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The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was signed into law on July 30, 2002, and has led to vast changes in the accounting profession - although not necessarily in corporate ethics.
A recent survey by Big four firm Deloitte found that just over half (52.4 percent) of C-suite and other executives said that global corporate ethical behavior has improved since the enactment of SOX. However, only 41.3 percent of execs said that their organizations' global ethics cultures are strong.
The executives polled by Deloitte believe that despite regulations, employees are continuing to struggle with ethics compliance due to inconsistency of clear, concise and frequent ethics program communications and training for all employees (28.5 percent); lack of incentives and repercussions around ethical and unethical behavior (16.3 percent); varied ethical postures of third parties with whom employees regularly interact (14.8 percent); and differing ethical standards for various employee groups (12.5 percent).
"One of the main findings, and no surprise, was that well over half the respondents felt that since the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, there's been an increase in awareness dealing with unethical behavior, an improvement in the process, and...