6Ethics and Compliance
6.1. The importance of ethics and compliance issues for performance
Business ethics are now at the heart of an enterprise’s performance. Anti-corruption laws as well as the evolution of values towards transparency and more sharing show to what extent an enterprise can be recognized or condemned for its ethics and respect for laws and good practices.
France comes in at number 23 in the 2015 Transparency International anti-corruption rankings. There is still action to be taken to improve this.
Ethics today are led by anti-corruption laws: Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA) in the USA, the Bribery Act 2010 in the UK and the Sapin II law (2017, and which established the Agence française anticorruption) in France. They are supranational laws and sanctions are starting to fall, stemming from long negotiations. All of these laws have something in common: an approach that empowers enterprises by inviting them to implement good practices. Failure to incorporate these kinds of procedures as well as failure to respect them will result in sanctions.
Ethics are not limited to respecting anti-corruption laws. In addition, we find namely subjects relative to enterprise culture. Please see Chapter 5 specifically on “enterprise culture” for more information on this. Enterprise ethics have to be taken into consideration during all phases concerning the construction of global performance, from the strategic vision to the offer creation, ending with its production, ...
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