orporate ethics programmes were like hummingbirds in the 1950s. You didn’t see one often and when you did it seemed too delicate to survive. Now, these curiosities have proved their sturdiness, flourishing and migrating steadily from their historical home in Europe and the US to Asia, Africa and Latin America. Most of the 500 largest corporations in the US now boast a code of ethics, and the proportion among a broader collection of US companies has risen to 80 per cent. Similarly, a recent study of FTSE 350 companies and nonquoted companies of equivalent size undertaken by the London Business School and Arthur Andersen showed that 78 per cent of the responding companies had a code of conduct, compared with 57 per cent three years ago. In the 1950s, ethics programmes were the personal creations of charismatic leaders, such as General Johnson who fashioned Johnson & Johnson’s Credo statement; today they are produced by a wide variety of organisations. They encompass not only written standards of conduct, but internal education schemes, formal agreements on industry standards, ethics offices, social accounting techniques and social projects. The popularity of ethics programmes raises several questions. Do they deliver what they promise in making companies more ethical? Do they aid companies in achieving traditional performance measures such as return on investment or customer satisfaction? And, should companies institute new programmes, or perhaps change the ones they have? The vogue for ethics programmes does not resolve the most common theoretical question asked of business ethics, namely, what counts as ethical? Even the socially screened investment movement that specialises in assessing stocks for ethical characteristics often seems confused. Consider the tendency of such funds to screen out the “sin” stocks of tobacco, alcohol and firearms. As a result, hightech stocks, ones unlikely to produce sinning products, have become darlings of such funds. But while Microsoft, for example, will probably never produce wine and so almost always finds itself on the screened funds’ lists, it has been found in violation of US anti-trust laws, a sin greater in some people’s eyes than fermenting grapes. Ethics programmes, however, offer a solution to the question of what is ethical by simply decreeing an answer. It makes little difference to Motorola whether other companies agree or disagree that its principle of “uncompromising integrity” prohibits even small payments in countries where bribery is common. Motorola is content to set the standard for itself. Similarly, programmes created by industries or international organisations decree their own rules, although they often make use of existing standards as templates. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) recent prohibitions on companies based in member countries from engaging in foreign bribery were developed through extensive discussion among participating countries, although they contain precepts seen earlier in the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Corporate ethics programmes have spread widely, yet no evidence suggests this growth is the result of a decline in standards. Studies indicate that between 25 and 60 per cent of employees in any given year admit to having seen ethical misbehaviour, depending upon the context in which the question is asked. What, then, has driven the ethics boom? Likely factors include the stronger focus by the media on corporate conduct, increased government pressure and growing maturity of business institutions. Recently, media exposure of labour standards in Asia prompted a cascade of initiatives by companies such as Nike in the US and Puma in Germany. Moreover, people have seen that companies reeling from media and C Ethics schemes have spread, yet no evidence suggests this is the result of a fall in standards ‘‘ Adding corporate ethics to the bottom line

Business and Society

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

(1992). Architecture: The Story of Practice. Journal of Architectural Education: Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 61-62.

Architecture: The Story of Practice

Towards integrating construction risk management and stakeholder management: A systematic literature review and future research agendas

The construction industry in Ghana, like many others worldwide, has had its fair share of damning independent reviews. Huge and unsustainable foreign debt, excessive budget deficits, huge contractual payment arrears, poor construction performance, corruption and pressure from international financial institutions, forced the government to commit to a reform of public procurement, which culminated in the passing of the Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 663). The paper outlines the events leading to, and features of, the public procurement reform in Ghana and analyses its potential impact and the unique challenges it presents. Comparisons are also drawn from relevant scenarios in other countries. The paper concludes that while the Procurement Act sets out the legal, institutional and regulatory framework to secure fiscal transparency and public accountability, the sole reliance on traditional contracting and price-based selection limits the scope for the value for money achievable. Expanding the reforms to cover procurement and project delivery methods and strategies, with a focus on ‘best value’, will increase the potential and likelihood of achieving value for money in public construction in Ghana.

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Taking forward public procurement reforms in Ghana

Over the past decade, Public–Private Partnership Policy has increasingly been adopted by governments over the world and the Ghanaian Government is no exception. This paper explores the key reasons ...

Reasons for adopting Public–Private Partnership (PPP) for construction projects in Ghana

A review of stakeholder management performance attributes in construction projects

In Ghana, the operating environment for construction firms is constantly changing in the face of a volatile economic environment, shifting political climate and a highly competitive market. Confronted with such instability, companies need strategic planning to combat the threat to their survival. A survey was conducted to determine how widespread strategic planning is used as a management tool by contractors in Ghana. Construction firms with classification A1B1, A2B2, D1 and D2 were used in the survey. Only 8.5% of D2 firms use strategic planning. The other firms have a combined average of 86.7%. Civil engineering contractors are far ahead of the building contractors in the practice of strategic planning. Strategic plans are drawn to cover an average of three years. There is an urgent need for contractors in the D2 class to be encouraged to seek insight into strategic planning and employ the technique to enhance their chances of surviving risks in the business environment.

Ayirebi Dansoh

Papers

Reasons for adopting Public–Private Partnership (PPP) for construction projects in Ghana

A review of stakeholder management performance attributes in construction projects

Strategic planning practice of construction firms in Ghana

The factors affecting construction performance in Ghana: the perspective of small-scale building contractors

Root causes of conflict and conflict resolution mechanisms in public-private partnerships: Comparative study between Ghana and China