Overview of RRC’s Ethics Reputation Rating Methodology

The purpose of RRC’s ratings is to provide the market with an overall assessment of the strength of a company’s ethics reputation. It is RRC’s belief that, over time, companies with stronger ethics reputations will exhibit better business performance than those with weaker ethics reputations. RRC’s ethics reputation rating methodology represents an innovative blend of traditional market research with the perspectives of competitors and financial analysts. Additionally, RRC’s methodology recognizes that ethics reputation ‘drivers’ vary by industry and may require qualitative input. Therefore, the ethics reputation rating assignment process, the core engine of RRC’s work in this field, is designed to be a robust and flexible approach to evaluating the strength of a company’s overall ethics reputation.

The survey data collected to support the ethics reputation rating process represent only a point of departure. There is an essential qualitative element in the assignment of any Ethics Reputation Rating. RRC believes that the Ethics Reputation Rating is a leading indicator of future business performance of a company. As such, the rating must consider all sources of information about a company’s strength, including the viewpoints of senior executives at competing companies in the same industry, financial analysts, business and financial media, and industry experts. The appropriate balancing of qualitative input with quantitative metrics is the responsibility of RRC’s Ethics Rating Committee (ERC), an interdisciplinary group composed of former corporate ethics officers and industry and research methodology experts, among others. The rating process is discussed in greater detail below. First, an overview of the survey methodology provides a necessary foundation for appreciating the validity and integrity of RRC’s approach.

A detailed discussion of RRC methodology is available upon request. Please contact Matthew Molé