The World’s Most Ethical Companies designation recognizes companies that truly go beyond making statements about doing business “ethically” and translate those words into action. WME honorees demonstrate real and sustained ethical leadership within their industries, putting into real business practice the Institute’s credo of “Good. Smart. Business. Profit.” There is no set number of companies that [...]

DEVELOPING A STRONG COMPLIANCE PROGRAM AFTER A RECORD FINE When Ethisphere creates the World’s Most Ethical Companies list every year, we look at the operations of many companies and score their ethics and compliance programs based on eight broad categories (for more on the World’s Most Ethical Companies methodology, read this edition’s cover story on page [...]

Although it is difficult to predict the outcome of health care reform, and whether we will have wholesale change or more focused refinements, it is easy to predict that there will be increased health care regulation and enforcement in 2010 and beyond. The return on investment for government enforcement agencies is simply too strong [...]

We live and operate in an era of risks, and nowhere is this more true than in the context of healthcare. Providing high quality and efficient hospital services is one of the key challenges facing this country today. Much of the concern over sky rocketing insurance rates is tied to increases in the [...]

The ability to improve, restore and enhance patients’ lives is a privilege that is founded in public trust. The medical device industry’s ability to bring products and therapies to patients who need them requires the trust of many different groups: patients, physicians, hospitals, payers, other healthcare institutions, regulators, policy makers and even the media. At [...]

Healthcare group purchasing organizations (GPOs) aggregate the purchasing requirements of their customers, thus lowering costs in both the purchasing function itself and in the prices at which products and services are purchased. GPOs are an essential link in the supply chain of the nation’s healthcare providers, such as hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare delivery entities. [...]

There might be a theory that with the recent large financial settlements in the pharmaceutical industry, messages have been sent and behaviors changed permanently. However, with governments running ever larger deficits, and a focus on healthcare policy, a more reasoned theory might suggest enhanced government focus, new prosecution theories, and more sophisticated investigation techniques. This, [...]

Introduction Thailand is a country with strong and lasting religious traditions that has adapted well to the demands of technological and industrial development. The nation has an established infrastructure and liberalized economy that has positioned it as one of East Asia’s top economic performers. The people of Thailand are also notably proud of being the sole [...]

Ethisphere recently spoke to Bill George, professor of management at Harvard Business School, former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Medtronic and currently director of ExxonMobil and Goldman Sachs, about leadership, ethics and compliance issues in the healthcare industry and his latest book, “7 Lessons for Leading in a Crisis.” The following is an excerpt of our conversation:

Over the past several years, an emerging practice among corporations has been to appoint a chief compliance officer, designating that person with high-level authority for the company’s ethics and compliance program. A 2009 survey conducted by Corpedia and the Association of Corporate Counsel reflects that a majority of the individuals surveyed list a chief compliance/ethics officer or a general counsel (who often also serves as the chief compliance/ethics officer) as the person primarily responsible for their ethics and compliance program.

Aggressive Enforcement of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Officials in charge of the U.S. government’s anti-corruption enforcement program have made clear that the aggressive enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) will continue in both size and sophistication, and that the government will pursue and punish companies and individuals that cross the line. From the [...]

The story of corruption is often the story of the wicked businessman who arrives in a country with bundles of cash, or it’s the story of greedy and opportunistic government officials who use their authority to enrich themselves. Only occasionally does the camera back up to capture the elaborate and deviant dance between the two—giver and taker—and more rarely still do we get a glimpse of the journalists who investigate and report these stories.

As we reflect on the COP-15 climate summit in Copenhagen, and the bitter disappointment felt by many around the world, it does us well to consider that, while governments spend months and years on climate negotiations, it is companies who are “the elephant in the room.” They are the silent force – and a significant force they are: of the hundred largest economies in the world, 52 are multinational enterprises, and only 47 are nation states.