Corporate ethics depends on whether employees recognize misconduct, feel safe reporting it, and believe leaders will respond. Recent findings from Ethisphere, the Institute of Business Ethics (IBE), Gallup, EY, Linde, and ASIC show a persistent gap between ethical intentions and workplace experience.
Table of contents
- Reporting intentions and behavior
- What keeps employees silent
- Managers and ethical culture
- The misconduct employees observe
- Integrity risks and incidents
- Operational examples from Linde and ASIC
Reporting intentions and behavior
The Ethisphere 2024 Ethical Culture Report identifies a wide difference between what employees say they would do and what they actually do. Ethisphere reports that 93% of employees say they would report misconduct if they witnessed it, while 50% actually report misconduct when they witness it. The same report says 48% of employees who observed perceived misconduct did not report because they feared retaliation, and another 48% did not report because they did not believe corrective action would be taken.
Ethisphere also reports that 83% of employees are aware their employer prohibits retaliation against reporters or witnesses. Awareness of the rule does not guarantee confidence in it: 77% believe their organization will uphold anti-retaliation policies.
The scale of the Ethisphere research is substantial. Its 2024 Culture Data Set includes more than 2 million employee responses, uses 54 questions, covers 300 companies, and spans 120 countries. These scope figures describe the report’s research base; they do not mean every result applies equally to every company or geography.
The IBE 2024 Ethics at Work Survey reports a different reporting level: 64% of employees who observed misconduct say they raised concerns. Of those who raised concerns, 46% reported personal disadvantage or retaliation, and 28% were dissatisfied with the outcome. The survey also says 61% of employees report that their organization provides a confidential means of reporting.
These measures should be read as findings from separate surveys, not as a single global reporting rate. Their different results underline why corporate ethics programs need to measure both willingness to speak up and the experience that follows a report.
What keeps employees silent
The IBE 2024 Ethics at Work Survey highlights two practical deterrents. In that survey, 34% of employees cite fear of jeopardizing their job as a reason not to speak up after witnessing misconduct, while 34% cite concern that corrective action would not be taken.
Gallup’s 2024 Workplace survey reports that 23% of U.S. employees personally saw or had firsthand knowledge of unethical behavior in the past year. Among those aware of unethical behavior, 43% reported it. For non-reporters, 22% thought no action would be taken, 20% were afraid of retaliation, and 9% had previously reported a compliance or ethics issue that was not a good experience.
The figures point to two different barriers. One is personal risk: employees may fear job consequences or retaliation. The other is institutional doubt: employees may not expect a useful response. A confidential channel can address access, but the IBE finding that 46% of those who raised concerns reported disadvantage or retaliation shows why channel design and follow-through must be assessed together.
Managers and ethical culture
Managers are a major part of the reporting pathway. Gallup reports that 55% of leaders and managers with firsthand awareness of unethical behavior report it, compared with 39% of other employees with firsthand awareness. Gallup also says 50% of employees who reported unethical behavior turned to their manager first.
At the same time, 53% of U.S. employees do not strongly agree that their manager fulfills any aspect of building a culture of ethical behavior. This suggests that managers may be the first point of contact without consistently being experienced as ethical-culture leaders.
Gallup associates three ethical-culture behaviors by managers with several workforce outcomes. Employees whose managers fulfill all three behaviors are 3.2 times as likely to be engaged and 3.8 times as likely to strongly agree that their organization cares about their wellbeing. They are also 4.7 times as likely to strongly agree that they are connected to their organization’s culture.
The same Gallup survey reports that managers who fulfill all three ethical-culture behaviors are associated with a 72% lower likelihood of employees having firsthand exposure to unethical behavior. Employees with firsthand awareness of unethical behavior are 70% less likely to strongly agree they are connected to their organization’s culture and 45% more likely to be watching for or actively seeking another job.
| Gallup measure | Reported result |
|---|---|
| Leaders and managers who report observed unethical behavior | 55% |
| Other employees who report observed unethical behavior | 39% |
| Employees who report to a manager first | 50% |
| Employees not strongly agreeing their manager builds ethical culture | 53% |
| Higher likelihood of engagement when all three manager behaviors are present | 3.2 times |
The misconduct employees observe
The IBE 2024 Ethics at Work Survey provides a breakdown of conduct employees were aware of during the last year. It reports that 25% were aware of conduct that violated the law or their organization’s ethical standards. Within the same survey, 35% were aware of abuse of authority, 32% were aware of bullying and harassment, and 20% were aware of sexual harassment.
These categories describe employee awareness, not confirmed cases. They also should not be added together: one employee or incident may fall into more than one category. For leadership teams, the value of the breakdown is diagnostic. It shows that corporate ethics extends beyond financial misconduct to authority, workplace treatment, harassment, and compliance with internal standards.
Gallup’s U.S. finding adds a broader exposure measure: 23% of employees personally saw or had firsthand knowledge of unethical behavior in the past year. The difference in wording and survey design means the IBE and Gallup percentages are best used as separate indicators rather than combined estimates.
Integrity risks and incidents
The EY Global Integrity Report 2024 reports that 49% of global respondents think compliance with their organization’s standards of integrity improved in the last two years. Yet 38% say they would be prepared to behave unethically in one or more ways to improve career progression or remuneration.
EY reports that 25% of workers would behave unethically for their own benefit. The corresponding figures are higher among board members and senior management: 67% of board members and 51% of senior management say they would behave unethically for their own benefit. Pressure around reporting also appears in the report: 65% of board members and 57% of senior management feel under pressure not to report misconduct.
The report identifies policy understanding and resources as another vulnerability. Fifty-four percent of global respondents say employees not understanding policies or requirements, together with a lack of internal resources, creates opportunities to violate integrity standards.
EY reports that 21% of global respondents say their organization experienced a significant integrity incident in the last two years. Among organizations with a significant integrity incident, 68% say it involved a third party. This makes supplier, partner, contractor, and intermediary oversight part of corporate ethics risk management, not merely an internal compliance task.
The EY US edition of the 2024 Global Integrity Report reports that 67% of respondents said their organization had not experienced a significant integrity incident in the last two years, while 24% said it had and 9% preferred not to say. One in five U.S. edition respondents said they had a concern in the past two years that went unreported. The same edition reports that one in three large corporations use at least one AI-enabled technology in compliance environments.
Two additional EY measures describe operational exposure. The EY UK Global Integrity Report page says 40% of global respondents cite privacy and security as their greatest operational integrity risks. It also says 53% identify employee turnover and employees not understanding policy as the greatest internal threats to integrity standards.
Operational examples from Linde and ASIC
Linde’s Hotline Reports show how report volume and substantiated issue categories can change over time. Linde recorded 523 integrity hotline reports in 2021, 546 in 2022, 674 in 2023, and 752 in 2024. Linde reported 80 countries of operation in its 2024 Sustainable Development Report.
| Linde measure | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Integrity hotline reports | 523 | 546 | 674 | 752 |
| Substantiated conflict-of-interest issues | 14 | 15 | 20 | 15 |
| Substantiated fraud, theft, or misuse-of-assets issues | 91 | 90 | 119 | 174 |
| Substantiated workplace issues | 96 | 113 | 135 | 159 |
The Linde figures are annual company-reported counts. A higher hotline count can reflect more observed issues, greater willingness to report, broader operations, or changes in reporting access; the counts alone do not establish which explanation applies. Likewise, substantiated categories should be read as reported outcomes, not as an estimate of all misconduct.
ASIC’s Reports of misconduct data provides a current-period view of issues received by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. ASIC received 5,714 issues in the financial services and retail investors category, 5,217 in corporations and corporate governance, 446 in market integrity, 486 in registry integrity, and 1,173 out of jurisdiction.
ASIC says financial services and retail investors plus corporations and corporate governance account for 88% of all reports of misconduct received. It identifies corporations and corporate governance as 40% of its misconduct issues and financial services and retail investors as 44%.
Within the financial services and retail investors theme, ASIC received 2,128 reports involving unregistered schemes or financial services without an Australian financial services license, 1,554 involving general licence obligations, 1,233 involving credit issues, and 799 in the “other” category. These are regulator-received issue counts for the current period, not findings that every report represented proven misconduct.
For leadership teams, the combined evidence establishes several measurable priorities: make reporting channels credible, protect reporters in practice, equip managers to receive concerns, monitor third-party integrity exposure, and distinguish reported allegations from substantiated outcomes. The surveys and organizational reports measure different populations and periods, so each percentage or count should remain tied to its named source and stated geography.