A board's core purpose is to promote the long-term success of the company in line with its values. Boards that embrace ethical standards explicitly in the way they and the company operate are best placed to achieve the durable benefits that come from doing business ethically.
The board is the forum for reviewing holistically the organisation's stakeholder relationships. In reality, it is the only forum, as it directs the company's purpose, business model and strategy.
The aim of this Board Briefing is to help companies benefit from the new reporting obligation, and to encourage them to go beyond legal requirements. It is intended to convince companies to reflect their values in decision-making and report on what they have done to define and embed appropriate standards of conduct across the organisation.
19 February 2020
Directors need to embrace the benefits of new reporting requirements, advises new report by Institute of Business Ethics.
19 February 2020
Ethical failures in business continue to happen with depressing regularity. Unfortunately, many organisations are only spurred to look at their culture and take the steps to embed ethical values at the heart of their decision making after things have gone badly wrong and customers, shareholders and colleagues have suffered as a result.
05 February 2020
Often it can be difficult, if not impossible, for a dissenting director to stay on the board to implement a major decision that they have fundamentally disagreed with and voted against. But dissenting directors should not feel that resigning is their only option.
11 September 2019
Read the IBE's annual analysis of business ethics news stories from the last year - which were the sectors and issues most in the news in 2018?
30 January 2019
This Board Briefing sets out to help boards through its examination of a range of relevant indicators and how to interpret them.
01 March 2018
This Board Briefing examines the challenges and pitfalls and presents the elements of responsible financial reporting.
12 September 2017
The Institute of Business Ethics: the next thirty years is the result of a survey of opinion leaders to help identify the IBE's priorities for the coming period, the current business ethics climate and the future challenges to business in regaining trust.
27 October 2016
The idea of having a committee dedicated to the task of overseeing culture and ethics is relatively new. This survey report is intended to benchmark what is happening in the UK, providing a valuable insight into how companies are approaching the task.
09 March 2016
This report represents the conclusions of a workshop of senior regulators, company directors and executives and investors exploring ways of identifying early warning signs of a weak culture.
08 March 2016
Checking Culture: a new role for internal audit shines a spotlight on the role of internal audit in advising boards on whether a company is living up to its ethical values.
15 July 2015
This report looks at the ethical challenges facing pension fund trustees - ranging from fiduciary duty, investment decisions and conflicts of interest to employing consultants. It poses at twelve key questions which pension fund trustees need to ask to help guide them in making sound decisions, and offers answers that, by applying an ethical approach, aim to cut through the uncertainty and help trustees make the right decisions.
29 October 2014
This Board Briefing sets out why directors need to be actively involved in setting and maintaining a company’s ethical values and suggests some ways to approach it. It aims to help directors define their contribution to the maintenance of sound values and culture.
21 July 2014
This briefing examines some business ethics issues and the challenges of achieving a diverse board. It presents the relationship between business ethics and board diversity; the current global context of board diversity and the case for board diversity. Using good practice examples it shows to achieve a diverse board.
11 September 2011
