Supplemental Research Brief- 2009 National Business Ethics Survey

Abstract

"Ideally, misconduct wouldn’t happen. Management and all employees within the company would be committed to doing the right thing and, despite the pressures and temptations of the modern business world, no one would ever cross the line to get results that further personal or company interests. But we don’t live in an ideal world. A certain percentage of the working population is, by nature, more opportunistic and less scrupulous. And even good people do bad things. The unfortunate fact is that misconduct occurs in almost half of all companies.1 Management can and should do what it can to encourage ethical conduct in employees and to reduce the amount of wrongdoing that occurs. But its next best line of defense is to know what is happening when it happens. Reporting of observed misconduct reduces ethics risk by ensuring that management is aware of and able to address problems instead of being vulnerable to lurking issues. According to the Ethics Resource Center’s National Business Ethics Survey,2 reporting rates have varied from a low of 53 percent in 2005 to a high of 64 percent in 2003."(pg 1)