tone at the top

A phrase denoting the attitudes of an organization’s *board of directors and senior managers toward *corporate governance, *ethics, *risk management, and *internal controls. The tone at the top is often considered to establish the atmosphere of the entire organization. Acceptance by a board of directors of good ethical and governance standards is therefore deemed to be a prerequisite for good corporate governance in the organization as a whole. It has been suggested that boards of directors "have the dual role of framing codes of conduct and of living by them" (Cadbury, 2002, 38). Major corporate scandals and misconduct have often derived from a weak governance culture at an organization’s highest echelons, For example, the attitudes of senior officials at *Enron, *WorldCom, and *Arthur Andersen are widely considered to have been major contributory factors to the demise of those organizations. "A fish rots from its head," as an old proverb says.