It’s an annoying, vexing question. Ethics! It won’t go away. There is seemingly no straight answer, but the question is ever-present. It’s an expectation that can never be satisfied. We don’t have time for this, do we? … Ethics … bah, humbug!
It keeps coming back, and can strike anyone, anywhere. Finance, industry, politics, leisure – and do we dare mention sport? What is it about ethics that makes it so hard to gain control over the risk of the unethical?
It is one of the three pillars on which the concept of the Journal of Business Compliance has been constructed – Governance, Compliance and Ethics. It is also the “magic” ingredient, necessary to really make companies successful over time, giving both governance purpose, and compliance meaning.
- Governance is the procedural design of good decision making. It is about gathering the right information, ensuring proper analysis by the right people, identifying options, and ensuring open and transparent debate on the final choice to be made.
- Compliance is the guardian of good governance, ensuring a continuous awareness of the ordinance – internal or external – governing decisions.
- Ethics is what provides governance with its moral compass, its purpose; the why and wherefore of the organisation; its spirit and passion.
Without awareness of its ethical stance, an organisation and its members will lose touch with any understanding of the value of its stakeholders; its clients will become numbers, and would-be investors – of self or money – will take what they can, and cut and run when opportunities present themselves.
In nature, there is a concept known as “Trophic Cascade”. It occurs when a change is introduced to the established food chain, and similar to chaos theory, there is a domino effect on the behaviours of others in that food chain as they adjust to a new reality – to their benefit, or to minimise their cost. The manner in which this cascade shapes itself is near impossible to predict. What seems true, however, is that by introducing a new factor into an environment, the eco-system may be strengthened or weakened accordingly. Within an organisation, the introduction and strengthening of its ethical spirit will find its way to decision makers at all levels, and will have surprising impact and outcomes. This is hard, if not impossible to measure directly, but it can be observed – I myself will stand testimony to that.
It is just as well that this new issue of the Journal is the summer, double issue. A number of the articles, be it under the columns The Lectern, The Ethics Challenge or Governance, ask hard questions of our readers, requiring reflection on what constitutes ethics within our organisations, and how, and by what process, ethical awareness may be encouraged, to what aim and objective, and how the culture of the organisation will influence the “eco-system” of decision taking and long term success. Some of these articles will certainly bear reading two or more times, and still provide insight. Finally, our Round Table discussion this month is dedicated to the subject of ethics and its place in business. All the panellists are recognised thought leaders in this field, and their ideas are challenging.
Our other articles concern compliance issues that are pushing the boundaries of resources and competencies of traditional compliance management systems and controls. The demand for ever deeper “look-backs” and data searches as a result of regulatory or enforcement investigations can hardly have been missed, whilst the extended reach of culpability for the actions of agents and third parties requires major revisions in our approach to managing such risk. We wish you a very restful and relaxing summer break; we have a feeling there are many new challenges waiting back at the office …
(The above is a modified extract of the Editorial to the June issue 03-04/2015 of the Journal of Business Ethics)