Ethical Responsibilities: An Empirical Analysis Of The Ethical Codes Of The Top 100 Companies In The United Kingdom

Abstract

In response to ethical dilemmas faced by companies around the globe, companies are developing or refining their ethical codes. Many of these companies communicate these codes to their stakeholders through the company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) report. This paper examines the ethics’ codes of the top 100 companies (based on market capitalization) in the United Kingdom. A sample of CSR reports for these companies is examined to determine if the company includes its ethical code in the CSR report, if it reports its ethical code in a separate document, or if it does not disclose the code.