5.10.2005 ET

(CSRwire) WALTHAM, MA - Deloitte & Touche USA LLP chief ethics and compliance officer Harold Tinkler told an audience of business leaders and alumni gathered at the inaugural Bentley College - Time Inc. Leadership Forum that organizations should provide both moral support and funding to promote closer coordination of both ethical and social responsibility initiatives.

Tinkler offered his remarks at an opening panel session on business ethics and social responsibility moderated by Anthony F. Buono, professor of management and coordinator of the Bentley Alliance for Ethics and Social Responsibility, and Dorinda Elliott, assistant managing editor, Business, Time Magazine.

"Being a benefactor of social responsibility is only going half way. Being a champion of ethical behavior is the link to getting the complete package," Tinkler said. "In today's dynamic business environment the need to support ethics and social responsibility is no longer optional and accountability is no longer solely organizational, it is also now personal."
In other remarks, Tinkler pointed out a major shift in how the business environment viewed corporate social responsibility and ethics. He observed that in the past, traditional corporate social responsibility activities had received more attention by US-based businesses from both an activity and budgeting point of view, than investments made in establishing, promoting, and monitoring the ethical culture of the organization.

He said that the vast majority of organizations had no connection between ethics, corporate social responsibility and day to day compliance efforts as witnessed in a number of recent corporate scandals where companies had strong corporate responsibility programs but virtually no ethics-based initiatives.

"Many organizations in Europe view ethics and corporate social responsibility in a more holistic fashion, joining together their internal and external values and responsibilities as one set of organizational values," he said. "And I would like to see this trend gain further momentum in the United States."

Tinkler explained that companies may have originally viewed that championing a social initiative would bring applause to both the organization and its key leaders, while ethics initiatives were viewed as merely a compliance-based activity.

"However, in the dynamic business environment that we have found ourselves in the last few years, there has been a tremendous shift from this single-track compliance view to more of a comprehensive view," he said.

The Bentley Leadership Forum is the first in a series of annual forums designed to spotlight critical issues in business ethics, leadership and social responsibility across a variety of industries. The inaugural event also featured Norman Pearlstine, editor-in-chief of Time Inc. and Eileen Naughton, president of Time Magazine. The forum's panels provided insight into the complex, interrelated challenges that 21st century businesses face in their relationships with governments, global workforces, the environment and local communities.

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