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Corporate ethics and the CFO
New report from ACCA and CFO
Those companies which build a culture of ethics are more likely to succeed financially, a ground-breaking multinational survey of CFOs carried out by ACCA and CFO Research Services shows. The report, the first of its kind to compare Europe, the US and South-East Asia reveals wide regional variations in companies’ approaches to ethics.
The report, Corporate Ethics and the CFO, surveys 230 European CFOs but draws on findings from two companion reports to cover the world’s three largest economic regions. In each market, respondents report that ethics has a higher priority within their companies than five years ago. CFOs say that a strong commitment to building an ethical culture has had a beneficial effect on business performance, particularly in terms of staff morale and motivation, but also in boosting external relationships with investors, customers and analysts.
While the survey did not specifically aim to examine whether there was a causal link between strong ethical focus and good business performance, it did reveal strong evidence of a correlation between the two. The European CFOs in those companies that had outperformed the others financially believed their boards had given more consideration to ethical issues, such as staff training and ethics processes than the lesser-performing ones. This covered each of the 22 ethical policy and practice areas identified.
US companies were ahead of other regions in devising and implementing specific processes – written ethics and whistle-blowing policies, employee training and ethics committees were all more widespread in the US. Asian companies were further ahead on certification systems to ensure compliance, however and CFOs there took a more active role in talking to employees about ethical performance.
Only a quarter of CFOs said they were responsible on a day-to-day basis for ethical practice in their companies. Most agreed that overall strategy was a CEO or shared board responsibility.
To read the full report, you can download a copy, together with the companion US and Asia reports, by clicking on the links under ‘related documents’.