2025 Global Study on Ethics & Compliance Program Maturity reveals critical disconnects between policy and practice across industriesa
LRN Corporation, a leader in ethics and compliance (E&C) solutions, has released its 2025 Global Study on Ethics & Compliance Program Maturity, providing one of the most comprehensive views on the state of corporate compliance programs worldwide. As the global regulatory environment grows more complex, the study finds E&C programs remain uneven in their maturity and reveals significant shortfalls in areas critical to long-term success, including cultural measurement, manager accountability, and enforcement consistency.
“As organizations face increasing scrutiny, rising complexity, and fast-evolving risks, the strength and sophistication of a company’s E&C program becomes a true differentiator,” said Kevin Michielsen, CEO of LRN Corporation. “The data from our latest study shows progress, but also offers a call to action for organizations to do more to embed ethical behavior into day-to-day decision-making, especially at the middle management level.”
Drawing on insights from global benchmarking and survey data using LRN’s proprietary Program Maturity Assessment (PMA), the report evaluates the maturity of E&C programs across six core dimensions: Culture, Written Standards, Enforcement & Incentives, Risk Assessment, Training & Communication, and Resources & Board Oversight. The study reveals that while organizations are updating codes of conduct and expanding board-level oversight, deep gaps remain in middle management engagement, culture-building, enforcement, and risk assessment.
Key Findings:
- Cultural Alignment Underdeveloped: Although 76% of companies conduct annual ethics or culture assessments, only 31% evaluate ethical behavior in performance reviews. Just 15% report having a strong “tone in the middle,” with manager training and accountability notably under-resourced, including 20% offering no manager-specific training at all. This lack of investment risks reducing corporate values to empty rhetoric, rather than lived practice.
- Codes of Conduct Frequently Updated, Not Fully Embedded: 71% of organizations revise their Code of Conduct at least every three years, with 45% doing so annually, up from 11% a decade ago. However, many still struggle to integrate these standards into real-world decisions and ensure they’re seen as relevant, actionable, and accessible to employees across functions and geographies.
- Training and Impact Measurement Gaps Persist: Only 44% of organizations assess training comprehension, and just 37% track misconduct trends after training. Many programs focus on completion rates rather than outcome-based metrics, limiting their ability to demonstrate true effectiveness.
- Investigations Remain Manual and Fragmented: Over 35% of organizations still use spreadsheets to track misconduct cases, and fewer than 30% use cross-functional investigation teams, raising serious concerns about data integrity, auditability, and consistency.
- Risk Assessment Practices Lack Depth: Only 19% of organizations include talent management risks in their compliance risk assessments, and fewer than one-third evaluate reputational or ethical misconduct risk comprehensively.
“Organizations that embed ethics into how they lead, manage, and reward people are positioning themselves for long-term resilience and trust,” said Ty Francis, MBE, Chief Advisory Officer at LRN Corporation. “Organizations may have the right policies on paper, but without investment in middle management, integrated systems, and accountability structures, they will struggle to translate principles into practice.”
The 2025 Global Study on E&C Program Maturity offers a clear roadmap for building resilient, values-driven organizations based on insights from a diverse, global pool of compliance professionals. Organizations must reinforce manager accountability to ensure that ethical values are consistently modeled and upheld at every level. They should modernize investigations by adopting integrated tools, enhancing speed, transparency, and credibility, and closing the measurement gap by rigorously evaluating organizational culture, training effectiveness, and ethics-based decision-making.
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