In the for-profit sector specifically, the 2000 NBES finds that nearly 80 percent of employees say their companies have written standards of ethical conduct. The percentages reported above suggest that many executives are seeing value in actively promoting ethics within their companies. Like most leaders, corporate executives would probably agree unanimously that high ethical standards are important in their companies. The Function of an Ethics Program Essentially, ethics programs are meant to affect how people think about and address ethical issues that arise on the job. Her language is intentional.
Winter notes that busy corporate executives have a choice.
They can either have employees come to them with every ethical decision, or they can give employees a framework to make many of these decisions themselves. Executives who can trust their employees to do the latter will have more time and energy for other work. Ethics programs cannot prevent all misconduct from occurring. In such cases, there is no substitute for clear procedures and sanctions. According to Johnson, this is the essence of a healthy work environment.