The use of codes of ethics in the corporate marketplace: the case of Australia and Sweden

Business ethics is a subject that recently has been thrust again into prominence in industrialised economies around the world, due to the revelations of the practices of some of the major corporations operating within the USA. In Australia, corporate collapses such as HIH and Onetel and in Sweden, the scandals with the top executives of Skandia and also Systembolaget have brought in to sharp focus that these practices are not confined to the USA. Since the early 1960s, codes of ethics have been in evidence in many organisations in the USA, whilst in Australia, as in Britain, the interest in codes of ethics was piqued by the stock market crash of 1987. In Sweden, however, this concept of the use of codes of ethics in the corporate sector had not been investigated prior to this study. This paper examines the use of codes of ethics in the marketplace by the top companies operating in corporate Australia and corporate Sweden. The outcome of this research shows that in both Australia and Sweden that large organisations indicate a substantial interest in codes of ethics and value the use of their codes in the marketplace. There are, however, differences in the ways that the companies in each country implement their codes of ethics in the marketplace and the benefits that they see as being derived from them.