Picture this: you drive into work to find Special Investigation Unit agents or competition authorities wheeling files and computer hard drives out of your offices while television cameras record the search and seizure. An alarming number of companies have experienced these embarrassing scenes, and they raise important questions about ethics. The activities of companies like Auction Alliance, African Bank and Aurora come to mind.Ethics govern everything business leaders do: their relationships and interactions with those around them, with those they serve and/or those who serve them, and with their duties, rights and obligations to the company they work for.Ethics programmes can yield long-term rewards, such as customer allegiance, a reputation for honesty and better compliance with corporate governance. These benefit the bottom line.The responsibility to design and implement ethics programmes begins with the occupants of mahogany row and should be overseen by executive directors.Eth...
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