Free Essay

Auditing Culture

In: Business and Management

Submitted By sidmalik
Words 1520
Pages 7
The Auditing Process

• Secure top management and board commitment
• Establish an ethics audit committee
• Define the scope of the audit
• Review the organizational mission, goals, and values
• Collect and analyze relevant information
• Verify the results through an outside agent
• Report the findings to
 Audit committee, managers, and stakeholders

Secure Commitment of Top Management and the Board:
• first step in the auditing process
 Top management may want a way to benchmark their ethical performance
• The board may
 Initiate audits based on stakeholder concerns or in response to corporate governance reform
 Have been held responsible for the ethical and legal compliance programs of the company’s they oversee

Establish an Ethics Oversight Committee:
• Ideally, the board of directors’ financial audit committee would oversee the audit
 In most companies, managers or ethics officers’ conduct it
• Individuals within the firm and external auditors should be involved
 An external auditor should not have other consulting or conflict-of-interest relationships with top managers or board members

Define the Scope of the Audit
The ethics audit committee should establish the scope of the audit and monitoring progress

• Scope is determined by the type of business, risks faced, and the opportunities to manage ethics
 Includes defining the key subject matter or risk areas that are important to the ethics audit as well as the bases on which they should be assessed

Review Organizational Mission and Goals
• Ethics audit compare an organization’s ethical
• Performance to its goals, values and policies
• Should include a review of the current mission statement and strategic objectives
• Should examine all formal and informal documents that make commitments with regard to ethical, legal, or social responsibility
• Define the firm’s ethical priorities

Collect and Analyze Information
• Identify tools for measuring progress in improving employee’s ethical decisions
• Collect internal and external documents
• Determine a baseline level of compliance
• Determine all commitments

Verify the Results
• Have an independent party verify the results of the data analysis
 Increasing numbers of companies having results independently audited
 Social ethics audit consultant
 Financial accounting firm
 Nonprofit special interest group
• Verification is an assessment of the quality, accuracy, and completeness of a company’s social report
• They want to determine the reliability and validity of findings

Report the Findings
• The final step: Issue the ethics audit report
 Should spell out the purpose and scope of the audit, the methods used in the audit process
• Although the ethics audit may be similar to a financial audit, their forms are different

Analysis
Our questions
1. Does the university have an ethics policy?
2. Whether the university members clearly communicate its goals and strategies to you?
3. Does your university have a formal, written code of ethics?
4. Do you get your ethical guideline book at the start of job?
5. Does the ethics code cover key elements, such as conflicts of interest, financial irregularities, and compliance to laws?
6. Does the university treat everyone with respect and human rights?
7. Does your university support the reporting of any unlawful or unethical behavior?
8. Do you agree that “Right is right, even if everyone is against it; and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it?
9. Are all program services are available without discrimination?
10. Does your university have zero-tolerance for bad ethics?
11. Are employees at all levels of the university trained in ethical decision-making?
12. Is your ethical training a one-time thing or is it ongoing?
13. Does your university express to employees its commitment to ethics?
14. Are employees encouraged to take responsibility for their behavior?
15. Are the students encouraged to question authority when saw something they consider ethically wrong?
16. Are the students, faculty and administration actively encouraged to maintain a strong personal code of ethics?
17. Is there a formal committee with senior executive representation that considers ethical issues in accordance with the company's written code of ethics?
18. Is ethical misconduct dealt with swiftly, firmly and justly within the company?
19. Is an ethical culture ingrained in the university’s brochures, materials, and website?
20. Is the importance of ethics communicated to all employees on a regular basis via formats such as organization newsletter articles and posters?
21. Does the university perform an ethics audit?

Responses of the questions
The answer of our questions are in the form of YES and NO and in the following analysis we denote YES as “1” and NO as “2”
Name Mam Rabia Sir Ammar Sir Abdul Rehman Saira Saeed Samar Shumaila Kanwal Rahat Umna tahir Umer Zia q1 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 1 q2 2 1 2 1 2 2 2 2 1 2 q3 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 1 2 q4 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 q5 1 2 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 q6 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 2 1 1 q7 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 q8 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 q9 1 1 2 1 2 2 2 2 2 1 q10 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 q11 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 2 1 2 q12 2 1 1 1 2 1 1 q13 2 1 1 1 2 2 1 2 1 1 q14 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 2 2 1 q15 1 1 1 2 2 2 1 2 2 1 q16 1 1 2 1 1 2 2 2 1 2 q17 2 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 1 2 q18 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 2 1 1 q19 2 2 2 1 1 2 2 2 1 2 q20 2 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 q21 2 2 2 2 1 2 1 1 2 2

The graph shows the responses of every individual to each question.
For the result analysis we take mean for each question. The mean for question no 1 is 1.4 and we take 1 as yes and 2 as no and as this 1.4 is near to 1(yes) which shows the the university has the ethical policy. Similarly the mean of questions 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18 are near to 1 i.e. yes which means that the responses to this question are in favor of ethical culture of the university.

In contrast to these responses the responses of questions 2, 4, 5, 9, 17, 19, 20, 21 are near to 2 (no) which shows that the responses to these question are against that there is ethical culture in the university.
Now for the final result that whether there is ethical behavior in the university or not we will use the following equation

Result = sum of means of all questions / total no. of questions = 30.7/21 = 1.46 or 1.5
This is in between both yes or no so we can’t assume that the whether the culture is ethical or unethical.

Conclusion
According to our research we find that some of the individuals agree that there is an ethical culture in the university where as some agree that there is unethical culture. So on the basis of the responses and our analysis we conclude that there is neither strong ethical culture nor strongly unethical culture. It means there is mixed culture in arid agriculture university Rawalpindi.

Recommendations
• University should adopted codes of ethics that emphasize core ethical principles and standards for their employees.
• Ethical standards are important to ensure that the university is operating within the law and is viewed by the public as an ethical institution of learning and more attention should be directed towards evaluating whether the policies are achieving the intended results.
• Codes of ethics at university should primarily for the purpose of promoting ethical teaching practices.

• The university should responsible to address and evaluate ongoing contradictions of ethical theory and practice within and outside the classroom.
• Students and faculty should be encouraged to participate in academic integrity initiatives in the classroom and within the community where they live.
• University should promote ongoing dialogue among student groups for the purpose of increasing understanding of professional codes of ethics in academia, which includes technology enhanced plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty, academic dishonesty can be reduced by establishing honor codes that send a message to students that ethical behavior is expected.
• The university is responsible for promoting ethical standards for their students that will guide them in their personal and professional lives.
• University should used training in ethics as the common ground for educating individuals on making ethical decisions in the workplace ensure that graduate and undergraduate students learn the principles and traditions required for ethical professional practice, as well as the knowledge and skills that will prepare them to become responsible citizens and ethical leaders in their communities.
• University should find ways to enhance opportunities for student engagement in experiential learning activities that provide exposure to real life ethical issues.
• University should force that all levels of management communicates ethics as a priority.

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