Taking the pulse: Ethics and the British Cooperative Bank

Policy statements on ethical issues abound. If all organisations which produce mission statements, codes of practice or ethical codes were, therefore, ethical in conduct and performance, business ethics would be non-problematic. However, the effectiveness of corporate codes of ethics is dependent, inter alia, on the day-to-day behaviour of managers.Interest in the impact of ethical codes and mission statements on managerial behaviour has grown in recent years. The assumption underlying this paper is that one way of enriching our understanding of the ethical behaviour of managers is to focus on actual behaviour in real organisations.This paper reports the findings of a research project aimed at discovering the extent to which the British Cooperative Bank's Ethical Policy influences the behaviour of those managers at the Bank who are responsible for achieving the Bank's objectives in acquiring new business in the corporate market.It seeks to explore the impact of the Bank's Ethical Policy on the day-to-day behaviour of a significant group of the Bank's managers.Alan Kitson obtained his first degree in Politics and his doctorate in the political theories of Hegel and Marx from the University of Nottingham. He is Head of Bolton Business School at the Bolton Institute, England and teaches business ethics to undergraduate and MBA students.