How to close the integrity gap between intention and action

Photographic portrait of Ramesh Moosa
Ramesh Moosa

EY Asean and Singapore Forensic & Integrity Services Leader

4 minute read 01 Apr 2021
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With the COVID-19 pandemic heightening risks to business integrity, a robust integrity agenda is more crucial than ever.

In brief

  • The COVID-19 crisis has greatly increased the risk of unethical business conduct.
  • The Integrity Agenda helps to bridge the gap between organizational intentions and behaviors.
  • Critical actions include incorporating integrity into the organizational culture, fostering trusted third-party relationships and safeguarding data.

As the COVID-19 crisis drives companies to review their recovery strategies, it is imperative for them to build transparency and integrity into their responses. The pandemic has significantly heightened the risk of unethical business conduct due to the disruption to supply chains and work patterns, as well as its negative impact on employment for many companies.

According to the latest EY Global Integrity Report: emerging markets perspective (pdf), nearly two-thirds of respondents (63%) believe that it is difficult for companies to maintain standards of integrity in periods of rapid change or difficult market conditions.

However, integrity is the cornerstone to success and cannot be compromised. The EY Global Integrity Report 2020 (pdf) suggests that the benefits of demonstrating organizational integrity go beyond the avoidance of fines and can actually improve business performance. Those that foster strong partnerships with key stakeholders based on trust have more robust and agile operations that can adapt quickly as unexpected events such as the COVID-19 pandemic unfold.

Mismatch between intent and reality

Even as executives acknowledge the importance of integrity to their companies’ long-term sustainability and success, 35% of respondents in the survey believe that unethical behavior in their organization is often tolerated when the people involved are senior or high performers. Furthermore, close to half believe that there are managers in their organization who would sacrifice integrity for short-term financial gain. 

Often, the announced intentions of an organization to ensure integrity may be clear: policies and codes of conduct are in place, and senior leaders demonstrate commitment via formal and informal communications. Yet, the challenge lies in ensuring that the actions of leaders and other employees match up to the intentions. To close the gap between intentions and behaviors, companies can focus on the Integrity Agenda.

The Integrity Agenda is a framework for success built on a core set of four elements — culture, governance, data insights and controls — that align an individual’s actions with an organization’s objectives. It helps companies to stay true to their missions, keep their promises, respect laws and ethical norms, and foster public trust in the free enterprise system.

Integrity agenda

Companies can focus on the Integrity Agenda to help close the gap between their intentions to ensure integrity and actual behaviors.

How EY can Help

Three critical actions to preserve integrity

 

An effective integrity agenda can help businesses to protect themselves from emerging threats, survive and thrive. Based on EY research, companies need to take three critical actions to preserve integrity.

 

The first is to embed integrity into the organizational culture to help protect against unethical conduct. Acting with integrity is more than a mission statement and not just guided by written policies. It is a personal quality that everyone in an organization should develop, including the CEO, board and other stakeholders. Each of these parties is an ambassador for the organization and their behaviors reflect the true values of a business.

 

The second action is to foster trusted relationships with third parties based on integrity. As companies expand, they increasingly rely on third parties to act on their behalf across a variety of markets. Companies that have trusted relationships with third parties tend to have more resilient supply chains and loyal customers than those that operate purely on a transactional basis.

 

The final action is to safeguard data to access its value by embedding ethical data management. Technological advances have optimized operations and helped companies to access new insights from their ever-increasing data. However, adoption of these tools requires an adequate assessment of the risks and proper implementation — including training — to ensure that they do not bring about ethical or legal ramifications for the organization.

How EY can Help

Effective controls and procedures that embed integrity into daily operations should underpin the above actions. Technology can also help to facilitate compliance alongside controls and procedures. Companies need systems for tracking and implementing new industry regulations and embedding them in operating controls, as well as monitoring third-party due diligence to ensure that the organization can trust its supplier and partner ecosystem.

 

Companies should focus on improving the effectiveness of compliance programs by assessing the corporate culture, controls and governance from an integrity perspective, and leveraging new technologies to provide better data insights.

 

Those that are successful and sustainable are guided by integrity as the foundation for embedding trust among their ecosystem of stakeholders, including employees, customers, investors and regulators. In a world of continued uncertainty, the only constant must be doing the right thing — because it is the right thing to do.

Summary

The Integrity Agenda is a framework for success built on the key elements of culture, governance, data insights and controls that align an individual’s actions with an organization’s objectives.

Companies also need to take three critical actions to preserve integrity. These include embedding integrity into the organizational culture, fostering trusted third-party relationships and safeguarding data.

About this article

Photographic portrait of Ramesh Moosa
Ramesh Moosa
EY Asean and Singapore Forensic & Integrity Services Leader
Forensic and cyber professional. Leads highly talented teams serving multinational organizations. Agile and adaptable in any environment. Aspiring chef. Bike and car enthusiast.
Related topics
Assurance
Forensics
Risk
Data and decision intelligence

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