The Ethics Resource Center (ERC) wanted to know if the “American worker is becoming wary of more regulation” … so it compared a 2010 Gallup poll to its own survey data from 2009.

The conclusion? It sure looks that way.

The ERC’s 2009 National Business Ethics Survey data (collected during the middle of the year) showed that U.S. employees felt the following regarding business regulations:

• About the right amount: 21 percent

• Too much: 38 percent

• Too little: 41 percent

A January 2010 Gallup poll of U.S. workers shows that their feelings may be changing:

• About the right amount: 23 percent

• Too much: 50 percent

• Too little: 24 percent

That’s the latest “EthicsStat” from the ERC. Now for the inspiration … more

Zing!

A peppery interview with “Madoff whistle-blower” Harry Markopolos recently appeared in the decidedly mainstream publishing environs of the New York Times Magazine.

In the Q&A, Markopolos (who conducted a lengthy, and nearly fruitless, effort to persuade the SEC that Bernard Madoff was a fraud), provides a mass audience with some unflattering inside baseball.

As someone who has for years heard diss-y opinions about SEC commissioners and staffers (in strictly off-the-record conversations with regulatory insiders) it is, well, kind of wild to see Markopolos describe the following SEC officials to millions of readers in these words:

• James Donaldson: “Too tough on Wall Street, so he got the ax.”

• Christopher Cox: “He wasn’t going to do his job. That’s why he got the job.”

• Mary Schapiro: “Coldly polite.” And

• David Becker: “Ready to come across the coffee table and strangle me.”

Becker is current SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro’s general counsel. more

Do enterprise cost reduction efforts cause ethical misconduct among employees?

This question poses a potentially troubling connection … and a new survey report provides a dispiriting answer: quite possibly.

The report is an addendum to the 2009 Ethics Resource Center’s recent update to its ongoing National Business Ethics Survey, which I blogged about here.

Here’s the jarring introduction to this research brief:

“In order to address changing needs and to weather financial struggles, companies often have to make difficult decisions that impact employees’ lives at — and outside of — work.

“Companies use a variety of tactics (adjusted work schedules, layoffs, reductions in compensation and/or benefits, hiring freezes, early buyouts, production slowdowns, and plant closures). Research conducted as a part of the 2009 National Business Ethics Survey reveals that all of these tactics are related to significant increases in the number of employees observing misconduct.”

The five-page brief offers five findings and five related take-aways based on an analysis of responses to the Business Ethics Survey data. more

Leave it to an engineer to crystallize one of the toughest challenges companies face after putting in place an enterprise risk management (ERM) approach.

“Any system that is set in motion requires some energy to keep going,” notes Trinidad and Tobago-based Phoenix Park Gas Processors Limited (PPGPL) President Eugene Tiah (a former engineer who also earned his MBA). “For this reason, we are committed to sustaining our effort and continually improving our ERM capabilities over time.”

Tiah and Dominic Rampersad, Phoenix Park vice president of finance and information technology (IT), spoke to me at length last month about their ERM journey. The results of these conversations and other research can be found in this case study.

I’ll include more information about Phoenix Park’s impressive effort in future posts.

The company – which employs approximately 180 people, posts annual revenue of about $700 million and is jointly owned by NGC NGL Company Limited, ConocoPhillips Inc., and a GE Energy Financial Services company (10 percent) – undertook a formal ERM effort in 2008 to achieve three objectives. more

At a meeting earlier today, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reaffirmed its intention to require that U.S. publicly listed companies move to global accounting standards.

This is no surprise; the important outcome of today’s meeting was the announcement of a “Work Plan” (that is to be created).

Among other objectives, the Work Plan will “aid the [SEC] in its evaluation of the impact that the use of IFRS by U.S. companies would have on the U.S. securities market. Included in this Work Plan will be consideration of IFRS, as it exists today and after the completion of various ‘convergence projects’ currently underway between U.S. and international accounting standards-setters.”

As this release explains, the SEC expects to finally decide exactly how and when to incorporate “by 2011.” ###