Good news from the Ethics Resource Center’s late-2009 update to its ongoing National Business Ethics Survey:

• Misconduct is decreasing: Fewer employees said they had witnessed misconduct on the job (the measure fell from 56 percent in 2007 to 49 percent in 2009);

• Whistle-blowing is increasing: More employees said they had reported misconduct when they observed it (63 percent in 2009, up from 58 percent in 2007);

• Ethical cultures are becoming stronger: ERC’s measures of the strength of ethical culture in the workplace increased from 53 percent in 2007 to 62 percent in 2009; and

• Pressure to cut corners is dropping: Perceived pressure to commit an ethics violation – to cut corners, or worse – declined from 10 percent 2 years ago to 8 percent last year.

(The ERC updates the survey every 2 years.)

Here’s the bad news: The good news may soon evaporate.

“We are experiencing an ethics bubble,” according to the report’s executive summary. “The positive results of this study are likely to be temporary. We are beginning to see an important connection between workplace ethics and the larger economic and business cycle: When times are tough, ethics improve.” ###