Ethical and Compliance-Competence Evaluation: a key element of sound corporate governance

Motivated by the ongoing post-Enron refocusing on corporate governance and the shift by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in the UK to promoting compliance-competence within the financial services sector, this paper demonstrates how template analysis can be used as a tool for evaluating compliance-competence. Focusing on the ethical dimension of compliance-competence, we illustrate how this can be subjectively appraised. We propose that this evaluation technique could be utilised as a starting point in informing senior management of corporate governance issues and be used to monitor and demonstrate key compliance and ethical aspects of an institution to external stakeholders and regulators. Copyright (c) 2007 The Authors; Journal compilation (c) 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.