Ethical culture is the set of shared expectations, signals, and habits that shape whether people in an organization do the right thing when no rule covers the situation and no one is watching. You measure it by asking employees what they actually see leaders, supervisors, and peers do, and by tracking behaviors such as speaking up, reporting, and keeping commitments.
Policies describe what an organization says it values. Culture is what people learn by watching who gets promoted, what gets ignored, and what happens to the person who raises a concern. When the two diverge, people follow the culture.
What makes an ethical culture strong or weak
The Ethics and Compliance Initiative (ECI) measures culture strength with four elements in its 2023 Global Business Ethics Survey, which drew 75,495 employee responses across 42 countries:
- Accountability for both top management and non-management employees
- Satisfaction with information from top management about what is going on
- Trust that top management and supervisors will keep their promises and commitments
- Top management, supervisors, and coworkers setting a good example of ethical behavior
The results are sobering: 87% of employees said their workplace does not have a strong ethical culture. ECI also reported that organizations with high-quality ethics and compliance programs showed a 546% increase in culture strength compared with organizations at the lowest program quality level.
Notice how much of that index is about commitments. Two of the four elements turn on whether people are held to what they promise and whether leaders keep their word. That matches DorWay’s view that organizations are Networks of Agreements™, and that low trust usually traces back to agreements that were never specific enough to keep. Ethical culture, in practical terms, is integrity at scale.
Why supervisors matter as much as executives
Tone at the top is real, but most employees experience culture through their direct manager. A study by Mayer and colleagues, covering 904 employees in 195 departments, found that ethical leadership trickles down: top management’s ethical leadership influenced supervisors’ ethical leadership, which in turn was linked to less deviant behavior and more helpful behavior in work groups. Measuring culture only at the executive level misses where it is actually transmitted.
How to measure ethical culture
No single number captures culture. Combine perception data, behavioral indicators, and outcome signals.
| Measure | What it tells you | How to collect it | Limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Culture survey items (leader example, trust in commitments, accountability) | How employees perceive leaders and peers | Anonymous survey, broken down by team and level | Perception, not behavior; needs enough respondents per team |
| Pressure to compromise standards | Whether targets are pushing people toward shortcuts | Survey item; follow-up focus groups | People may underreport |
| Speak-up and reporting rates | Whether concerns surface internally | Hotline and manager-reported concerns, per 100 employees | A rise can mean more trust, not more misconduct |
| Retaliation reports and outcomes | Whether speaking up is safe | Case data plus survey items on fear of retaliation | Small numbers; handle confidentially |
| Commitment reliability | Whether leaders keep or openly renegotiate what they promise | Upward feedback, project and meeting follow-through data | Requires commitments to be written and specific |
| Exit interview themes | Ethical concerns people did not raise while employed | Coded exit interview notes | Lagging signal |
Regulators expect this kind of measurement too. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs (updated September 2024) asks how and how often a company measures its culture of compliance, and whether it gathers input from employees at all levels on whether management is committed to compliance.
Reading the results
- Look for gaps between levels. If executives rate culture far higher than front-line staff, the signals are not reaching the work.
- Compare teams, not only the total. Culture varies by manager. Averages hide the teams where pressure is building.
- Treat rising reports carefully. More reports after a speak-up campaign often signal more trust. Pair the count with survey data on fear of retaliation.
- Connect findings to agreements. When trust in commitments scores low, find the specific promises that were broken: on workload, promotions, or follow-up after concerns.
How to strengthen an ethical culture
Measurement only helps if it leads to action. The most direct levers are the ones in the culture index itself:
- Make commitments specific. Vague promises cannot be kept or checked. Clear team agreements give everyone the same standard.
- Hold everyone to them. Accountability means making, keeping, and openly renegotiating commitments, at every level.
- Develop supervisors. Because culture travels through managers, invest in their ability to respond well when someone raises a concern.
- Evaluate the program, not only the culture. See ethics program evaluation for how to test whether your ethics and compliance program is working.
DorWay’s PACT™ Leadership Assessment can show where individual leaders’ practices support or erode the culture you are trying to build.
FAQ
What is an ethical culture in the workplace?
It is the shared set of expectations and behaviors that determine how people act when rules do not cover a situation. It shows up in whether leaders set a good example, keep their commitments, and protect people who speak up.
How do you measure ethical culture?
Use an anonymous survey with items on leader example, accountability, and trust in commitments, then add behavioral data such as reporting rates, retaliation cases, and follow-through on promises. Break results down by team and level.
What percentage of organizations have a strong ethical culture?
In ECI’s 2023 global survey, 87% of employees said their workplace does not have a strong ethical culture, which means only a small minority described a strong one.
Who is responsible for ethical culture?
Executives set direction, but supervisors transmit it day to day. Research on ethical leadership shows its effects trickle down through managers to work groups, so every leader owns part of it.