The debate about business ethics in Germany has significantly changed during recent years, from a more or less academic debate in universities and research centres to a discussion about effective ways of developing, implementing and monitoring ethical orientations within companies.

This development is being reflected by the development of the German European Business Ethics Network (EBEN), the DNWE (Deutsches Netzwerk Wirtschaftsethik e.V.). Since its establishment in 1993, it has become the largest of the national EBEN networks with more than 500 members, including a growing number of institutional members from all branches of industry.

In Germany, the increasing interest of companies in business ethics has different roots. These include:

• A growing tendency to focus attention on the criminal actions and unethical behaviour of both managers and employees, where this is revealed.
• The debate about bio ethics (which in Germany cannot be discussed without the specific historical background of Nazi Germany) and its implications for biotech companies.
• The change of markets and the decreasing role of politics against a background of the processes of globalization which has led to an increase in corporate responsibility, especially of the so-called global player.
• The impact and consequences of globalization inside companies as a result of growing market pressure, orientation to stock markets and shareholder value, intercultural conflicts, new challenges for employees and managers as a result of new working conditions, a lack of orientation in diversified, global structures and networks etc.
• Increasing external pressure by critical consumers, by the public and even by shareholders in cases of unethical performance (Shell: Brent Spar, Bayer: Lipobay etc).
• A new generation of entrepreneurs in small and medium sized owner-driven companies, ie the relieving process of a generation of entrepreneurs who personally represented ethical and social values in their corporate conduct, thus founding the tradition of the social market economy in post-war Germany.
• Attempts by politicians and the major economic associations to renew this tradition, i.e. the concept of the social market economy in connection with today's concepts of 'good corporate citizenship', 'sustainable business conduct' or 'best practice in entrepreneurship'.

The initiatives of German companies in order to cope with these issues and ethical challenges in practice can be summarized under the following topics:

1. Integrity and risk management

2. Management of values

3. Cultural change/cultural integration programmes (eg in M&A processes).

Regarding the first two issues, the main approaches are aimed at developing guidelines/codes of conduct containing ethical principles and values in order to clarify the form and degree of ethical behaviour the company expects from all of its employees.

The next step is to ensure that these orientations are complied with and lived up to. A growing number of companies are implementing special management systems or programmes that help to implement and control the realization of their codes of ethics and corporate values.

The German EBEN network (DNWE), for instance, established its own 'Centre for Business Ethics' (ZfW) which has recently developed a standard of 'ethics management'. Companies following these standards can get audited and certified by the ZfW to encourage a continuous improvement process. Accounting companies like KPMG and PWC, which have been involved in developing this standard, are currently starting to promote it in their offers of compliance programmes and integrity services.

One disadvantage of most of the numerous ethical and social standards that have been developed in European countries during the last years, however, is that they have a merely national focus and perspective. Besides, most of them are not as flexible as they need to be in order to adjust both to the specific needs of different branches as well as to the specific corporate cultures of companies.

This means that appropriate standards or management systems in the field of business ethics have to be open to approaches that develop and shape cultures.

These would include:

• cultural analysis and values assessment
• development and implementation of vision, mission and code of conduct
• (including guidelines for branch specific issues and a stakeholder
• balanced management)
• deducing policies and strategies,  goals and measures from these
• orientations
• continuous evaluation of deployment efforts and progresses (corporate
• controlling both by internal self-assessment and external audits/cultural
• analysis)
• establishing processes that ensure continuous cultural improvement (HR management, leadership development, symbolic management, event driven management etc).

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