Corporate compliance and business ethics are embedded in an organizational environment. Organizations are “decision-based social systems” or “decision machines“. Everything that happens in organizations takes the form of decisions. Whether a new product is designed, a project started, new staff recruited, a transaction carried out, etc., decisions are always made. In this respect, illegal, criminal or unethical corporate behaviour is also a decision made by the organization and its members.

This raises the question of how wrong decisions can be prevented and right decisions promoted. However, the framework for creating so-called “decision hygiene” is less to be found in law, business and political science – rather, an interdisciplinary approach is required, i.e. the utilization of behavioural science findings. As digitalization progresses, it is not only people and their organizations that are making decisions, but increasingly also machines and algorithms.