The Ethics Bell Curve model

A tool to analyse and define your organisation’s ethics programme

The focus on workplace ethics – maintained by on-going ethical scandals – is widely shared by boards and leadership within the private and public sectors (excluding those entities still fighting to maintain the ‘benefits’ of an unethical approach!). Assuming that most (many?) organisations have the intention to behave ethically, the achievement of an ethical culture should follow. But that outcome rests on the quality of ethical understanding within the organisation about what to do.

This echoes King IV principle 2 that “the governing body should govern the ethics of the organisation in a way that supports the establishment of an ethical culture”. Currently the ethical focus is arguably mostly centred on what went wrong when there is an ethical breach, sometimes on who did what wrong, and very occasionally on guilty parties actually being held accountable and facing consequences.

A practical approach that can add value is a focus on what organisations can and should do to address ethics more effectively, which is what the Ethics Bell Curve model addresses. It provides a practical framework to analyse ethics within an organisation and to define what action is warranted to improve ethical conduct and to create an ethical culture. In effect, it provides the outline for an organisation’s ethics programme.

The Ethics Bell Curve model recognises four positions on a bell curve:

  • At the unethical end of the curve are ‘bad’ people who will use every opportunity to do bad things.
  • The people occupying the middle space are often ambivalent – neither inherently ‘bad’ nor necessarily consciously or deeply committed to ethics – and hence they are open to being influenced positively or negatively. This translates into two positions: ambivalent people who slide towards doing bad things and ambivalent people who respond positively to encouragement to do good things.
  • At the ethical end of the curve are good people who are personally and consciously committed to doing good things.
  • (The model excludes the situation where good people do bad things as a result of coercion by a superior that includes the threat of retaliatory behaviour if they do not comply with the unethical or illegal instruction.)

In order to address ethics effectively within an organisation, all four of these situations need to be recognised. While it would be great if all employees were clustered on the right hand, ethical side of the model, the reality is that employees are more likely to be spread across the full spectrum.

To improve ethical conduct and create an ethical culture, it is necessary
  • to clarify the driving or enabling factors that influence employee behaviour, both unethical and ethical
  • to identify the ethical actions or initiatives that are best suited to address the situation. This encompasses a focus on specific actions to improve or strengthen employee conduct and on supporting organisation-wide ethics action.

The Ethics Bell Curve model therefore moves beyond ethics being focused just on compliance and preventing misconduct to instead rest on a dual focus: on minimising (if not eliminating) unethical conduct and on expanding, entrenching and institutionalising ethical conduct.

The model depicts typical driving or enabling factors and the ethical actions that are best suited to that situation. By populating the model with the pertinent driving or enabling factors in each organisation, the model can be customised to serve as a useful guide for an organisation’s ethics programme.

ETHICS BELL CURVE MODEL
Scale
Unethical conduct.........................................................................................................................Ethical conduct
Ethical Focus on
Preventing bad people from doing bad things Preventing ambivalent people from doing bad things Encouraging ambivalent people to do good things Supporting good people doing good things
Driving or enabling factors of employee’s conduct
Largely extrinsic factors ………………….......….......................……………………………… Intrinsic factors are key
  • Opportunity e.g. lax controls
  • Low levels of accountability
  • Culture or context where misconduct is widespread
  • Motivation or pressure e.g. financial pressure
  • Rationalisation e.g. “everyone is doing it”
  • Low risk of any consequences: benefit wins in a cost:benefit analysis
  • Negative leadership role models
  • Low levels of accountability
  • Culture or context where misconduct is widespread
  • Rationalisation e.g. “everyone is doing it”
  • Low risk of any consequences: benefit wins in a cost:benefit analysis
  • Positive leadership role models
  • High levels of accountability
  • Culture or context where ethical conduct is widespread
  • High levels of ethical awareness
  • High likelihood of consequences: cost dominates in a cost:benefit analysis
  • Strong, clear and/or conscious personal values and ethics
  • Commitment to the organisation’s values and to creating an ethical culture
  • Positive leadership role models
  • Culture or context where ethical conduct is widespread
Specific ethical action
  • Rules + controls + accountability + visible consequences
  • Rules + controls + accountability + consequences
  • Training for ethical choice and conduct
  • Improve the organisation’s culture to be a positive factor
  • Address the impact of the negative external context
  • Training for ethical choice and conduct
  • Ethics conversations
  • Leverage the positive impact of the organisation’s culture
  • Address the impact of the negative external context
  • Recognition
  • Develop into ethics champions
  • Ethics conversations
  • Strengthen the organisation’s ethical culture
  • Address the impact of the negative external context
Crucial supporting organisation-wide ethical action
  • Regular ethics awareness initiatives to keep ethics top of mind. This should include ethics awareness initiatives, encompassing an ethics communication plan and engaging ethics activations and interesting ethics training interventions.
  • Effective ethics codes and policies that are enforced fairly and consistently
  • Effective governance structures the ensure good levels of accountability
  • An ethics strategy that prioritises ethics as an organisational goal and provides ethical direction.
  • An annual ethics assessment – qualitative and quantitative – customised to provide insight about the organisation’s current ethical status, to identify where to act to improve ethics and realise ethical goals, and to monitor ethical progress or regression.
Outcome
  • Ethical conduct and an ethical culture

by Cynthia Schoeman
© Ethics Monitoring & Management Services (Pty) Ltd, 2019