An article by Manuela Mackert, until July 2021 Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) and Head of Group Compliance Management Deutsche Telekom AG.
Deutsche Telekom has been recognized as one of the world's most ethical companies by the Ethisphere Institute. It is the global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices that fuel corporate character, marketplace trust, and business success.
Recently, the headlines about unethical behavior of companies are piling up. Often pressure to succeed and enrichment addiction are mentioned as motives for successful business. But is it worth it for the companies in the long run? For moral as well as economic reasons, ethically motivated behavior makes double sense for companies:
Our customers, shareholders and politicians expect us to be responsible and to behave as morally and honestly as possible.
Companies that want to act morally must change inside. With our Compliance Based Corporate-Culture-Initiative, we have examined our behavior patterns, and since then value-based corporate culture has played an important role. In view of rising fines for corporate misconduct and rising social expectations of good corporate governance, good compliance more than pays off. Promoting constructive contradiction, securing customer trust managing a company with values: these are all activities that correspond to our mission statement of a transparent corporate culture. We will continue to promote these activities.
Already honored in 2018, Deutsche Telekom is one of four worldwide winners in the telecommunications services industry and the only German-nominated company, underscoring our commitment to integrity and prioritizing ethical business practices.
Ethisphere’s Ethics Quotient is a proprietary rating system that collects and objectively scores self-reported data in the following weighted categories:
Compliance and Ethics Program Criteria (35 percent), Ethics and Corporate Culture (20 percent), and Governance (15 percent) and Leadership and Reputation (10 percent).
Further informationEthisphere and its methology
The complete list of award winners