CSR: Corporate Ethics In India
In today’s scandal ridden world, ethical businesses have an upper hand in terms of customer retention and brand image. Over the coming decade, the importance of corporate ethics is only going to increase, according to a study.
Currently, the investments in corporate compliance programs is at all time high in the Asia Pacific region. According to a survey from EY, a partner firm of Ernst and Young Global limited, on corporate ethics and governance, the unethical practices in India’s business community is rife. In fact, India was ranked the most unethical of 13 major economies in the 2016 Global Business Ethics Survey.
As per the survey, while 60 per cent of the respondents believed that corporate ethics had improved in the country over the last couple of years, 78 per cent of them said that corruption and favouritism still widely prevails in the country. 48 per cent of them said that it was common to accept briberies in exchange for contracts.
The unethical culture seems to be perpetuating from the top of hierarchy. About 57 per cent of employees replied that the managers would often overlook unethical behaviour in favour of corporate targets and growth. About 50 per cent of employees confessed that they felt external pressure to often withhold information about misconduct.
The government of India is certainly taking measures to curb the corruption by passing legislations such as Companies Amendment Bill. This has had a significant impact on the India Inc. However, stricter rules and regulations and better policing of businesses are no solution.
An economy cannot perform at a high level without integrity. This kind of pervasive unethical behaviour existing in India causes destruction of trust. This leads to soaring of the cost of doing business in turn affecting India’s competitiveness and attractiveness as an investment destination in the international market.
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The CSR Journal Team
