Business Ethics - What we do

 

Integrity Matters assists organisations design and implement robust governance systems, including business ethics programs, board governance documents and committee structures. We have extensive experience in assisting organisations to clearly articulate and effectively train their people in organisation-specific values to enable the development and strengthening of high-trust business cultures.

We offer the following services:

1. Ethical Risk Evaluation:
Risks are evaluated at the entity, business unit, division and/or site level and are typically undertaken in a framework consistent with enterprise wide risk management systems. Typical governance risks for ASX companies include: bribery and corruption, conflict of interest, harassment/bullying, human rights violations and breaches of anti-trust or competition law.

For each risk issue the following methodology is typically used:

Step 1: Identify material business ethic risk issues by conducting interviews or on-line surveys
Step 2: Assess causes for each risk
Step 3: Assess impact (financial and non-financial)
Step 4: Assess mitigation strategies or controls
Step 5: Assess residual risk
Step 6: Integrate risk assessment into Enterprise Wide Risk Management (EWRM) or other risk framework

2. Ethics System Design and Implementation

System elements may include:

• Code of conduct development or refresh
• Design and development of whistle blowing or employee ethics helpline or hotline systems
• Advising on investigation processes for breaches of codes of conduct
• Reporting methods including metrics to facilitate continuous improvement

3. Training and Communication Program Design

The service is designed to develop ethical leadership capacity in addition to assuring legal compliance to ethical standards for senior management and boards

• Our approach to training is consistent with models and action-based learning techniques used in leading MBA programs such as the Melbourne Business School
• Our training program design is based on a theory that there are four stages of learning required to become an ethical leader and that training delivery should be tailored to the audience and will depend on the stage of learning.