Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics Announces Key Findings from “Mapping the Terrain” Survey of CEOs, Announces Agenda for 2004-2005
  - June 8, 2004

(Read: Mapping the Terrain of Business Ethics)

Charlottesville, VA – Today the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics—a first-of-its-kind ethics center formed in partnership between Business Roundtable and leading faculty from the country’s top business schools—announced key findings from its initial research project, “Mapping the Terrain.”

The Mapping the Terrain study surveyed Business Roundtable CEOs to understand the most important ethics issues facing corporate leaders.

In survey responses, CEOs indicated that the five most important corporate ethics issues facing the business community are: 1) regaining the public trust; 2) effective company management in the context of today’s investor expectations; 3) ensuring the integrity of financial reporting; 4) fairness of executive compensation; and 5) ethical role-modeling of senior management.

A majority of CEOs (81%) believe that in the wake of recent controversies standards for corporate ethics have risen. Also, most CEOs (74%) indicated their companies have made changes in how ethics issues are handled or reported within the last two years. Specific changes most cited include: enhanced internal reporting and communications (33%), ethics hotlines (17%), improved compliance procedures (12%) and greater Board oversight (10%).  

“These results tell a consistent story,” says the Institute’s Academic Director R. Edward Freeman, “There is clearly a heightened sensitivity among business leaders to the importance of these issues.”

With regard to the top corporate ethics priority for business, the majority of CEOs (57%) cited establishing a framework for business decision making that integrates ethics as the top priority followed by encouraging pushback and a culture for proactively addressing potential bad news early (35%).

Says Institute Executive Director Dean Krehmeyer: “The Mapping the Terrain survey helped shape the curriculum for the Institute’s initial CEO Seminar on Business Ethics which takes place later this month and the results also set the roadmap for our research agenda. Our aim is to help leaders put business and ethics together.”

The CEO Seminar on Business Ethics will include modules on establishing ethics frameworks and on ways for leaders to encourage pushback within their companies. The seminar will be led by Professor Freeman who teaches at The Darden School and Wharton Professor Thomas Donaldson—two recognized experts in the field of business ethics.

Institute Agenda for 2004-2005

Other planned activities for the Institute include:

• A Senior Leadership Team (SLT) ethics seminar, for corporate leaders at the “executive suite” level to be held this coming October.

• A multi-media ethics simulation—currently in beta-version—in partnership with the Olsson Center for Applied Ethics and Darden Business Publishing. The product is expected to be a valuable addition to the MBA curriculum as well as a compliment to company training programs.

• Series to be published on best practices, business cases, and translation papers that condense leading research for managers.

• An innovative survey that will benchmark the state of business ethics from various stakeholder perspectives (i.e., that of executives, managers, suppliers, employees, regulators, shareholders, the media, etc.). The first survey will be completed in 2005 and will be conducted every two years.

About the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics

• The Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics (www.corporate-ethics.org) was launched in January 2004, and is housed at the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia.  The Institute conducts research, creates leading-edge business ethics curricula, leads executive seminars on business ethics, and develops best practices in corporate and business ethics.

• The distinctive mission of the Institute is to draw upon research and the nexus between the business and academic worlds to provide practical, hands-on training to current and emerging business leaders.  Although the Institute has the direct backing and participation of the 150 CEOs of the Business Roundtable—an association of chief executives of America’s leading corporations—it is an independent entity.

• The institute’s Academic Advisors are composed of highly-distinguished academics from the leading business schools around the country.  The Academic Advisors are actively involved in curriculum design, research, and development and delivery of ethics programs, as well as disseminating the work of the Institute at their respective business schools.

About Business Roundtable

• Business Roundtable (www.businessroundtable.org) is an association of chief executive officers of leading corporations with a combined workforce of more than 10 million employees in the United States and $3.7 trillion in annual revenues. The chief executives are committed to advocating public policies that foster vigorous economic growth, a dynamic global economy, and a well-trained and productive U.S. workforce essential for future competitiveness.

More information on the Institute can be found at www.corporate-ethics.org.

Contact: Brian Moriarty (434) 982-2323 – moriartyb@darden.virginia.edu