Speaking to the London HR Connection, Roger Steare, professor of organisational ethics and corporate philosopher in residence at the Cass Business School, City University, urged his audience to “stop, think, talk [about what’s right], unite [around shared values] and act” to build such a culture.

Making ethical decisions is a “social, group-based activity”, Steare emphasised. Because groups must be involved in arriving at ethical solutions to problems, online ethics training - with its emphasis on individual performance - doesn’t work, he contended.

To further inculcate integrity within organisations, recruitment activity should centre on “hiring character, training skills and rewarding behaviour”, emphasised Steare, who authored the book Ethicability: How to decide what’s right and find the courage to do it.

HR must promote the business case for ethics, lead the dialogue to develop an ethical culture and model the right behaviours as organisations move toward a commitment to ethical behaviour, he said.

Steare uses three types of moral conscience to gauge ’ethicability’ in a Moral DNA test: rule compliance, or believing that what is right is doing what one is told; social conscience, or focusing on common good and fair outcomes; and principled conscience, or being guided by internal moral values such as self-discipline, courage and humility.

A 2008 study of ’Moral DNA’ by occupation conducted by Steare and colleague Pavlos Stamboulides revealed that aside from religion professionals, homemakers scored the highest of 31 occupations in terms of principled conscience and the highest of any in social conscience.

Steare advises a number of major corporations such as BP and HSBC on ethics issues.