Kudos to Deloitte LLP chairman Sharon Allen for her commitment to exploring GRC practices.

Two years ago, Allen commissioned her firm’s first annual “Ethics & Workplace” survey. The first study focused on an interesting relationship: the connection between work-life balance (or “career-life fit”) and ethical behavior on the job. Last year’s study focused on leadership transparency and its relationships to ethics — and productivity — on the job.

This year’s survey concentrates on the GRC-related effects of social networking.

Here are two findings from the current study that caught my attention:

• 58 percent of executives agree that reputational risk and social networking should be a boardroom issue, but only 15 percent of respondents say it actually is; and

• 49 percent of employees say that a company policy change (related to social networking) would not change how they behave online.

The first finding is self-explanatory (wake up, boards). The second finding reinforces the importance of extending GRC efforts beyond rules and into behavior and culture.

This page contains links to the current survey as well as the 2007 and 2009 surveys.

I’ll have more on this survey in my next posting. ###