ITB DIGITAL Sep 2025 v3spreads - Flipbook - Page 48
“For the benefit of both internal and
external stakeholders, the standards
to which an organisation holds
itself and its workforce accountable
must be reviewed regularly.”
F E AT U R E
BELINDA ZOHRAB-MCCONNELL,
CPA AUSTRALIA
These values and principles provide a guiding star
for the policies, structures and frameworks that dictate
how an organisation operates and ensure “a close
alignment between what is said and done”, he says.
Longstaff notes that ethical organisations
promote a culture of curiosity that goes beyond
mere compliance. Such a culture can empower
employees to stay on the “right” path by always
questioning how and why things are done.
“It is not restricted to wondering about things
that appear to be a problem. It is curiosity about
why anything is done,” Longstaff says.
“The two great enemies of achieving an
ethical culture are hypocrisy — where you
say one thing and do something else —
and an unthinking custom and practice,”
he adds.
However, neither is necessarily intentional.
“When ethical failures occur and you talk to
the people involved and ask them, ‘How did
this happen?’, the first thing they will say, quite
truly, is ‘I didn’t see it at the time’, ‘Everybody was
doing it’ or ‘That is just the way things were done’,”
Longstaff explains.
TIPS TO CULTIVATE AN ETHICAL CULTURE
Individual
Organisational
• Clarify job expectations.
• Ask questions.
• Share opportunities for improvement
with the organisation.
• Align actions with internal policies
and procedures.
• Reach out to colleagues and managers
when faced with an ethical dilemma.
• Identify personal values and engage
in self-reflection.
• Model ethical behaviour.
• Set achievable goals with transparent
outcomes.
• Promote a culture of curiosity.
• Encourage employees to raise ethical
concerns at the earliest opportunity.
• Encourage open communication.
• Celebrate ethical principles and include
them in performance evaluations.
• Provide ethics training with experiential
and reflective components.
• Model ethical behaviour.
48 INTHEBLACK Sep/Oct 2025 SPECIAL EDITION
