Is there any cleavage between the American Ethics & Compliance approach and the European CSR model?
In the last few months I have come to the conclusion that most European Business Ethics theorists think the “European approach” in this field is better from the “US model” and that most European companies have a more ethical management than those based in USA. The ENRON case is the perfect example for the failure of the American model: they used to have the strongest ethics program, but the management turned out to be the most unethical ever. I don’t know if this approach is the result of the new “European” nationalism – and it really doesn’t matter –, but an important consequence is seems to be the low interest in the role of the Ethics & Compliance programs or the Ethics & Compliance Officers. The European companies (advised by those BE theorists) seem more focused on CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) – as CSR would be something different from Ethics & Compliance than on an integrated approach of the two related aspects, i.e., ethics and compliance. Do you see this cleavage? Is
