Accenture_codes.

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1 Accenture’s Code of Business Ethics Student's Name: Institutional Affiliation: Course Name and Number: Date:

2 Table of Contents Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 3 Case Synopsis .................................................................................................................................. 3 Analysis of the issues ....................................................................................................................... 4 Evaluation ........................................................................................................................................ 6 Recommendations ............................................................................................................................ 7 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 8 Bibliography .................................................................................................................................... 9

3 Accenture’s Code of Business Ethics Introduction Leaders of Accenture's Compliance and Ethics program have been looking for a new business code of ethics to manage their global workforce surpassing four hundred thousand workers. Accenture has become a big professional company with employees in over one hundred and twenty countries serving their clients over the years. The company formulated its business ethics and compliance to fit the changing world. However, the printed code of ethics did not meet the employees' expectations. The code of conduct was not aligned with the compliance and policies developed around the resultant codes. Accenture eventually began sketching the course of the new code of conduct that could facilitate company development. Accenture was trying to address the following questions such as; what should the code express? How can the company communicate the tradeoff to people of different ages? What is the tradeoff between aspirational and detailed rule description of value? The Accenture board realized that they needed to spend considerable resources to develop such a code of conduct. This paper seeks to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of Accenture's code of conduct and provide various recommendations. Case Synopsis Accenture's code of conduct was too long and scanty. People could not trace the information they required in it. The company presented the code in a PDF format which, at that time, it was a form of art. However, the codes of ethics were comprehensive, but their complexity could prevent people from accessing information (Soltes, 2019 pg. 1-10). Accenture organized its business code of ethics that revolved around six core values. First, the business code of ethics was based on client value creation, which involves acting responsibly by being responsive to customers' claims. The business would build a long-term relationship customer

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4 base by allowing the customers to become high-performance businesses. Secondly, Accenture developed One Global Network that could leverage customer services globally. The company needed to learn exceptional services that create an ideal environment for their customers wherever they wish to do business by creating the power of global insight, collaboration, and building good customer relationships. Thirdly, it valued diversity and unique contributions that facilitate respect for the individual. The company fosters a trusting environment that reflects Accenture's core values. Fourth, Accenture leveraged an attractive environment for retaining and nurturing new talents following the company's codes of ethics. The company observes what is referred to as "Best people" by creating a collaborative and supportive environment ideal for doing business. Fifth, the code was meant to inspire honesty and trust to promote business ethically by saying what the company means, matching Accenture's behavior to what they say, and taking responsibility for their actions. Lastly, the code was intended to satisfy Accenture's duties to generate a stronger, better, and long-lasting company that would serve future generations. The company's brand needed to be protected at all costs to ensure that they meet its promises to the shareholders (Soltes, 2019 pg. 1-10). Analysis of the issues In any organization, leaders play a vital role in establishing a value-based climate. Ethical values are crucial to any organization as they help the leaders transform the company according to their values, mission, vision, and the shareholders' expectations. The leaders formulate a mechanism that influences stakeholders to develop ethical values to increase the shared perception to build up the organization climate (Grojean et al., 2004 pg. 223-241). Leaders in any organization give direction and enable processes that work towards realizing the goals and objectives of a selected company. Financial and productivity are left in the hands of leaders who

5 ensure standards of ethical conduct are met in accordance. Accenture is made up of a great team that ensures that all its workers follow the company's core values. The team visualizes what should be contained in the code of conduct and what should be removed or updated. The code of conduct is essential to the company as they are structured to meet marketing strategy that would facilitate growth and expansion of the industry (Soltes, 2019 pg. 1-10). In Accenture Company, the workers views the ethics as confusing as they could not access the information from the huge PDF file. The leaders' responsibility is to ensure that employees, partners, and major stakeholders understand that ethical culture is simple and clear. Certainly, weak leadership demonstrates poor ethical conduct in the business operation. This has led many firms to be involved in scandals that have facilitated their collapse. Through direct leaders' actions, they demonstrate enormous effect within the organization. A good team that participates directly or indirectly in business management facilitates developing an ethical tone in the organization. The organization climate entails the perception of the organization's practices and procedures divided among the shareholders and guides ethical codes. In Accenture, the CEO, General Counsel, and the chief executive officer determine the code of conduct to be practiced with the organization. They evaluated the performance of their industries by analyzing the integrity program (Soltes, 2019 pg. 1-10). A suitable ethical culture would promote social, economic, and environmental balance when deciding the suppliers in Accenture. A multi-criteria model would be necessary to support the suppliers' selection process based on company sustainability by integrating customers' opinions into managers' decisions. According to Organizational Behavior Conference Symposia (5), the model could be build-up by three essential phases; the elicitation of the decision-makers based on the criterion and definition of the assigned weight, secondly, the criterion definition,

6 which applies the Copeland method to aggregate the report from the decision-makers and lastly, the multi-classification of suppliers. Considering the customers' and experts' opinions, this would result in the classification of social, economic, and environmental criteria. Evaluation Steike demonstrated that when the leaders evaluate their companies' performance, they look at different codes and benchmarking their primary and multiple audiences, commitment to workers, customers, and shareholders. To develop good ethical conduct, three critical attributes were developed by Rowe, Handa, and Steike. First, the primary function should be structured to serve as a practical guide for workers. The practical guide can also serve as the public commitment for external shareholders that includes; clients, vendors, investors, and regulators. The document would serve as a guide for which the workers would follow and act responsibly. Secondly, the code of ethics should be organized and incorporated with intuitive topics that enable the workers to find a solution for their puzzle with ease. The code would help in the operation of day-to-day operations and make an informed decision in crucial moments. The guide also helps the workers trace relevant policies and procedures that alter daily activities in the company (Mackey et al. 2007 pg. 817-835). Lastly, the leaders wanted to develop an ethical business code that enhances positive development by improving employees' experience when intermingling with the codes (Soltes, 2019 pg. 1-10). The team aimed to strike a national balance for the organization and its employees, clients, and stakeholders. In Accenture, the initial code facilitated an ethical decision-making tool that could be presented briefly, practically, and interactively. Accenture leaders aimed to develop a more feasible structure than PDF, which would be simple, searchable, user-friendly, interactive, and a platform where people workers would raise concerns and access tools with ease. Handa argued

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7 that when an initial business case is presented to a team of leaders, Accenture's General Counsel and Chief Compliance officer developed a challenge to make the workers devoted to time and resources. It should be flexible and great to make the company transform to the required standards. However, the CEO and Chief marketing and communication officer echoed a challenge that Rowe had consulted the international management committee. The process led to the involvement of Fjord, who was in the Accenture digital design studio (Soltes, 2019 pg. 1-10). There was an emerging issue in the code as the company spent a lot of time elaborating structures and the new ethical codes' content. Fjord and marketing and communication leadership took much time to evaluate people would interact with the new codes by visualizing and forecasting the potential users and determining the type of information they need in the future. Accenture's code of ethics protected their client's interests by inspiring them to make informed and responsible decisions. Recommendations Companies should have a different organizational culture where ethics are regarded as part of the organization. In simple terms, culture is regarded as the shared belief of a company's members: customers, workers, and stakeholders. The role of core values in defining the organizational ethos has been stressed consistently. Organizational ethics defines the ethical culture of businesses (Key, 1999 pg. 217-225). In Accenture, the ethical culture predetermines how ethical decisions are made. Pressure to adapt to a certain code may result in unethical behavior. Susan Key suggests that when the organizational culture strengthens ethical behaviors, these behaviors tend to increase. However, when the culture, workers, customers reinforce unethical behavior, and shareholders may replicate it.

8 Besides, although the companies' primary role is to maximize profits, they should focus on profit-making plans and adopt a culture for supporting the entire community regardless of whether it is lucrative or not. Nowadays, many corporations have deviated narrowly from the path of profit maximization to meet other goals (Kolstad, 2007 pg. 137-145). Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is viewed as a tool to maximize profit within the organization, which is a way of conducting business to help Accenture succeed. Conclusion As Accenture looks forward to manage its growing global workforce, there is a need for good ethical business culture. The company should restructure its business before implementing a new code of conduct. Essentially, it is prudent to discuss the factors affecting the company before going for new ones. If the leaders find that a certain code does not operate as per the company's mission, vision, and core values, it should be scrutinized or scraped off immediately. Therefore, it would be important for the company to shift its business culture by building Ethics into Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI improves the governance of decision-making by exploring the world of ethical dilemmas widely. These recommendations would significantly enable Accenture to develop a suitable code of ethics.

9 Bibliography Cath, C. (2018). Governing artificial intelligence: ethical, legal and technical opportunities and challenges. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 376 (2133), 20180080. Grojean, M.W., Resick, C.J., Dickson, M.W. and Smith, D.B., 2004. Leaders, values, and organizational climate: Examining leadership strategies for establishing an organizational climate regarding ethics. Journal of business ethics , 55 (3), pp. 223-241. John M.S, Sean T.H, Bruce J.A, Steve W.J, Robert G.L, Linda K.T, Nikalaos D, & Ann C.P. 2012. Embedding Ethical Leadership within and across Organization Levels. Academay of Management Journal. Vol 55(5), pp. 27 Key, S., 1999. Organizational ethical culture: Real or imagined? Journal of Business Ethics , 20 (3), pp. 217-225 Kolstad, I., 2007. Why firms should not always maximize profits. Journal of Business Ethics , 76 (2), pp. 137-145. Mackey, A., Mackey, T.B. and Barney, J.B., 2007. Corporate social responsibility and firm performance: Investor preferences and corporate strategies. Academy of management review , 32 (3), pp. 817-835. Organizational Behavior Conference Symposia. 2017. Academy of management. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.5465/ambpp.2004.13857798

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10 Soltes,E., 2019. Accentureis code of Business Ethics, Havrvard Business Review, January 3, pp, 1-10.

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