Etica aziendale e Corporate Governance

This paper aims to analyze the linkages between business ethics and corporate governance through the systematic analysis of literature according to a critical approach to contribute to the scientific debate on the topic. The ethical climate as established by corporate governance plays an important role in the success of the company. The relationship between ethics and governance is very close and the directives of the managers influence the ethical principles that the company intends to pursue and the actions implemented by the employees. However, corporate governance directives do not always have a positive effect on the ethical behavior of employees. The proverbial concept of leading by a good example –i.e. the governance actual behavior –seems to have amuch more significant effect than the words spoken by leaders or reported in a written company reporting. In this sense, corporate ethics linked to governance have been recently referred to as "Tone at the top" -in order to be effective, the example mustcome from the top management. The literature has addressed this issue, but studies on the linkages between ethics and corporate governance remain incomplete without an organic and systematic organization of the topics.