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The Institute of Business Ethics (IBE) of the UK, the Cercle
D'Éthique des Affaires - Cercle Européen des
Déontologues (CEA-CED) of France and the European
Business Ethics Network (EBEN) held the third European
conference for ethics and compliance practitioners, this year
in Paris. Sharing Ideas and Best Practices in Business Ethics
was held on 26-27 January 2006 at Hotel Sofitel Rive Gauche.
Over 90 corporate ethics practitioners from 12 countries from
Europe, Africa and the U.S. attended. The participants came
from a range of industries, including information technology,
telecommunications, oil and gas, defence, banking and finance,
utilities, automotive, retail, and healthcare.
The conference provided an opportunity for ethics and compliance
practitioners to meet their counterparts, share ideas and
best practices, and form the basis for a continuing dialogue
among ethics and compliance professionals in organisations.
As in previous years, the conference was designed to allow
maximum time for discussion, debate, and networking. A plenary
meeting was held at the start of each day. These were followed
by a series of breakout sessions. Each of these were introduced
with a case study by the speaker. A rapporteur (reporter)
presented a summary of the group's discussion during subsequent
'report back' sessions. This approach ensured that all attendees
could hear and discuss the main points from each of the workshops.
The opening plenary on the first day was led by Sir Robert
Worcester, president of Ipsos-MORI on the question "Why
is business mistrusted and what to do about it?" Sir
Robert concluded that he felt there is no real crisis of trust
but there is some decline in some sectors and the issue of
information is an important one. Companies are not trusted
where they are not interested in people's views and they have
poor quality leaders and managers.
The second day's plenary addressed "Speak up policies
(whistleblowing): law and practice around Europe" and
was introduced by Guy Dehn, Director, Public Concern at Work.
Guy led a lively discussion on the contrasting attitudes throughout
Europe and the US as to whether there is protection for the
whistleblower or the 'whistleblown'.
The breakout sessions addressed a number of key business
ethics issues facing today's organisations, with the four
main themes emerging as: cross-cultural behaviours; the legal
implications with regard to ethics in organisations; making
it work: embedding ethics in organisations; and a number of
'recurring issues' that practitioners experience. The breakout
sessions were as follows:
Day 1 Morning
- Business ethics and 'corporate social responsibility'
- do they fit together?
- Balance of power in the supply chain: Relations between
large organisations and Small and Medium sized Enterprises
- Human Rights issues at the workplace
- Engaging the board in business ethics: Introducing ethical
considerations into corporate strategy and communication
Day 1 Afternoon
- What works well in the use of electronic and other material
in business ethics training?
- Measuring ethics policy effectiveness: The use of employee
surveys and other techniques
- Role of the ethics function/officer in mergers and acquisitions
- Dealing with harassment, discrimination and bullying at
the workplace
A dinner was held in the evening for all delegates on the
River Seine on board The Evasion, kindly sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline.
Day 2
Breakout sessions were as follows:
- Ethical sensitivity in marketing practices (advertising,
PR)
- Ways of combating bribery and other forms of corruption
- Cross cultural ethics problems: 'Exporting' corporate
values
- Misbehaviour at the top: what do you do about it?
Breakout session speakers were from Accenture,Adecco, BP,
Dexia, EDF, ECOA, National Grid, Rolls Royce, Royal Dutch
Shell, Suez and Total. Rapporteurs were from BAT, BP, Integrity
Interactive, Meadwestvaco, Meggitt, Serco A full report of
the conference was sent to all attendees and is available
to subscribers to the IBE.
Translation services were kindly sponsored by EDF.
Following the success of this year's conference, next year
the Sharing Ideas and Best Practice 2007 Conference will take
place in January in Brussels.
For further details, please contact:
Yvan Biefnot CEA/CED yvan.biefnot@chello.be
Patrick Du Besset CEA/CED pdubc@noos.fr
Philippa Foster Back IBE pfb@ibe.org.uk
Luc van de Leidekerke EBEN Luc.VanLiedekerke@econ.kuleuven.be
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