The World’s Most Ethical Companies

Coster, H. (2010). The world’s most ethical companies. Retrieved March 24, 2010 from: http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/22/ethisphere-ethical-companies-leadership-citizenship-100.html?feed=rss_home

This article is published on the forbes.com Web site and is a listing of the 100 US businesses that are considered to be the most ethical. The list was compiled by the Ethisphere Institute, a New York City think tank. The data used to measure the company’s ethical score was mostly in the form of questions that the companies had to answer about themselves and Ethisphere is counting on these firms to be honest and they believe that the information they receive from these companies is accurate. The companies are scored in seven different categories, including “Innovations that contributes to the public well-being” and “Executive leadership and tone from the top”. Eliminated from the list, were companies that had significant legal problems in the past five years. This list is certainly not scientific in how it is put together and there are probably some companies that are on it that do not belong and others that should be on the list but are not. The importance for managers is that ethics is important for all firms and if they lead their company in a way that could get them on such a list, they are probably leading their company in the right direction. Another interesting note in the article is that the companies on this list have delivered a 53% return since 2005 compared the S&P 500, which is down 4% in the same period.