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Ethical Culture Assessment™ | Ethical Governance
Ethical Governance Pty Ltd

Ethical Culture
Assessment™

A Behavioural Governance Instrument

Most organisations can articulate their values. Fewer can demonstrate that those values determine behaviour when it matters most — under pressure, competing priorities, and governance stress.

The Ethical Culture Assessment™ measures the ten behavioural and emotional conditions that determine whether organisational ethics function in practice — not just on paper.

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Sanela Osmic GAICD — Founder & CEO, Ethical Governance Pty Ltd
“Ethical culture is revealed not by what organisations say they value, but by what behaviour they tolerate under pressure.”
Sanela Osmic GAICD — Founder & CEO, Ethical Governance Pty Ltd

A comprehensive ethical culture assessment examining ten behavioural governance dimensions — covering integrity, accountability, trust, escalation, leadership conduct, and decision-making under pressure.

10
Dimensions
5
Outputs
All
Organisation sizes
What it assesses

Behaviour under pressure reveals everything

What is ethical culture?Ethical culture is the sum of the behavioural conditions that determine how people actually act when values are tested — not what an organisation says it stands for, but what it tolerates, rewards, and ignores under pressure, competing priorities, and governance stress.

The assessment is grounded in the Osmic Governance Architecture™ — the foundational framework of Behavioural Governance — and sits as the organisational-level counterpart to the Governance Architecture Diagnostic™, which measures the same framework at board level.

Governance frameworks assess structure. Compliance programmes assess adherence. The Ethical Culture Assessment™ assesses something different — the behavioural and emotional conditions that determine whether ethical standards hold when the cost of maintaining them is highest.

Developed through direct experience working with boards and organisations, and grounded in the Behavioural Governance Research Programme — it translates what is observed in practice into a structured, measurable instrument.

“Most ethical culture tools measure what people say they believe. This instrument measures the conditions under which those beliefs either hold or dissolve.”

Ten dimensions
01
Purpose–Behaviour Alignment
02
Decision Integrity
03
Ethical Leadership
04
Leadership Emotional Intelligence
05
Voice and Escalation
06
Challenge Culture
07
Accountability Consistency
08
Information Integrity
09
Trust and Psychological Safety
10
Pressure Resilience
Dimension detail

What each dimension measures

01
Purpose–Behaviour Alignment
Whether stated organisational purpose and values consistently determine actual behaviour — or whether a gap exists between what the organisation says it stands for and how decisions are made in practice.
02
Decision Integrity
Whether decisions across the organisation are made transparently, consistently, and in ways that are aligned with stated values — not merely compliant with stated policy.
03
Ethical Leadership
Whether leaders model the ethical standards they require of others — particularly when inconvenient, commercially costly, or in conflict with short-term performance pressure.
04
Leadership Emotional Intelligence
The capacity of leaders to recognise emotional states — their own and others’ — regulate under pressure, exercise empathy with professional boundaries, and sustain sound ethical judgement when conditions are most demanding.
05
Voice and Escalation
Whether people feel safe to speak up, raise concerns, and escalate without fear of marginalisation — and whether escalation pathways function in practice, not just on paper.
06
Challenge Culture
Whether the organisation’s culture actively supports the questioning of decisions, assumptions, and direction — or whether consensus, hierarchy, and deference suppress constructive challenge.
07
Accountability Consistency
Whether accountability standards are applied consistently across levels and functions — or whether different rules operate for different people, eroding trust in the fairness of the organisational system.
08
Information Integrity
Whether information flows accurately and completely — or whether it is filtered, politicised, or selectively shared in ways that distort decision-making and suppress accountability.
09
Trust and Psychological Safety
Whether the relational conditions that sustain ethical conduct — trust in leadership, safety to be honest, confidence in fairness — are present and durable across the organisation.
10
Pressure Resilience
Whether the organisation’s ethical culture holds under conditions of competitive pressure, performance demand, governance stress, and institutional conflict — or whether it is a fair-weather construct.
Diagnostic outputs

Five outputs. One complete picture.

Output 01
Ethical Culture Index™
An integrated score across all ten dimensions — a single, authoritative indicator of the overall strength of the behavioural and emotional conditions sustaining ethical culture in practice.
Output 02
Leadership Emotional Intelligence Profile™
Where leadership EI diverges from the culture it is designed to sustain — answering the question boards and risk leaders actually need answered: is our leadership culture producing the ethical conditions we believe it is?
Output 03
Ethical Culture Dimension Profile™
Scores across all ten dimensions, identifying specific cultural strengths and areas of elevated behavioural risk — with sufficient granularity to anchor targeted development.
Output 04
Purpose–Integrity Rating™
A standalone rating of the alignment between stated organisational purpose and actual conduct — identifying where Purpose–Integrity Misalignment is present and where ethical risk is elevated.
Output 05
Governance–Culture Alignment Report™
For organisations that have also completed the Governance Architecture Diagnostic™ at board level — a comparative output showing where board-level governance culture and organisational ethical culture are aligned, and where the gap between them represents risk. Together, the ECA and GAD™ provide a complete view of governance integrity from board to organisation. The only output of its kind in the market.
Who it is for

Designed for every organisation

The Ethical Culture Assessment™ is available to organisations of all sizes and sectors. Contact us to discuss your organisation’s context and objectives.

C
Chief Risk Officer
Identifies behavioural and cultural conditions representing undetected governance and conduct risk — before they become formally visible.
P
Chief People Officer
Provides a rigorous, evidence-based baseline for culture development — grounded in behavioural conditions, not sentiment surveys.
B
Board
Gives the board visibility of the cultural conditions operating beneath the governance structures they oversee — including where Leadership EI is or is not producing ethical culture.
G
General Counsel
Identifies speak-up culture, escalation pathway, and information integrity risk — the conditions that determine whether legal and compliance obligations translate into actual conduct.
R
Regulators and Advisers
An instrument-based assessment producing structured, comparative data on the behavioural conditions underlying governance risk — appropriate for regulatory engagement and due diligence.
E
Executive Leadership
A candid, evidence-based view of the cultural conditions the leadership team is producing — and where those conditions diverge from the organisation’s stated values and governance commitments.

Ready to assess your ethical culture?

Contact us to discuss your organisation’s context and objectives.

Contact us to enquire