The effectiveness of ISO 19600 in preventing compliance violations in cooperations

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2017 in the subject Business economics - General, grade: 1,2, University of Applied Sciences Dresden, language: English, abstract: ISO 19600 is an international standard issued by the International Organization of Standardization (ISO) that aims at supporting organizations worldwide in introducing good compliance measures and maintain integrity. The standard was published in December 2014 and has received both praise and criticism, but no in-depth analysis of its effectiveness. This paper is set out to further analyze the approach offered by ISO 19600 towards compliance. It is supposed to assist cooperations in their decision whether or not to use ISO 19600 as their sole or main resource in implementing good compliance measures within their organization. The research question of this thesis could thus be stated as follows: How effective are the measures suggested by ISO 19600 in ensuring good compliance in a cooperation? The term "effectiveness" is defined by the Oxford dictionary as "[t]he degree to which something is successful in producing a desired result". Therefore, this thesis is going to analyze the degree to which ISO 19600 is successful in producing the desired result of preventing compliance violations in cooperations. The research is based on findings of studies on compliance as well as the suggestions in popular literature on the topic and opinions voiced by various economists and organizations upon the release of ISO 19600 itself. By comparing those with the suggestions made in ISO 19600 it is possible to assess the standards potential effectiveness when it is utilized by a cooperation. Note that ISO 19600 is aimed at all kinds of organizations including non-profit organizations and governmental institutions. The focus of this thesis lies on private, profit-driven enterprises, but most of the thesis findings apply to other types of organizations as well.