Corporate Codes of Conduct: The Effects of Code Content and Quality on Ethical Performance, Patrick M. Erwin, Journal of Business Ethics, April 2011
Researchers in this study first compiled benchmarking analyses by the Ethisphere Institute, which included 392 international companies from 15 industries and evaluated codes of conduct based on 8 categories of performance. They then compared these companies with companies on “best of” lists related to sustainability, corporate citizenship, ethical practices, and consumer perception. To include companies who were not on any of the four lists, they also analyzed companies that had both ethical ratings and code of conduct benchmarking in the 2008 Covalence Ethical Rankings. Lastly, the researchers compared each company’s code of conduct grade with its ethical performance rating.
