ABSTRACT

This chapter involves developing Codes of Ethics or Statements of General Business Principles to guide individual organisational member behaviour, without seeking to prescribe behaviour for every situation. Instead, it relies on the discretion of individuals to make the right choice in accordance with the company's stated values. In drafting these organisational protocols business leaders seek to hone an appropriately adaptive organisational personality and boardroom culture that is responsive to the needs of the time. Typically these organisational codes have been developed in a piecemeal and fragmented fashion, rather than seeing each initiative as part of the general evolution of the organisation's accountability system. In contrast to the Code of Ethics or the Statement of Duty to Stakeholders, it is essentially an internal document designed to make explicit employee accountabilities to the organisation and to the law. Organisations can be seen today to be at different stages of evolution in their strategic management of the ethical dimension of their business impacts.