Chief Ethics Officers

Chief Ethics Officers

Chief Ethics Officers (CEOs) may not have been very popular around a decade ago, but the demand for such a position is beginning to grow within larger companies. From this point forward, when I mention CEOs in this paper, please understand that I am referring to Chief Ethics officers and not Chief Executive Officers. CEOs began appearing in corporate America around the same time as the inception of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines for corporations. According to these guidelines, the companies who have instituted compliance and ethics programs within their institutions wouldn’t have received as severe a punishment as those without the programs in place[2].

Salary.com conducted a survey with the Ethics Officer Association (EOA) in August of 2005 that further brought to light the growing demand for CEOs. Over 109 of the largest companies in the world were part of this survey[4]. “Given the increasing importance being placed on corporate ethics and compliance, Salary.com's analysis of the survey has shown that top ethics executives are receiving salaries comparable to that of a Chief Information Officer and significant amounts of long-term incentives (non-qualified stock options, incentive stock options, and restricted stock).”[4]

Mostly due to the large scandals in the late 1990s and early 2000s, like the Enron epidemic, most larger companies want to avoid any disasters that might even duarf in comparison to what we have seen in the past. Another powerful driving force behind CEOs’ popularity was the inception of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, this act established new standards for corporate accountability in America. Requiring companies to not only make stronger commitments to ethical st...

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...fficers: Who Needs Them? Retrieved

February12, 2008 from http://www.forbes.com/2006/10/23/leadership-ethics-hp-lead-govern-cx_hc_1023ethics.html

[3] Roner, Lisa Ethics officers – Positions that need power? Retrieved February 15, 2008, from

http://www.ethicalcorp.com/content.asp?ContentID=5411

[4] Salary.com. Salary.com and Ethics Officer Association Survey Validates Value of Ethics

and Compliance Officers' Roles in Today's Corporate World Retrieved February 18, 2008, from http://www.salary.com/aboutus/layoutscripts/abtl_default.asp?tab=abt&cat

=cat012&ser=ser041∂=Par474

[5] Vallario, C. W. Is Your Ethics Program Working? Retrieved February 12, 2008, from

http://accounting.smartpros.com/x57555.xml