Ethics audits should be done by independent outside ethics officer.

An ethics audit by an outside expert ethics consultant is the best way for an organization to assess its business culture, its strength and weaknesses, and the company's available resources within itself for regeneration or new growth. Management uses that knowledge to move the company upward.

A committed executive demands an independent outside financial auditor. Likewise a committed executive demands an independent ethics auditor.

You want an effective business ethics culture in your company. Executives and employees that make ethical business decisions. An ethics compliance system that works. Employees trained with practical knowledge and given tools to provide superior performance. Do you want to actually know how close you are to those goals?

An outside expert is the only way to objectively assess the ethics world in which your corporate employees and officers think they live. Only when officers have an objective assessment can executives make the decisions to move the company as it needs to be moved.

Corporate management needs knowledge. The ethics culture of a company involves the relationship among (1) responsible corporate behavior, (2) corporate profitability and (3) litigation risk. These relationships are built on internal corporate cultural processes for the treatment of customers, community, employees, and suppliers. The ethical culture of a company preserves, protects, and advances the company. Management needs to know the company's actual cultural world, its values, and its relationship structures.

"Most people do what they think is right, considering the world they think they live in."
Marvin Brown, The Ethical Process p.14 (2nd ed.)

What is your company's ethics world?

An ethics audit shows the corporate world in which your employees live.

A special word on the need for experts with prestige doing your ethics audit.

If you are a corporate general counsel, you may want assurance that the company ethics culture will pass muster if the government ever considers possible administrative or criminal charges. To pass the federal gaze, the company and its top management must have implemented what the government prosecutor and judge call effective measures. That means meeting the standards of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Certainly, using an outside consultant for an ethics audit will allow you (company and corporate counsel) to say you have been fulfilling the mandate of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines to monitor the effectiveness of the company's ethics compliance program.

In choosing your outside consultant organization you may want to consider experts that have prestige and reputation. It's good government and public relations to do so. is a corporate ethics round table group which provides high credibility, recognized experts (PhD and JD quality) for corporate ethics audits.

Talk to us; you may have found, right now, an impressive group of experts available for the task.

An audit by the experts (PhD and JD level)

is objective. If there are specific issues for management attention, we will not only identify them, but also suggest remedial approaches for you to consider.

Normally, we start a discussion of an audit you want done by having short confidential interviews with one or two key top executives. This input lets us advise you on the suggested scope of assessment. and the departments, geographical units, or functional areas to be included in the assessment. The specific process, timetable, and budget can then be decided.

After we get the go-ahead from you, we'll get the ethics audit done, with the appropriate surveys and other methodology. What we do is only used if appropriate for your company, and only after the methodology is discussed with high level executives.

An ethics audit tells management what is the actual corporate culture.

A special word on the need for experts with prestige doing your ethics audit.

An ethics audit tells management what is
the actual corporate culture.