The ethics of governance and governance of ethics in the King Reports

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the prominence and positioning of ethics in the four editions of the King Report on corporate governance for South Africa that were published since 1994. It tells a tale of how certain ethics aspects remained fairly constant over the four editions of the King Report on corporate governance for South Africa (King I in 1994; King II in 2002; King III in 2009; King IV in 2016), whilst other ethics aspects evolved quite substantially over the four editions.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, a conceptual distinction between “Ethics of Governance” and “Governance of Ethics” will be introduced, which will then be used to analyse the ethics dimensions of the four King reports.

Findings

It will be demonstrated that there is continuity across the four editions of the King Report as far as the Ethics of Governance is concerned.

Originality/value

With regards to the Governance of Ethics, there has been a quite drastic evolution in both the prominence and positioning of ethics since the publication of the first King Report in 1994.

Citation

Rossouw, G.J. (2020), "The ethics of governance and governance of ethics in the King Reports", Journal of Global Responsibility, Vol. 11 No. 2, pp. 187-196. https://doi.org/10.1108/JGR-10-2019-0088