A framework for managing and assessing ethics in Namibia: An internal audit perspective

Abstract

The Namibian Governance Code was implemented in 2014 and calls for organisations to manage ethics effectively. This study proposes an ethics framework that can be used by management to build an ethical culture and used by internal auditors to assess the effectiveness of an organisation’s ethical culture. Data was collected from managers and senior internal auditors in the financial services industry, based on their views of the proposed ethics framework. Management agreed that such a framework could contribute to building an ethical organisational culture because there is a lack of guidance available. Internal auditors agreed that the framework could assist the IAF in assessing ethics. However, it appears that this practice in Namibia is limited to an assessment of the codes of conduct only. Furthermore, there appears to be a lack of reporting on ethics performance to stakeholders, primarily because participants’ organisations did not implement integrated reporting as yet.