This year, the IBE surveyed employees in Hong Kong for the first time and the results show some positive indicators of an ethical culture at work, as well as areas that could indicate improvement is required. For instance, of the 16 surveyed countries, employees in Hong Kong are less likely than average to feel pressured to compromise their organisation’s standards of ethical conduct, to be aware of misconduct at work and to experience retaliation after speaking up about misconduct.
However, employees in Hong Kong are more likely than average to find each of eight ethically questionable workplace practices listed on p9 of the global report to be acceptable. Of the surveyed countries, they are among the least likely to raise concerns about misconduct at work and are less likely than average to be satisfied with the outcome after speaking up. In terms of the ethics programme, they are less likely than average to say that they are aware of their organisation providing each of four building blocks of an ethics programme, particularly relating to awareness of a means of reporting misconduct confidentially.
Compared to the global average, employees in Hong Kong have a mixed view of their line manager’s commitment to ethics and a poorer view of their organisation’s engagement with internal and external stakeholders on ethics.