How a robust ethics programme can prevent small problems from snowballing into disasters
Can any organisation afford to ignore the importance of implementing, communicating, and demonstrating a code of conduct?
Is it possible to place too much emphasis on ethics? In today’s world, news of a corporation’s mishap, misstep, or misdeed can spread across the country, continent, or even globe in a matter of hours, ruining the corporation’s reputation and causing it to suffer staggering losses.
This is a real-world manifestation of the butterfly effect, the idea that a butterfly moving its wings in Asia may cause a hurricane in the Atlantic.
This aspect of chaos theory suggests that the smallest of changes can have the largest of effects. As the economy becomes increasingly more globalised, the butterfly effect becomes more and more relevant to corporations and organisations of every size and type. The massive growth of the internet as well as increasingly complex and collaborative business relationships are two of the factors that lend themselves to this phenomenon. The genie is truly out of the bottle. The interconnectedness that opens up markets and creates opportunities previously unimagined also leaves corporations with little room for error when it comes to behaving ethically and in compliance with laws and regulations. The smallest mistake or lapse in judgment can easily snowball into an avalanche.
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