Business Ethics and Corporate Governance, Second Edition

HONESTY, INTEGRITY AND TRANSPARENCY ARE THE TOUCHSTONES OF BUSINESS ETHICS

Ethical corporate behaviour is nothing but a reiteration of the ancient wisdom that ‘honesty is the best policy’. The dramatic collapse of some of the Fortune 500 companies such as Enron and WorldCom or the well-known auditing firm Andersen showed that even successful companies could ultimately come to grief, if their managers did not practise the basic principles of integrity. For every profession ‘we would think of a code of conduct or a set of values, which has a moral content and that would be the essence of ethics for that profession’.¹³ There should be transparency in operations leading to accountability, which should ensure safety and protect the interest of all ...