Pat Harned and Scott Avelindo provide important data and insights answering the question I had raised.
Given both individuals' knowledge of the field their views must be taken very seriously. As Pat says, if you don't know about it, you can't fix it.
Ethics reporting is truly a complex topic: when each quarter we used to report to our Board of Directors the number of calls to our "Hot Line," if the number went up the Board would say we had an ethics problem and, if it went down, the Board said we had a lack of emphasis problem!
On a different topic, among the many mistakes I made as a CEO, one was not having our Chief Ethics Officer report directly to me. It's not that it didn't work fine in the Legal Department; it's just that it would have been a great signal to have had the direct reporting relationship.
Norm Augustine
Lockheed Martin Corporation
Chairman & CEO, retired
From Terrance W. Elliott on 5 June 2008, 14:30
Mr. Augustine is right in believing that the top ethics officer should have been a direct report to the CEO. It is my opinion that Lockheed's commitment to ethics has degraded since the departure of Mr. Augustine.
After 25 years with Lockheed I was fired after discussing my concerns with an ethics officer.
Terrance W. Elliott