MyCIMA

Ethics and strategy

Victor Smart's picture

CIMA has just published a report on incorporating ethics into strategy. Can I encourage you to take a look and comment on the CIMA ethics report.

With Toyota seeing its business dented as it puts growth above ethical relations with customers, the collapse of Lehman Brothers, etc, ethics are now mainstream to business survival. Meanwhile it's apparent that just about everyone has given up on annual report and accounts as a meaningful way of informing investors or the public.

There are moves afoot to get companies worldwide to adopt so-called connected reporting, taking into account the impact on the environment of business. Management information about how natural resources are used etc, is key to this. Maybe management accountants can help save the world...

A thought-provoking, considered report

Many thanks to all who put this together; it's timely, helpful, and supports those of us trying to make ethical behaviour as natural as breathing.

Just one caveat; the climate-change debate has gone seriously off-course because of arguments over data manipulation, and if we follow the temptation to simplify things into "unethical behaviour isn't sustainable, ethical behaviour is", then this debate could go the same way. We've been losing the "war on drugs" for a couple of generations, and tobacco companies are still perfectly legal around 400 years after Sir Walter Raleigh found that, fire or not, there's profit in smoke; so that suggests unethical business practices aren't intrinsically unsustainable. They fail only when there's a paradigm shift that involves customers, businesses and regulators.

So let's keep on-message; ethics are just as good for short-term gain as they are for long-term sustainability. 

Who sees this report?

Hi Victor Out of interest how is this report used? I mean who is it given to? Why was the report written? I'm just curious that's all. Cheers Dominic

Strategy and ethics

Hi Dominic

The reports are part our thought leadership - we plan to produce around a dozen a year. They are intended to be global with a good number of case studies and are our way of informing the public debate about issues and they give us valuable profile. The principal way of getting the report out is via the PDF version available on the cimaglobal.com website. Search engines direct people around the world to this. A few hard copies are also produced and sent to people like NGOs and governments.  The next one is going to be global perspectives on goverance ahead of the World Congress of Accountants conference in KL later in the year.  Hope that helps!

Thanks

Ok, thanks for letting me know