Tinkler offered his remarks to business leaders and alumni gathered at an opening panel session on business ethics and social responsibility sponsored by Bentley College and Time Inc.

"Being a benefactor of social responsibility is only going half way. Being a champion of ethical behavior is the link to getting the complete package," Tinkler said. "In today's dynamic business environment the need to support ethics and social responsibility is no longer optional and accountability is no longer solely organizational, it is also now personal."

In other remarks, Tinkler pointed out a major shift in how the business environment viewed corporate social responsibility and ethics. He observed that in the past, traditional corporate social responsibility activities had received more attention by U.S.-based businesses from both an activity and budgeting point of view, than investments made in establishing, promoting, and monitoring the ethical culture of the organization.

He said that the vast majority of organizations had no connection between ethics, corporate social responsibility and day-to-day compliance efforts as witnessed in a number of recent corporate scandals where companies had strong corporate responsibility programs but virtually no ethics-based initiatives.

"Many organizations in Europe view ethics and corporate social responsibility in a more holistic fashion, joining together their internal and external values and responsibilities as one set of organizational values," he said. "And I would like to see this trend gain further momentum in the United States."

Tinkler explained that companies may have originally viewed that championing a social initiative would bring applause to both the organization and its key leaders, while ethics initiatives were viewed as merely a compliance-based activity.

"However, in the dynamic business environment that we have found ourselves in the last few years, there has been a tremendous shift from this single-track compliance view to more of a comprehensive view," he said.