The Ethics in Business Award in Jordan 2024
Background Document

1. The Ethics in Business Award

The Ethics in Business Award is a civil society-led initiative in partnership between the Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD) and the Jordanian Businessmen Association. It aims to recognize the efforts of small, medium, and large companies in Jordan to achieve excellence concerning principles of sustainable entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility. According to S. Schaltegger, sustainable entrepreneurship is “the realization of sustainability innovations aimed at the mass market and providing benefit to the larger part of society.” ^[1] In the context of strengthening the local market and promoting a more competitive, resilient, and sustainable Jordanian economy, innovation involves refining products or services to adapt them to market needs, reducing costs and perceived risks, and improving features to attract new investments. It also includes the introduction of features tailored to target markets that contribute to the national economic growth.

Each year a theme is selected based on the Jordanian national priorities, the theme for the 2024, award is “Strengthening the local market: Towards a more competitive, Shock-resilient and Sustainable Jordanian Economy”. For more information about last year´s award follow the link

The award process shall consist of three phases:

1- Information gathering and analysis: participating companies will voluntarily fill out a questionnaire as per the following link  and the information will be analyzed by the ARDD team.

2- Decision by the Award Committee: ARDD will provide an analytical report to the members of the award committee who will gather and decide which companies will be awarded.

• The award criteria shall be aligned with the principles of corporate social responsibility and sustainable entrepreneurship and shall investigate three dimensions:
  1. Governance and Management: fundamental questions in this dimension are:
     • Do companies have mechanisms at the governance level to support the adoption and implementation of corporate values aligned with recognized principles of sustainable entrepreneurship/corporate social responsibility?
     • How relevant are these principles in their decision-making?

2. Policies in place: looking at how companies meet fundamental responsibilities in the areas of labor, environment, and anti-corruption while promoting a sustainable marketplace and community.

3. The alignment of company core values to principles of sustainable entrepreneurship.

3- The Award Ceremony: it will take place yearly, and winners will be announced by the Jordan Business Association (JBA).

In agreement with the JBA, each year a specific theme for the Ethics in Business Award will be selected.

2. The Questionnaire

Each year the committee will decide on a theme according to national priorities

B) Objectives of the questionnaire

1. Instrument for selecting the yearly Ethics in Business Award.
2. Awareness-raising instrument concerning the participating companies’ ethical and socially responsible practices.
3. Surveying the interest of companies to formulate a Jordanian Code of Business Ethics and/or participate in international guidelines
4. Recording and tracking the progress of companies in the field of sustainable entrepreneurship to elaborate an index.

C) Questionnaire components and criteria are based on the following frameworks

1. EU Commission awareness-raising questionnaire

 Unlike the next tools, this questionnaire does not aim to assess the level of corporate sustainability of participating companies. Still, it identifies policy gaps to be addressed for improving their business models in terms of profitability, sensibility, reputation, and performance. This questionnaire consists of 26 questions divided into 5 sections: 1) Workplace policies, 2) Environmental policies, 3) Market place policies, 4) Community policies, and 5) Company Values.

2. United Nations Global Compact Implementation Survey

 The UN Global Compact is a UN-led voluntary initiative to promote worldwide corporate sustainability by supporting companies to do business responsibly by aligning their strategies and operations with key principles on human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption. Furthermore, it takes and coordinates strategic actions to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Consequently, the UN Global Compact Implementation Survey intends to assess the level of accomplishment of the abovementioned goals by the participatory companies.

Its survey has 79 anonymous questions divided into 8 sections:

• Section I: Management and Governance (11).
• Section II: Implementing the 10 principles along 4 thematic areas: 1) Human Rights (17), 2) Labor (5), 3) Environment (13) and 4) Anti-Corruption (5).
• Section III: Contribution to SDGs and Impact (12).
• Section IV: Local networks (1).
• Section V: Sustainability Reporting (1).
• Section VI: Assessment and Progress (6).
• Section VII: Basic company information (8).

3. UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) for Signatories of the Private Sector Commitment for the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism

 In 2011, the UNWTO designed a Private Sector Commitment to the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism for upholding, promoting, and implementing the values of responsible and sustainable tourism development. So, similarly to the previous one, this survey aims to help UNWTO record progress on implementing the Code of Ethics signed by private companies working in the tourist sector. Moreover, it intends to promote ethical and socially responsible practices among the signatories.

The questionnaire is structured as follows:

• Basic company information.
• Code of Ethics: Adhesion, implementation, and dissemination.
• Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policies: Corporate governance and business ethics, employment quality, social equity and human rights, community well-being, and environmental sustainability.
• Supporting material about CSR policies by each signatory company.

Please follow the link below to fill up the questionnaire:

https://ee-eu.kobotoolbox.org/x/AqsywBGt

[1] Schaltegger, S. (2013). Sustainable Entrepreneurship. In: Idowu, S.O., Capaldi, N., Zu, L., Gupta, A.D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Corporate Social Responsibility. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28036-8_742