As Thammasat University students grow accustomed to online learning and distance education, some may wish to explore other learning opportunities after they have done their required coursework. Attending a free online seminar class may be informative and help complement main areas of study, giving students new ideas and perspectives and help them to practice their English language usage.

One opportunity to consider may be Global Online Conference: Challenges for Compliance & Ethics in the Pandemic Age hosted by The German-Southeast Asian Center of Excellence for Public Policy and Good Governance (CPG), located at the Thammasat University Faculty of Law. The conference will take place on Wednesday, 22 April 2022 from 6pm to 8pm. All TU students and ajarns are welcome to attend the online event. To obtain a link for free access to the conference, please write to CPG at events@cpg-online.de.

The TU Library owns many books about the subjects of compliance and ethics.

The 22 April conference is especially timely, as the CPG website explains:

Internationally, organizations and their functions  have recently faced new challenges due to the corona virus. Business pressure increases the appetite for risk. Countries have been rapidly adapting their legal environment to meet new challenges. Current times have severely tested compliance and ethics. During the first conference, compliance and ethics specialists will share their experiences and offer views on how compliance and ethics helped in past crises and how it may help in the future.

Among subjects often discussed in the academic analysis of compliance and ethics is the difference between the two terms.

As one online article notes,

Ethics and compliance have different meanings; yet, they often go hand in hand. Corporations have different ways of addressing ethics and compliance issues within their companies.

Some corporations enlist the help of a Chief Ethics Officer or Chief Compliance Officer. Other corporations combine the two titles and give the position the title Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer. Regardless of what companies label the position, most corporate boards know that ethics and compliance have a strong influence on corporate culture. Ethical culture can lead to corporate success or failure. Perhaps what is a bit more challenging is how to bring a strong ethics and compliance program into the workplace in order to prevent misconduct.

Defining Compliance

Compliance has a surprisingly simple definition. It merely means following laws, rules or policies to the letter of the law. The government requires corporate compliance, and it’s up to boards and corporate directors to get all employees to comply. Compliance is a reactive word that forces people to make a conscious choice.

Defining Ethics

Ethics means doing what is right regardless of what the law says. It’s also a conscious choice that is a personal one. It’s entirely possible to be ethical without being compliant. Ethics is proactive, rather than reactive as compliance is. Our personal values system, including our character, values and core principles, guide us when we make decisions. Most people feel a sense of deep personal satisfaction when they make ethical actions and decisions.

Impact of Ethics on Corporate Culture

In a corporate setting, strong ethics leads to improving employee morale. Corporations with strong ethics and compliance programs discourage employee misconduct and encourage employees to report misconduct by others. Improving a corporation’s ethical culture requires planning, commitment and follow-through. Doing so has several benefits.

Strengthening the corporate ethical culture promotes feelings of self-worth across the company. It creates an environment where managers and employees want to come to work. The net result of a strong corporate ethical culture combined with integrity-filled employees is a profitable company with strong prospects for operational sustainability.

While developing a strong ethical culture takes a strong commitment of time, it has minimal impact on the corporate budget.

Cost of Creating an Ethical Corporate Culture

The best news about having an ethics and compliance program and strengthening workplace ethics is that it costs very little in comparison to the benefits that corporations receive from it.

Creating a robust ethics and compliance program won’t drain or strain the corporate budget and doesn’t require significant resources for implementation.

Ethics and Compliance and Preventing Misconduct in the Workplace

Now that the differences between ethics and compliance are clear, the question becomes how corporations can use the relationship between them to develop a strong ethics and compliance program to prevent misconduct in the workplace.

Following an academic trend

The CPG conference continues efforts made last year by the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE), a member-based association for compliance and ethics professionals worldwide and across all industries, which presented a Bangkok Regional Compliance & Ethics Conference on 12 July 2019.

Among topics addressed at that event were Anti-Corruption Compliance in Thailand:

• How the Organic Act on Counter Corruption, the Submission of Bids Act, and other Thai anti-corruption law applies to the private sector and NGOs;
• The Internal Control Guidelines issued by the National Anti-Corruption Commission and how those guidelines can be incorporated into an organization’s compliance program;
• examples of corruption-related risks in Thailand; and
• how organizations can reduce their risks by proper implementation of a compliance program.

In a special presentation, Apiwan Aksornsuwan, a Certified Compliance & Ethics Professional – International (CCEP-I) and Peangpanor Boonklum, Head of the Legal and Compliance Unit of PTT Public Company Ltd. spoke on How to Succeed in Establishing Corporate Compliance & Ethics within Thai Companies:

• What are the major compliance and ethics requirements that a public company in Thailand has to comply with?;
• Why is it important for a Thai company to have corporate compliance culture?
• How to implement a SCCE corporate compliance program in Thai companies?
• What are the key issues concerned and what practical compliance steps should be considered to achieve the purpose in a sustainable manner?

The CPG-hosted conference on 22 April is organized and presented by The Institute of Compliance, described on its website as

the only entity on the Polish market and one of very few worldwide which provides comprehensive services in terms of compliance, ethics and integrity of corporations and other organizations.

Among the distinguished speakers will be Ajarn Henning Glaser of the Faculty of Law, Thammasat University.

The TU Library has acquired a number of books edited by Ajarn Henning, as TU Faculty of Law students know.

The closing remarks for the conference will be delivered by Professor Bartosz Makowicz, university professor at the Faculty of Law, European-University Viadrina in Frankfurt, Germany.

He is founder and director of the Viadrina Compliance Center, which is an interdisciplinary research center and a think-tank for Governance, Risk and Compliance.

Professor Makowicz authored a chapter on The constitutionalization of Polish law through the jurisdiction of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal that was published in a book edited by Ajarn Henning, Constitutional jurisprudence : function, impact and challenges.

The book is shelved in the General Stacks of the Sanya Dharmasakti Library, Faculty of Law, Thammasat University, Tha Prachan campus.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)