RAND C&E symposium report now available

The RAND Corporation has just published a  symposium report entitled Corporate Culture and Ethical Leadership Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines: What Should Boards, Management, and Policymakers Do Now?  You can download a free, searchable PDF here.

On May 16, 2012, RAND brought together a group of public company directors and executives, chief ethics and compliance officers, and stakeholders from the government, academic, and nonprofit sectors for a series of conversations about organizational culture, as well as to explore the business and policy ramifications of efforts to build better ethical cultures in corporations. The symposium discussions featured a range of viewpoints on the history and progress of compliance initiatives, the barriers to achieving a strong ethical culture within corporations, and what corporate boards, executives, and policymakers can do to cultivate such cultures.  Symposium participants put forward a range of solutions, many of which sought to overcome the common tendency to view compliance as a legal issue more so than a cultural one. The symposium  was chaired by Donna Boehme of Compliance Strategists LLC and RAND’s Michael Greenberg, and participants included former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh and former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson.

Four RAND invited white papers (attached to the report) may be of particular interest:

– David Gebler, president of Skout Group, LLC, a      corporate consultancy, “The Start of the Slippery Slope: Why Leaders      Must Manage Culture to Create a Sustainable Ethics and Compliance Program.”

– Patrick Gnazzo, principal of Better Business Practices      LLC, and Keith Darcy, executive director of the Ethics and Compliance      Officer Association, “Preventing Corporate Crime: What Boards and      Management Should Do Next to Support Ethical Culture and Stronger C&E      Programs.”

– Jeffrey Kaplan of Kaplan & Walker LLP (me), “Semi-Tough: A Short History of Compliance and Ethics Program Law.”

– Joseph Murphy, director of public policy at the Society      for Corporate Compliance and Ethics, “Over 20 Years Since the Federal      Sentencing Guidelines: What Government Can Do Next to Support Effective      Compliance and Ethics Programs.”

This is the fourth in a series of symposia reports from the RAND Center for Corporate Ethics & Governance, a body of work which is considered by many in the field as  a “must read”  and a highly valued contribution to thought leadership in compliance, ethics and governance. Proceedings from the prior symposia are also available through the link above.