivity and retention all hang in the balance when workplace culture turns toxic, and the toll extends to the bottom line, too. Attorneys and workplace investigators Alezah Trigueros and Garrett Smith with Oppenheimer Investigations Group talk about what bullying looks...

While 2022 had no shortage of chaotic events, ethics columnist Lisa Schor Babin shares her hopes for 2023 — and beyond. 2022 was quite a year, with a continuous news stream of bad behavior, human tragedy and natural disaster, and 2023 is unlikely to be any quieter. Yet, amidst this backdrop of chaos and calamity, we’d be remiss not to...