The latest EY Global Integrity Report showed that 49% of board directors and staff believed integrity standards in their organisation have improved since 2022, but the majority were still worried about reporting misconduct to their superiors.

Many factors will be influencing this switch, but over the years it has been a ‘pendulum’ of what is integral to being compliant with the rules and regulations at any time.

Jim McCurry, global forensic & integrity services deputy leader at EY gave Accountancy Daily his view of the standards of integrity over his 28 years at the Big Four firm, the importance of the tone at the top of organisations and how external factors shape internal performance and culture: ‘It’s a bit like a pendulum, there’s a lot of swinging back and forth. If you go back to Enron and the tech bust and some of the scandals around that, there was a very high level of regulatory push around compliance and control.

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