A software development company's executive management team recently met to review its progress on ethical and social responsibility goals. After the…

The process described is a social audit. A social audit is a formal and systematic review of a company's performance and impact concerning its social and ethical objectives. The scenario outlines the core components of this process: the executive team reviewed progress against existing goals (assessment), planned a new set of goals (action planning), and shared the results with stakeholders like employees and the board (reporting). This cycle of evaluation, goal-setting, and communication is the defining characteristic of a social audit, which aims to ensure accountability and guide future social responsibility efforts.

A. Establish code of ethics: This is the one-time act of creating a foundational document of ethical principles, not the recurring review process described.

B. Model high ethical standards: This refers to the ongoing behavior of leadership, not a specific, formal process of auditing performance and reporting results.

C. Deliver ethics training: This is an educational activity to inform employees, distinct from the high-level management review and strategic planning shown in the scenario.

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1. Gray, R. (2002). The social accounting project and Accounting Organizations and Society Privileging engagement, imaginings, new accountings and pragmatism over critique? Accounting, Organizations and Society, 27(7), 687-708. This article discusses social auditing as a process for organizations to report on their ethical and social performance to stakeholders (Section 4, "Social Accounting and its 'silent' radical-pragmatic core"). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0361-3682(00)00003-9

2. MIT Sloan School of Management. (2007). 15.992 Global Business, Society, and the Environment, Spring 2007. MIT OpenCourseWare. The course materials, particularly in sessions covering Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), describe social auditing as the mechanism by which firms assess, verify, and report their performance on social and environmental goals to internal and external stakeholders.

3. Everett, J., & Neu, D. (2000). Ecological Modernization and the Limits of Environmental Accounting? Accounting Forum, 24(1), 5–29. This paper frames social and environmental auditing as a key corporate governance mechanism for assessing performance against non-financial objectives and communicating those results, which aligns with the activities described in the scenario (p. 10-12). https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6303.00029