Ethical Culture Assessment

The Assessment of Organizational Beliefs and Values survey tool is conducted by the Center for Corporate Ethics to discover the ethical climate and key values of the client organization. The survey is divided into four major sections:

  • Values asks respondents to choose the values most important to them in daily life. Respondents relate the use of those values by others in their organization. The aggregated data for this section is used to determine the most prevalent ethical values in the organization's workforce and how well people's values at different levels are perceived to be aligned.
  • Ethical Environment looks for employees' perceptions of pressure for ethical conduct as well as their assessments of ethical performance at different levels in the organization and its stakeholders.
  • Professional Ethics asks respondents to indicate their levels of awareness about the ethics of others in the organization and to state whether the organization is "walking its talk." Moreover, employees will indicate what values would be most effective in guiding the ethics of the organization and how those values would be best applied.
  • Demographics section asks pertinent questions about respondents' roles in the organization. This information will be analyzed to understand similarities and disconnects among departments, regions, job functions, age, and tenure within the company.

The Institute designed the survey in coordination with values expert and analyst, Dr. William Loges, currently engaged at Oregon State University (click here to read his full C.V.). Our experience with the survey allows us to describe with confidence the conditions that we encounter through an organization's responses. The survey provides an excellent assessment tool for creating or revising a code of ethics and for designing the code training.

Repeating the survey after a suitable amount of time can yield valuable results in measuring the success of your company's ethics program.

Focus Groups and Interviews

CCE also has the capability to explore attitudes and beliefs, legends, dilemmas, and trends through its interviews and focus groups. Working face to face can confirm what the survey finds as well as uncover rich detail to explain survey responses. Conversations with the moral leaders of an organization can help CCE understand and decode the language, the traditions, the important stories, the industrial environment, and corporate policies necessary to construct or revise an ethics program.

Please phone (800-729-2615) or e-mail us for more information.