With increasing geopolitical and regulatory volatility, the need for companies to develop resilience to market shocks and uncertain conditions is critical. One of the most effective ways to do this is by embedding strong compliance programmes into their operations that not only ensure adherence to laws and regulations, but also support positive, ethical work environments. 

Effective compliance programmes provide a foundation for businesses to act ethically by helping them to identify and manage risks early, and promote accountability and transparency. Ethical businesses are more resilient because they create trust with investors and customers, reduce the likelihood of legal or reputational crises, and are better able to motivate their staff to adapt to change when they are committed to their company’s purpose and values.

The OECD’s recently published Companies’ Assessments of Anti-Corruption Compliance offers perspectives on how companies currently evaluate the effectiveness of their anti-corruption compliance programmes. Behind it lies months of consultation with the private sector; work that the Basel Institute on Governance was pleased to lead on behalf of the OECD.

Through a series of in-depth interviews and facilitated roundtables with multinational enterprises and SMEs from across sectors and regions, we helped capture the real experiences, challenges and innovations of corporate compliance leaders. The findings from this engagement shaped the OECD’s recommendations for improvement.

What we heard from companies aligns strongly with the OECD’s message: that effectiveness can’t be defined by counting the number of compliance activities alone. What matters is whether those activities actually prevent misconduct and promote ethical business in practice.

Culture first: compliance starts with behaviour

Every company we spoke to, regardless of size or sector, emphasised the central role of organisational culture in achieving their compliance goals. Companies described good organisational cultures as those that empower people to act properly to prevent misconduct, but also feel safe to speak up when they see wrongdoing or feel unsure about how to proceed in a tricky situation.

This supports the behavioural focus in the OECD’s report, as well as our previous work on developing indicators for company reporting supported by Norges Bank Investment Management, in which we concluded that:

“An organisation’s culture is the key to the effectiveness of an anti-corruption programme. Not only does it influence staff attitudes and behaviour, but it also affects all aspects of the programme’s effective implementation.”

It affirms that a compliance programme’s success hinges less on the written documents – although, these are critical as “guardrails” for behaviour – and more on how people feel and act in everyday decision-making. Good leaders and middle managers are essential for modelling integrity and turning principles into practical action, supported by open communication mechanisms where staff feedback is encouraged and acted upon.

Measuring what matters: outcomes over activities

Companies broadly agree that meaningful evaluation of compliance effectiveness must go beyond simply counting the number of policies developed or training sessions conducted. Leading firms are investing in innovative methods for evaluating impact. These range from in-depth employee opinion surveys, risk mapping and data analytics, to engaging behavioural scientists to explore how interventions affect behaviour and prevent harm. As one respondent put it to us:

“Continuous improvement is a direct outcome of assessing effectiveness.”

Still, many note the difficulty of defining or measuring effectiveness in comparable ways. SMEs, in particular, struggle to keep pace with evolving expectations. The need for clear yet flexible guidance is a recurring theme.

Opportunities for better public-private interactions

All of the companies we interviewed as part of this process emphasised the influence of government legislation and guidance on the design of their compliance programmes. This isn’t surprising – governments make the rules that companies must follow. Companies, though, are now asking governments to make progress in two main areas. First, to consistently implement and enforce the laws and regulations they already have in order to ‘level the playing field’ for companies:

“Enforcement is the best prevention”

Second, to provide clearer articulation of the desired goals and outcomes of compliance programmes within the context of improved alignment, standardisation and consistency. Whether this also leads to more detailed government guidance on how to achieve these outcomes is still up for discussion. It may also differ depending on the industry and on the size of companies targeted:

“Go to the question of why: why do compliance programmes exist? What are we trying to accomplish? [We] understand that [this approach] makes it difficult from a standards perspective. [But as the business environment becomes] more global; more complex... we’re going to need flexibility; risk mitigation for one company might look different than for another, and that’s ok.”

In the first area, companies contextualised their backing for consistent enforcement with a request for a more supportive, flexible approach from governments. This approach should ideally be focused on dialogue and collaborative learning, and take into account if companies act in good faith when imposing penalties, even when wrongdoing occurs.

In the second area, and reflecting the complexity of the issue, companies themselves do not have simple definitions of effective anti-corruption compliance programmes. However, those with the most advanced programmes have a particular focus on: 

• achieving the goals of widespread prevention of misconduct within the context of an ethical culture;
• robust detection and remediation processes; and 
• transparency around sanctions applied for wrongdoing.

Collective Action initiatives

Companies are also willing to collaborate with governments to further develop definitions. They have demonstrated that they are an important source of compliance innovation which governments can leverage, including in the application of advances in the behavioural and data sciences. 

However, trust between companies and governments is variable. Companies have said that formal approaches specifically designed to build trust – such as Collective Action initiatives – would help to foster a more collaborative and positive culture around anti-corruption compliance and business integrity.

International forums

Collaboration between different jurisdictions would also be welcomed by companies in order to decomplexify the jigsaw of laws and regulations that companies have to abide by when operating globally. While acknowledging that identical laws would be unrealistic, companies are requesting greater alignment in the spirit of the law and a greater focus on functional equivalence. 

International organisations and anti-corruption conventions such as the OECD Convention on Bribery and its Working Group have been cited as possible forums to discuss improved alignment.

Co-creating behavioural-led compliance for resilient, ethical business

The insights gathered in this process point to a powerful opportunity for public and private actors to co-create more consistent, outcomes-focused definitions of effective compliance. In other words, definitions that prioritise behavioural change over box-ticking and reflect the realities companies face in conducting business globally.

By shifting the focus from documentation to demonstrable integrity in decision-making, both sectors can help move the needle on what meaningful compliance looks like. This is especially important at a time when the need to follow established rules is often being questioned. 

It is a moment for innovation: through joint learning and dialogue, governments and companies can leverage each other’s strengths to build smarter and more adaptive compliance frameworks that transfer best practice from paper to action. 

At the core of this effort must be a shared recognition that effective compliance programmes underpin ethical business conduct, and ethical businesses are more resilient. There is both a strong moral imperative and a clear commercial case for investing in this work, supporting the creation of financial and societal value in the long term.

Learn more

• See the OECD report: Companies’ assessments of anti-corruption compliance
• See a related Quick Guide to business integrity and ethics
• Learn more about anti-corruption Collective Action