On the 1st of November 2007 the third CSR Managers Meeting of 2007 took place. The topic of the meeting was ‘The Ethical Organisation and Sustainable Leadership’. Over thirty managers from various industries came to the office of British American Tobacco in Amstelveen, who was hosting the event.

The meeting was opened by Jan van den Herik, Director of Samenleving & Bedrijf. He gave a short introduction to the topic of the ethical organisation and sustainable leadership in companies, encouraging to share experiences (good as well as bad) with one another.
He was followed by Andrew Schwager, the General Manager of British American Tobacco the Netherlands. Mr. Schwager welcomed all the participants very warmly, underlining the importance of CSR Managers Meetings. He is convinced that in today’s world a company has to be responsible in order to be successful. Integrity and social responsibility are especially important for controversial industries like tobacco.

After the introduction part, the first presentation “Managing Integrity” was delivered by Prof. dr. Ronald Jeurissen from the European Institute for Business Ethics at Nyenrode Business University. Questions like: Is ethical behaviour an individual or social matter? (bad apples or bad barrels?), what influences the behaviour more: structure or culture? What is the most effective way of embedding ethical behaviour in the organisation? were raised.
Prof. Jeurissen stated that values and norms of the company are the foundation of integrity management, however it is crucial to get the top and middle management engaged. There are two different strategies of applying integrity management. One is rules based (“Do what the rules tell you”), the other is values based (“Do the right thing”). Research shows that the latter is more effective in improving integrity in the organisation and that best results occur when integrity of management is combined with the management of integrity.

The next speaker was Tim Davies, Compliance Counsel at British American Tobacco. He introduced the British American Tobacco’s Standards of Business Conduct. They are mandatory for all employees and cover a wide range of areas such as whistleblowing, bribery and corruption or competition law. The purpose of these guidelines is to provide support to the employees in making appropriate judgments and decisions in the course of their work and to ensure that all the actions of the company are lawful. Being a controversial industry, it is all the more important that British American Tobacco acts responsibly and behaves in an honest and transparent manner. Compliance is promoted in the company through workshops; “Train the trainer” sessions and E-learning. It is also monitored and controlled internally. There have been cases of punishing employees who broke the Standards of Business Conduct although the law had not been broken. Tim Davies concluded his presentation with a statement that business integrity goes beyond the law and ultimately it is the values and culture of individuals who should drive compliance and not the other way round.

After the coffee break, Pieter van der Zwet, the Director KMPG Integrity & Investigation Services began the dilemma game. Divided into small groups, participants discussed different dilemmas regarding leadership and integrity. Should I tell my boss that I saw him hitting somebody’s car in the parking? What is more important: staying at a business meeting or picking my kids up from school? Would I hire a person who has worked for the competitors and can provide me with a lot of confidential information?
These cases raised a lot of passionate discussions. Participants varied widely in their opinions on how to behave and what ethical behaviour really means. Despite this diversity, Pieter van der Zwet remained optimistic. He is convinced that companies are increasingly more aware of the importance of acting in a transparent, responsible way and we are living in a much more open society than a few years ago.

The final part of the program was a panel discussion with Tim Davies, Pieter van der Zwet, Giuseppe van der Helm (Director of VBDO), Tim van Kooten (Tim van Kooten Management Advies and former issue manager at Shell) and Paul Arlman (Vice President TI Netherlands) led by Prof. dr. Ronald Jeurissen. All participants sat in a circle and discussed different theses on the topic of integrity and ethics. The statement: ‘Sustainable leadership requires that high standards of integrity be driven from within rather than being imposed from without’ triggered a very open and lively discussion. Despite different views on the importance of imposed, external norms and values and the actual role of leaders, there was common understanding that high ethical standards in a company are crucial for its existence and there is still a lot to be done in the field of organisational integrity.