Ethical behavior and social responsibility in organizations: process and evaluation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show the difficulty inherent in maintaining long‐term ethical behaviours in organisations. Such ethical behaviours are not always clearly identified in terms of their priorities, and interpretation methods (laws, directives, rating agencies) highlight the heterogeneity of indicators and processes. Design/methodology/approach – The paper shows that an exploratory qualitative survey, based on interviews with managers and company documents, was conducted on a panel of six organisations to explore their key ethical points and identified weaknesses (interviews, company and/or rating agency documents). The reality surrounding these companies, rated in accordance with their social responsibility and ethical behaviours, demonstrates a major inadequacy to clarify their conduct and a dilution of values when taking action. Findings – The paper is based on past research; the author proposes three guiding questions aimed at palliating the difficulties faced in maintaining ethical behaviours both in time and in the geographical space. It explores a series of processes permitting the establishment of points of reference and the subsequent evaluation of the different stages, focusing on the values ensuring a performance link and strengthening the managerial axis as a vector of ethics. Originality/value – The paper challenges the notion of ratings based on non‐long‐term effects, yet, while underlining the difficulty of the exercise, also proposes possible solutions to ensure sustainability. It takes account of the limitations of a debate based on an exploratory survey, but opens the way for subsequent research connecting the proposed paths to the concept of sustainable ethics inscribed in the context of overall performance.