All companies in the survey are members of the Ethics Officer Association, the professional association exclusively for managers of ethics, compliance and business conduct programs.      

The study is published in the Fall 2003 issue of the CBE journal, Business and Society Review. It is co-authored by CBE Executive Director W. Michael Hoffman; CBE Research Fellow Laura P. Hartman, associate vice president, Academic Affairs and professor of Business Ethics at DePaul University; and CBE Senior Research Associate Mark Rowe.

On September 30, Rowe discussed the survey in a one-hour broadcast on "The Connection," which airs locally on WBUR-FM and on 64 other National Public Radio stations nationwide. The show, comments from listeners and a link to highlights of the survey, are available on the program's Web site at: http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2003/09/20030930_a_main.asp

Among other findings:

• Almost all companies participating in the survey (92 percent) allow their employees reasonable personal usage of their electronic systems, yet fewer than half actually define what they consider reasonable. 
• As with personal use of the telephone, employers do not want work patterns, productivity or performance to be disrupted; and where that starts to happen is the point at which most employers draw the line on personal usage. 
• Another major consideration for employers, apart from misuse of company time, is the protection of corporate interests. By certain kinds of personal usage of email and the Internet, employees can put themselves into conflict with the legitimate interests of their employers. Interviews revealed that employers' greatest concerns in this area pertain to minimizing corporate risk exposure.
• Less than half (44 percent) of the companies surveyed involved their ethics officer in the monitoring process.

The authors conclude, "Companies (should) strive for balance between legitimate objectives of monitoring and valid concerns of employees. A monitoring program developed according to the mission and values of the organization (i.e. with integrity), then implemented in a manner that remains accountable to the affected employees, approaches that balance," they wrote. "Where advances in technology allow us the ability to explore new activities of any type, it is critical that we also explore the ethical implications of, and accountability for 'pushing the envelope.'"