Correspondence: Juan Llopis, Department of Business Organization, University of Alicante, Campus San Vicente del Raspeig. Apdo. 99., Alicante 03080, Spain. Tel: 34 96 590 36 07; Fax: 34 96 590 36 06; E-mail: juan.llopis@ua.es

¹is Professor of Business Organization at the University of Alicante in Spain. His current research lines include corporate governance, organisational culture, business ethics and IS management.

²is Senior Lecturer of Business Organization at the University of Alicante. Her current research interests are e-culture, business ethics, IS Management and the relationship between human resources, corporate governance and outsourcing processes.

³is Senior Lecturer of Business Organization at the University of Alicante. His current research interests include the role of Human Resources Manager, business ethics, e-learning, IS management, leadership and corporate governance.
The authors have co-written papers published in several journals such as Information & Management, Total Quality Management, Information Technology & People, Logistics Information Management Journal, International Journal of Value-Based Management, International Journal of Public Sector Management, International Journal of Educational Management, Business Process Management Journal, Journal of European Industrial Training, Human Systems Management, Industrial Management & Data Systems, International Journal of Information Management, Information Management and Computer Security and Industrial and Commercial Training.

Received 20 March 2007; Revised 20 March 2007.

Abstract

We argue that ethical leadership must be in line with corporate governance in general and of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) who must be the starting point for the rest of the organisational members to have an ethical guideline to follow. Nevertheless, we argue that the figure of the Ethics Officer (EO) is the connecting link between ethical values of Corporate Governance, CEOs and those of the other staff. With this idea in mind, we present the characteristics an EO must have, and reach the conclusion that organisational ethical values cannot be imposed. Instead, they must be managed through a corporate governance ethical culture, so this term will be the focus of the paper.