Triple bottom-line reporting as social grammar: integrating corporate social responsibility and corporate codes of conduct Mollie Painter-Morland n Introduction Sighs, yawns and, in some cases, frowns often confront academics and consultants who have to broach the issue of global codes of conduct in corporate boardrooms. At best, the mood is one of disengagement, at worst, suppressed irritation at the presence of another ‘soft issue’ on the agenda, distracting managers from ‘real business’. However, despite this reaction to code develop- ment, it remains the core of what law and regulation prescribe for an organization’s ethics programme. Compliance with these standards often provides the main impetus towards the development of codes of conduct. However, it is the other potential benefits of codes, such as investor confidence, enhanced reputation, reduced staff turnover, heightened employee morale and the prevention of fraud and corruption, that would really make boards sit up and take notice. The irony is that these benefits are unlikely to ensue in an environment where boards regard ethics as a soft issue on the periphery of their organization’s main business concerns. If boards are to begin seeing the real significance and value of codes of conduct, a paradigm shift of sorts is required, a shift that eliminates the distinction between core business interests and ethical con- cerns. Only when business organizations begin to appreciate that ethical concerns are intimately interwoven with all business decisions and actions will their codes of conduct become ‘living docu- ments’. An analysis of some of the objections that are typically raised against the employment of codes of conduct will reveal how a failure to acknowl- edge the crucial interdependency of business and society is instrumental in stripping codes of their potential significance and value. It will also demonstrate how fragmentation in the way that an organization manages its various business relationships, as well as a lack of congruence between its code statements and actual business practice, diminish the ability of its code to affect business decision-making. It will be argued that the success of codes of conduct relies on a social grammar 1 that emphasizes interrelatedness, inter- dependency and integrity in all business opera- tions. In a business environment saturated with the logic of self-interest, individualism and frag- mentation, codes will become essentially mean- ingless. What is needed to transform such a radically atomized and ruthlessly competitive environment is a change of mindset. Of course, it is never a simple affair to alter the entrenched habits of the mind. However, some steps have n Associate Professor & Director of the Centre for Business and Professional Ethics, University of Pretoria, South Africa, and Associate Professor of Philosophy, De Paul University, Chicago, IL, USA. r 2006 The Author Journal compilation r 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main St, Malden, MA 02148, USA 352 Business Ethics: A European Review Volume 15 Number 4 October 2006