Abstract
Although recognized as a key factor for its effectiveness, the adopted process for the development of a global corporate code of ethics, is one of the least documented aspects by Academia.
 The code is often created at central level and then sent for adoption and implementation to the different branches within the organisation, and the fact that they are not involved in the development process, frequently elicits resistance and compromises effectiveness.
 This was initially the case with the company of this study, where it was found that business units from different geographical locations had gradually made adaptations to the original code of the Group, which no longer remained the same across countries, neither in text nor in form, which led to the code review.
 Developed through an action-research methodology, this case study describes the review process which included 30 people from all the Group companies. All defined goals have been achieved. The different companies’ representatives consider that the participatory methodology was a key-factor to the general acceptance of the produced document. Three years after the code release, its efficacy was also evaluated with the Ethics Ombudsman who presented possible success indicators.
Highlights
1.1 Global Corporate Codes of Ethics and Relevance of The Development ProcessA corporate code of ethics is a formal document developed by a company to express its commitments and the commitments of its employees “at least its managers and employees towards one another, the company, external stakeholders and / or society in general” (Kaptein & Schwartz, 2008, p. 113)
This was initially the case with the company of this study, where it was found that business units from different geographical locations had gradually made adaptations to the original code of the Group, which no longer remained the same across countries, neither in text nor in form, which led to the code review
Different business units (BU) team members’ testimonials of the review, extracted from the ethics ombudsman’s report, were used, as well as an interview with the company’s ethics ombudsman (EO) which, carried out retrospectively, will have excerpts included in the narrative of the case itself
Summary
1.1 Global Corporate Codes of Ethics and Relevance of The Development ProcessA corporate code of ethics is a formal document developed by a company to express its commitments and the commitments of its employees “at least its managers and employees towards one another, the company, external stakeholders and / or society in general” (Kaptein & Schwartz, 2008, p. 113). It was identified that, the code had been sent for implementation in the different BU, it had not been adopted uniformly in all of them, namely in Brazil and Spain and, to some extent, minor changes had been made to the text so that it would fit in and respond to what were considered, by each geography, to be real needs This situation according to the ethics ombudsman, was not compatible with what was intended: “that is, the code was to be used as a reference, namely within the ethical performance management system – a document to be seen as a company commitment, facilitating internal and external scrutiny of company’s actions”.
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