LRN Report Reveals 2 In 5 Codes of Conduct for the World’s Top Publicly Traded Companies Fall Short
25.7.2023 15:30:00 EEST | Business Wire | Press release
The 2023 Code of Conduct Report released today by LRN Corporation, the leader in ethics and compliance solutions that enable organizations to inspire principled performance, reveals that a significant proportion (two in five) of the world’s top publicly traded companies have work to do to meet basic expectations for more effective codes of conduct.
Further, "speak up" culture appears deficient in most organizations, as less than two-thirds of all codes include a section on reporting misconduct and fewer than three in five have strong non-retaliation policies stated for those who do so.
The report reviewed the codes of conduct of nearly 200 of the top publicly traded companies in Asia, Europe, and North America—focusing on those listed on the major indices in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the United States and, for the first time, Japan and Singapore.
Among the other key findings of the report include:
- Only 43% of their codes of conduct for some the world’s largest publicly traded companies were scored "effective", meaning they meet the minimum expectations, and 40% were rated as less effective, meaning they fell below the expectations of an effective code. Only 17% were found to be more effective, meaning that their codes exceeded the minimum expectations
- The codes of companies on the U.S. S&P 100 outperform those in other indexes overall, while companies listed on Singapore’s STI 30 generally have the lowest code effectiveness scores
- 64% of codes analyzed have a section on speaking up, but only 57% of codes have a strong non-retaliation policy for employees who speak up about misconduct and just 17% explain the procedure for investigation of misconduct
- Companies with more effective codes are 10x more likely to include hotline/helpline details
- Only 48% of codes extend applicability to contractors, agents, and other third parties working on behalf of the company
About LRN
LRN's mission and purpose is to inspire principled performance and help people around the world do the right thing. Since 1994, LRN has worked to propel organizations forward with the partnership, knowledge, and tools to build ethical culture. Learn more at https://lrn.com and follow on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230725088236/en/
Contact information
Scott Addison
LRN@infiniteglobal.com
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
Bentley Systems Announces Winners of the 2026 Year in Infrastructure Awards7.10.2026 20:55:00 EEST | Press release
(The Bentley Systems 2026 Year in Infrastructure Event) – Bentley Systems, Incorporated (Nasdaq: BSY), the infrastructure engineering software company, today announced the winners of the 2026 Year in Infrastructure Awards. For more than 20 years, the awards have honored the extraordinary work of infrastructure professionals and their innovative use of Bentley software to improve how infrastructure is designed, built, and operated. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261007964087/en/ Bentley Systems announced the winners of the 2026 Year in Infrastructure Awards on October 7, 2026 (Photo courtesy of Bentley Systems) In 2026, over 300 projects were nominated by organizations in 53 countries. Winners were selected across 12 categories spanning the infrastructure lifecycle, industries, and disciplines by a panel of independent judges during the Bentley Systems 2026 Year in Infrastructure Event, held October 6-7 in Sin
Day One Strategy Founders Recognised in The LDC Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders for 20267.10.2026 20:00:00 EEST | Press release
Hannah Mann and Abigail Stuart, Co-Founders of Day One Strategy have been recognised as one of The LDC Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders for 2026. The programme was created by private equity investor LDC, part of Lloyds Banking Group, in partnership with The Times. Since 2018, it has celebrated the ambition and achievements of hundreds of exceptional entrepreneurs. This year The LDC Top 50 attracted more than 620 nominations from across the UK, highlighting the depth of ambition among leaders building successful businesses in every region and sector. The leaders featured are driven by an appetite for growth that is helping to build stronger, more sustainable businesses and a more competitive UK economy. They are expanding internationally, developing new products and services, challenging established markets and investing in their people. Together, their businesses generate £1.4bn in annual revenues and employ almost 8,500 people. Headquartered in 55 towns and cities, they demonstr
TestMu AI Adds Evidence Packs to Kane CLI, Turning Every AI Test Run into One Portable, Shareable File7.10.2026 17:29:00 EEST | Press release
TestMu AI (formerly LambdaTest), the Full Stack Agentic AI Quality Engineering platform, announced evidence packs for Kane CLI, its terminal-first tool for natural language browser and mobile app testing. Every Kane CLI run now produces one sealed .evidence file that holds the complete record of what the AI agent was asked to do, what it did at each step, and what happened. Kane CLI launched in April 2026, giving developers and AI coding agents a way to run tests on real browsers and mobile apps from the terminal, in plain English, with a clear pass-or-fail verdict. Since launch, it has added AI-powered test case generation and the Assurance Lifecycle, which ties tests back to requirement documents. Evidence packs are the next step: a full record of every run. As AI agents write and run more tests, engineering teams need a clear answer to a simple question: what exactly did the agent do, and why did the run pass or fail? That proof is often spread across screenshots, log folders, and d
Medisca and EUROAPI Form Strategic Partnership to Strengthen API Access for Pharmaceutical Compounding7.10.2026 17:07:00 EEST | Press release
Medisca and EUROAPI have formed a strategic partnership focused on expanding API access for pharmaceutical compounding, creating differentiated access in North America and establishing a broader framework for international growth and peptide collaboration. For more than three decades, Medisca has built its business around the evolving needs of pharmaceutical compounders. That starts with the products it chooses to bring to market but extends much further to the manufacturers behind them, the documentation and technical information supporting them, and the quality systems that carry those products through to the customer. The partnership with EUROAPI advances that approach. Under the new strategic partnership, Medisca becomes EUROAPI’s first strategic distribution partner focused on bringing its European-manufactured APIs to the North American compounding market. The collaboration includes exclusive supply arrangements for selected APIs and creates a framework to expand the offering ove
iQmetrix Launches Vendor Managed Inventory Integration with Valor Communication7.10.2026 17:00:00 EEST | Press release
iQmetrix, the global provider of Intelligent Commerce Operating Systems for telecom, is launching a Vendor Managed Inventory integration with Valor Communication, a factory-direct wireless accessory manufacturer and distributor serving carriers, retailers, and dealers since 1997. Built into the iQmetrix Intelligent Commerce Operating System, the integration connects Valor's assortment directly to the platform telecom retailers already run their business on – so replenishment runs on real sell-through data instead of guesswork, and approved accessories move from Valor's floor to the peg without manual reordering. The integration will be available to retailers across the iQmetrix client base. The addition of Valor Communication marks another step in the rapid expansion of the iQmetrix Partner Ecosystem, bringing clients a growing network of integrated partners that work natively inside the platform they already run their business on. This press release features multimedia. View the full
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom