Review

Dr Peter Saul
www.petersaul.com.au

Attracta Lagan has been consulting in the area of business ethics in Australia for many years both with the St James Ethics Centre and currently as director of KPMG's ethics and sustainability practice. This book, written with her partner and colleague Brian Moran, summarises some of what they have learned about ethics in Australian workplaces.

The book's strength - that it offers something for everyone - is also its weakness as it means that the reader has to read through a lot of material that may already be known to them or that may not be of interest to them in order to find the pearls of wisdom that they can use. The authors do not clearly aim their writing at any particular one of the following potential audiences:

• the individual worker trying to come to grips with the ethical dilemmas they face in their work
• the senior manager determined to create an ethical workplace culture
• the learning and development professional charged with designing an ethics training program
• the consultant wishing to develop their understanding of the area and of the market opportunities that it may present
• investors and business partners seeking to learn how to identify ethical companies that they may wish to invest in or do business with.

The book is often quite evangelical in tone; e.g. 'Good corporations will...'. Evidence, in the form of case studies of good and bad ethical practice, is discussed and statistics are presented on the growing number of companies having ethical or sustainability or corporate social responsibility policies. However, the reality of business (in my experience) is still that the overwhelming focus of the vast majority of senior managers is on financial performance and shareholder return. Even our political leaders seem to sustain electoral success despite being found out in lies and other ethically dubious practices. I would have liked more acknowledgements by the authors of these divergences from their view of the future with perhaps some discussion of why the social forces they identify for ethical good practice are not more forcibly ranging against these laggards in the journey to an ethical future. Why is it that the Australian economy and sharemarket is booming when we are only at the dawn of an era of widespread ethical corporate behaviour?

There are also a few inconsistencies; e.g. on p. 62 the authors claim that 'Every organisational member needs to be clear that it is the organisation's values that take priority at work' and on p. 81 they claim that 'employees... cannot abdicate accountability for their choice of workplace behaviour' as it is through these value-based choices that we define who we are as human beings. 'We cannot wait until we are out of the workplace to become the sort of person we wish to be...'.

In a Nutshell

The message of the book can be summarised as: The rules of business are changing and will continue to change and companies are increasingly being judged and held accountable by their various stakeholders not only for what they produce and sell but also by how they do it and what they stand for as a corporate global citizen; therefore ethics is a topic that everyone in business must learn more about as it will increasingly affect their performance and that of their company whether they like it or not. Our values, actions and our relationships with others define who we are and shape the society in which we live.

I share the authors' vision of a more ethical future for the world of work, but let me ask you: Are you pushing for higher corporate ethics at shareholders meetings of the companies you (and your superannuation fund) have invested in?