Professional Ethics in Construction and Engineering

6 Regulation and Governance of Ethical Standards and Expectations

If you are guided by a spirit of transparency, it forces you to operate with a spirit of ethics. Success comes from simplifying complex issues, address problems head on, being truthful and transparent. If you open yourself up to scrutiny, it forces you to a higher standard.

Rodney David

6.1 Introduction

In consideration of the above quotation, this chapter will focus on the importance of organisational transparency, regulation and governance in the pursuit of ethical compliance. This is especially the case following some global high-profile cases of breaches of ethical standards in recent years. However, maintaining such regulation has not always been straight forward across an industry so diverse and encompassing many different professionals. Accordingly, this chapter will explain why traditional self-regulation through professional bodies may not be enough to ensure strict adherence to ethical principles, rules and regulations where such differentiation exists.

Management governance processes and procedures will be discussed alongside organisational financial regulations, and how they are designed to reduce ethical risk associated with breaching established protocols and potentially committing fraud. Delegated authorities and governance structures will be explained alongside the importance of hierarchy committees for various levels of approval and decision making.

Finally, governance, and best practice procurement ...