Compliance Culture

Practical insights for compliance and ethics professionals and commentary on the intersection of compliance and culture.

Happy Good Friday! – and a look at the first book of Mere Christianity

Happy Good Friday from Compliance Culture!

In honor of the holiday, please check out the below extracts from the seminal work of C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, which are especially pertinent to ethics and morality.

Mere Christianity contains insights which are so powerful for people to consider in expressing and understanding their own personal codes of ethics and values (even completely secular ones).  Individual commitments to a well-defined internal moral register form the foundation of any integrity-led organization with an ethical business culture.  This post contains selections from the first book of Mere Christianity. 

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Round-up on compliance issues with online platforms: Twitter

This is the fourth in a series of six posts on compliance issues with various online platforms.  The first post was about YouTube.  The second post was about Facebook.  Last week’s post discussed Instagram.  Today’s post will focus on Twitter.  On April 5, the fifth post in the series will cover Snapchat.  The sixth and last post in the series, on April 12, will be about Reddit.

Twitter, one of the best-known social media platforms and a popular news and networking service, was created in 2006. Within a few years, Twitter rapidly became one of the most frequently-visited websites in the world. Twitter is widely used all over the world as a source of breaking news as well as a social messaging service and a content-sharing platform for photos, videos, links, and microblogs in threaded comments.

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Starbucks and CSR

Starbucks is one of the best-known companies and brands in the world. The success of Starbucks in the global market is not just, or even mainly, about the popularity of the coffees, teas, and snacks it serves to guests. Customers want to know where companies like Starbucks stand on social and political issues too. They’re eager to engage with the business values and cultural strategy of the company, in order to distinguish the choice for Starbucks over any of its many other competitors they could patronize for a drink or a pastry instead.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a prominent strategic consideration for many companies. Authentic and convincing expression of CSR values can gain the attention and appreciation of consumers, competitors, and stakeholders. For a broad overview on the importance of inspiring this engagement for organizations seeking to use their interest in activism or social justice issues, check out this post on CSR tips for compliance programs.

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Corporate cultural change: Awareness and dialog, not training

This is the final entry in a series of five posts suggesting best practices for implementing corporate cultural change.  For an overview of all the tips on this subject, check out this preview post.  The first post in the series was about tone and conduct at the top and the importance of operationalizing these. The second post discussed how to tangibly encourage organizational justice via consistent, visible investigation and enforcement efforts. The third post focused on policies to have in place, while last week’s post was about the procedures to complement and support those. Today, the fifth and last post in the series will provide ideas for how compliance programs can go beyond traditional training to create a culture which risks and values are addressed and integrated into awareness and communication efforts.

The last four posts have discussed the management controls and organizational structures that are important to implement in order to address needed cultural change and manage compliance risks. Motivating management to act as leadership and vice versa and then taking advantage of their fluency to leverage buy-in for enforcement efforts, policies, and procedures that will contribute to reform and improvement initiatives has been the focus so far. The final area for compliance and ethics professionals to take on in this process is employee and organizational education.

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This week on Compliance Culture

Be sure to visit Compliance Culture this week for posts on these topics.

  • Monday:  Corporate cultural change: Next-generation training
  • Tuesday:  Compliance and ethics in investigative journalism
  • Wednesday:  Starbucks & CSR
  • Thursday:  Compliance and ethics of online platforms: Twitter
  • Friday:  Happy Good Friday!

Don’t miss it!

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Last week on Compliance Culture

Check out last week’s posts on Compliance Culture, in case you missed or want to revisit them.

Many thanks for reading!

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Selected TED/TEDx talks from Sheena Iyengar on choice theory

Check out these talks by Sheena Iyengar on choice theory.  Mostly from TED or TEDx events, plus one INKtalks video, these lectures provide a great overview to Iyengar’s brilliant work on the psychology of choice in a variety of contexts.  Through Iyengar’s theories of choice, the many influences choosing and decision-making can have over individuals’ lives become vibrant and clear.

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Round-up on compliance issues with online platforms: Instagram

This is the third in a series of six posts on compliance issues with various online platforms.  The first post was about YouTube.  Last week’s post was about Facebook.  Today’s post, the third in the series, will discuss Instagram.  Next week’s post will focus on Twitter.  On April 5, the fifth post in the series will cover Snapchat.  The sixth and last post in the series, on April 12, will be about Reddit.

The photo and video sharing and social media service Instagram was created in 2010 and has been owned by Facebook since 2012. Instagram has evolved massively in popularity, adding users exponentially year after year, and creating features which have inspired huge engagement and imitation on other platforms to take advantage of popular usage of the app, such as thematic hashtags and aesthetically curated content.

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Integrity of game play: Unethical leadership by coaches

This is the fifth in a series of five posts on the topic of integrity of game play. The first post in the series was about the negative impact of player misconduct on sportsmanship and game outcomes. The second post pondered whether tanking can ever be ethical and judged numerous examples of the practice in different sports to assess potential morality of these actions. The third post covered referee bias in different sports, analyzing its prevalence or presumptions of it and how this type of bias may relate to overall ethical decision-making and choice theory.  Last week’s post discussed examples of organizational cheating operations by teams.  Today’s post, the fifth and final in the series, will delve into examples of unethical leadership by coaches.

Coaches are some of the most popular, visible, and influential leaders in society. Their tone and conduct can have a ripple effect on the behavior by and achievements of the players and teams they influence. To the public, coaches often provide the institutional identity for the team, expressing their mission and values in the media as well as defining the terms on which the organization wishes to compete and be known. Within team organizations, coaches are the most important people managers, tasked with both developing individuals and demonstrating operational commitment to the team’s strategy for the game, season, and beyond.

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