In an important management trend, businesses have engaged in voluntary initiatives to improve their compliance with law and with "softer" social constraints on their behaviour. Some twenty years ago, firms began issuing policy statements -- or codes of conduct -- setting forth their commitments in various areas of business ethics and legal compliance. A second step was the development of management systems designed to help them comply with these commitments and the standardisation of these systems (e.g. ISO 9000 and 14001). A new management discipline has emerged involving professionals that specialise in regulatory, legal and ethical compliance. More recently, steps have been taken to formulate standards 91iding guidance for business reporting on non-financial performance.
Enterprises have not acted alone in developing these initiatives. They have co-operated with labour unions, non-governmental organisations and governments. Working with these groups, the business community has developed principles and management methods for addressing a range of issues about which it would have been incapable of organising any systematic response even as recently as two decades ago.