12. Rebuilding Professional Ethics: Culture, Law, Professional Bodies, Media, and Internal Organizational Mechanisms
Professional ethics is not built by publishing a charter, holding a workshop, or putting up a few statements about integrity. Professional conduct changes when stated values enter everyday decisions: hiring and promotion, allocation of authority, contracts, responses to complaints, treatment of mistakes, accounting practices, and the handling of conflicts of interest.
An organization may speak in its official documents about honesty, respect, and responsibility while its managers punish the reporting of mistakes, conceal customer complaints, or provide incomplete information to meet sales targets. In such an environment, employees quickly learn to look for the real rules not in the ethics charter but in the conduct of those who hold power.
Rebuilding professional ethics begins with this gap: the distance between what is said and what is rewarded. A society cannot treat opportunism as cleverness, celebrate rapid growth without asking questions, and then expect economic actors, in moments of conflict, to place rights and stewardship above immediate gain.
Nor is reform a single action. Education without enforcement can become moralizing; law without culture is circumvented; a professional body without independence and accountability becomes ceremonial; media without access to information remain at the level of claims; and an organization’s internal mechanism, without management support, becomes merely a form for filing complaints.
First, Conduct Must Be Called by Its Proper Name Again
Part of the crisis of professional ethics occurs in language. Copying another person’s path is called “inspiration,” concealing a defect “message management,” imposing an ambiguous contract “flexibility,” delaying compensation “cash-flow management,” and using relationships to exclude competition “networking.”
Each of these terms can describe legitimate conduct in an appropriate context. Cash-flow management is a real activity, and inspiration is part of creativity. The problem begins when a neutral or positive term is used to conceal behavior that would be much harder to defend if described accurately.
Professional-ethics education should build the ability to recognize precisely these boundaries. A person should understand the difference between inspiration and appropriation, how a conflict of interest can arise before corruption, which information is confidential, where advertising becomes misleading, and why apparent legality does not always end ethical judgment.
This education cannot be achieved by memorizing a list of virtues. Real examples, cases, contracts, decision situations, and the consequences of conduct are more effective for learning. A seller should work through situations in which disclosing a defect may reduce sales; a manager should evaluate a decision where the organization’s interest conflicts with an employee’s rights; and a partner should know what information may be taken when leaving a partnership.
Ethics Should Be Integrated into Professional Education Itself
Professional education usually prioritizes technical skill: how to manufacture a product, write software, treat a patient, draft a contract, or sell a service. The question “Within what limits should this ability be used?” is sometimes left to a separate course or session at the end.
The result is that ethics is seen as an external add-on to the profession—desirable, but secondary. A more precise approach integrates ethics into the skill itself. Confidentiality should be taught alongside data management; truthful advertising alongside marketing; conflicts of interest alongside advisory work; and safety and public responsibility alongside design and production.
Iran’s National Guild System Act does not assign guild associations only a licensing function. Paragraphs (h) and (n) of Article 30 include among their duties creating necessary educational facilities for guild members and holding training courses on the rules of trade and business. The same article provides for commissions dealing with complaints, dispute resolution, inspection, technical matters, and education.1
This statutory capacity can go beyond formal training. A course held merely to complete a file does not change market conduct. Training should be connected with the real violations found in the trade, common contracts, customer rights, safety, confidentiality, and methods for remedying mistakes.
The role of professional and trade bodies matters here because the ethical issues of every profession are not identical. Confidentiality takes different forms for physicians, lawyers, programmers, accountants, and sellers. A general charter can state principles, but recognizing real situations requires knowledge from inside the profession itself.
A Professional Body Should Not Merely Issue Licenses
A professional or trade body has credibility when it protects the integrity of the profession, not merely when it defends members’ interests against the public. A body that remains silent about a member’s obvious misconduct may protect that person in the short term, but it reduces public trust in all members over the long term.
The National Guild System Act assigns guild associations and guild chambers functions such as education, handling complaints, dispute resolution, inspection, and oversight of technical, health, and safety regulations. Articles 30, 37, and 39 divide these responsibilities among guild associations, guild chambers, and inspection commissions.[1]
These provisions do not mean that every association has general judicial authority or can impose arbitrary punishments on members outside the law. The limits of review, objection, and recourse to judicial authorities are governed by the same law and related rules. Before a dispute becomes a heavy case, a professional body can perform part of the work of education, mediation, inspection, and identifying recurring patterns of misconduct.
Financial transparency within the professional body itself is also a condition of trust. Article 20 bis of the National Guild System Act, added on 2 Mordad 1403 SH, requires covered guild associations and chambers to upload audited financial statements or the required financial information to the relevant websites. Under Note 2 to the same article, collection of money from guild units must also take place through the prescribed system, and collection outside that system constitutes a violation.[1]
The rule also has symbolic importance. An institution that asks its members for transparency and compliance cannot keep its own income and expenditures obscure. The credibility of a professional body begins with practicing internally what it asks of others.
An Ethics Charter Must Be Usable
Many ethics charters are written with correct but general words: honesty, fairness, respect, responsibility, and customer orientation. Few people openly disagree with these values; the problem appears when a person does not know what action is expected in a real situation.
A useful charter should answer concrete questions: To what extent is a gift from a customer or supplier acceptable? How should a family relationship with a contracting party be disclosed? Which information is confidential? What are the limits on personal use of organizational data, tools, and contacts? What evidence is required before publishing comparative advertising? To whom, and when, should a professional error be reported?
A charter is not expected to predict every future event. It should clarify decision-making principles, the route for asking questions, and the responsible authority. If an employee is uncertain between two duties, they should know from whom to seek guidance and how the decision will be recorded.
The charter should also match the organization’s real authority. Promising absolute protection of confidentiality or guaranteeing an outcome the organization cannot actually deliver creates distrust of its own. The limits of protection and any exceptions are better made clear from the outset.
Every rule should also apply equally to managers and employees. If misconduct by a junior employee is pursued while similar conduct by a manager is ignored because of status, the charter becomes a document used against people with less power.
Whistleblowing Must Be Safe, Impartial, and Traceable
A large share of misconduct becomes known to people inside an organization before it is visible from outside. An employee may know about an unusual account, pressure to manipulate a report, a safety hazard, or improper managerial conduct. The question is whether they can raise the concern without fear of dismissal, humiliation, loss of career opportunities, or exposure of their identity.
A mechanism that merely creates a message box or email address is not enough. A person needs to know who receives the report, how conflicts of interest are controlled, when a response will be provided, and what independent route exists if the report concerns their direct manager or the unit responsible for handling reports.
The international standard ISO 37002:2021 on whistleblowing management systems identifies four main stages: receiving reports, assessing them, addressing them, and closing cases. The guidance is built around three principles: trust, impartiality, and protection.7 ISO 37002 is not Iranian law, and using it does not by itself replace legal duties or judicial proceedings; its value lies in providing a management framework for designing a reliable internal channel.
The Law on the Protection of Corruption Whistleblowers, adopted 14 Azar 1402 SH, also creates a legal mechanism for a defined category of corruption reports. The law defines the whistleblower, receiving bodies, retaliatory actions, and forms of protection, and Article 3 provides for establishment of a system that preserves the confidentiality of the whistleblower’s identity and the recorded information.2
Chapter Three of the same law provides, within the prescribed legal limits and subject to determination under the law, for appointment of legal-aid counsel and protections necessary for the whistleblower’s and related persons’ physical, financial, or occupational security.[2]
The law’s scope should not be generalized to every organizational complaint. Its protections and rewards depend on reporting the conduct specified in Article 2 and following the statutory process. An objection to a performance review, an ordinary worker–employer dispute, or any other internal violation does not necessarily fall under this law.[2]
Nor should an organization’s internal mechanism replace or obstruct reporting to a lawful authority. If the issue may involve a crime, an immediate danger, or a violation within the jurisdiction of a public body, the organization cannot invoke “handling the matter internally” to remove the person’s right of legal recourse.
False Reporting Should Not Be Treated as Consequence-Free
Protecting whistleblowers does not mean accepting every allegation without examination. An accusation made without evidence or with the intention of causing harm can damage the reputation, job, and life of the person reported.
A fair system should protect a good-faith reporter against retaliation while also giving the person reported a right to respond, impartial review, and confidentiality until the matter is clarified. A report begins an investigative process; it is not a final judgment.
For the same reason, the investigating unit should not report directly to a person who may themselves be the subject of a complaint. Preserving evidence, limiting access, hearing both sides, and distinguishing rumor from indicia are elements of professional review.
A culture that regards every whistleblower as a traitor hides misconduct. A culture that treats every allegation as established fact without investigation turns the organization into an arena for exclusion and score-settling.
Ethics Should Become a Compliance and Internal-Control System
In a professional organization, ethics does not rest only on individual intentions. It should be clear which laws and obligations govern the activity, where the main risks lie, who is responsible for controlling each risk, and how deviations are recorded and corrected.
ISO 37301:2021 provides a framework for establishing, implementing, evaluating, maintaining, and improving a compliance management system. The standard can be used by different kinds of organizations and does not confine compliance to a separate unit; responsibility for compliance should run through the organization’s structures and decisions.6 ISO 37301 is also a voluntary international standard, and merely obtaining certification or claiming compliance does not prove that all organizational conduct is correct.
An ethics and compliance program should be designed around the organization’s real risks. A small shop, software company, factory, hospital, and financial institution do not face the same kinds of data, conflicts of interest, or safety risks. A single large, generic system may create little more than cost and paperwork for a small organization.
Minimum elements of such a system may include identifying laws and obligations, risk assessment, assigning responsibility, training, recording sensitive decisions, financial controls, reporting channels, independent review, corrective action, and periodic reassessment.
OECD guidance on business integrity likewise emphasizes internal controls, ethics and compliance programs, and visible commitment from senior management. These guides are recommendations and should be applied in proportion to each firm’s size, activity, and risks.8
Senior Management Cannot Delegate Ethics Away
One common mistake is to assign ethics to human resources, legal, or compliance functions while senior managers send a different message through real decisions. Employees see a sales manager rewarded for higher numbers even when customers are dissatisfied or product information is ambiguous. In such circumstances, an ethics class cannot compete with the incentive system.
Managers need to show that certain red lines do not move even under financial pressure. That commitment becomes credible when an organization is willing to reject a profitable but unhealthy transaction, does not distort an unfavorable report, and investigates misconduct by a successful, high-earning employee as well.
A manager’s example is not visible only in speeches. The way they receive bad news, respond to mistakes, choose people for promotion, and disclose their own conflicts of interest creates the organization’s real message.
If a manager searches for someone to blame after every error, information will be hidden from them. If no one is accountable for carelessness, responsibility also disappears. Ethical management must distinguish among honest error, process weakness, negligence, and deliberate misconduct.
Clear Contracts Are Part of Ethical Infrastructure
Many forms of unethical conduct grow in environments where the boundaries of rights and authority are unclear. A partner’s share, ownership of outputs, confidential information, rights to use data, exit procedures, or responsibility for delay may remain ambiguous, and after a dispute each party interprets the text in its own favor.
A clear contract does not eliminate trust; it protects it. Before an achievement becomes valuable, the parties should discuss ownership, shares, confidentiality, creator attribution, access to records, decision-making, and the end of the collaboration.
For professional and trade bodies, preparing model contracts may be a more practical service than publishing general recommendations. A template should not be used without adapting it to the project, but it helps people see questions they may forget amid the excitement of beginning a collaboration.
A distinction should be made between a confidentiality agreement and a claim of unlimited ownership. An organization cannot treat all public knowledge, a person’s general skills, and their future experience as its property through an excessively broad clause. Conversely, someone who has obtained access to specific confidential information cannot treat contractual ambiguity as a license for unlimited use.
The Media Should Examine the Path by Which Success Is Produced
The media do more than report sales figures, company growth, or profiles of successful people. Part of economic ethics is created by the story the media tell about success. When every case of rapid growth is celebrated without questions, the route by which the result was achieved loses importance.
Economic media should ask how the product was created, what data support the claim, what conflicts of interest exist, how advertising is separated from independent reporting, and whether affected parties have an opportunity to respond.
Iran’s Press Law subjects the press—and, within the scope specified, domestic electronic publications and news agencies—to rights and responsibilities. Article 3 recognizes the right to publish constructive criticism and explanations, while Article 5 recognizes, subject to law, obtaining and publishing news to increase public awareness as a legal right of the press.5
Conversely, Paragraph 11 of Article 6 prohibits publishing rumors, false statements, or distortions of others’ material. The same article defines “literary theft” as intentionally attributing all or a substantial part of another person’s works and writings to oneself or another person, even in translation.[5]
Article 23 gives a natural or legal person about whom material containing insult, defamation, falsehood, or criticism has been published, in the circumstances prescribed, a right to send a reply and imposes a duty on the publication to print it.[5]
These rules do not automatically apply to every personal page, channel, or social-media user; applicability of the Press Law depends on the form and status of the medium, and online activities may also be governed by other laws. The ethical principle nevertheless extends beyond the legal format: media should not substitute accusation for investigation, advertising for independent reporting, or silent correction for accountability.
Advertising Revenue Should Not Erase the Editorial Boundary
Media organizations need revenue to continue operating, and advertising is a natural source of it. The problem arises when the audience cannot tell whether the content before them is independent reporting or material published in return for payment, a gift, or a commercial relationship.
Disclosing the advertising nature of content, the sponsor’s identity, and the financial relationship allows the audience to assess a claim more accurately. Concealing that relationship may increase trust in one item of content, but it consumes the media organization’s broader capital of trust.
The media should also verify claims of expertise, standards compliance, scientific approval, or rankings before publication. Printing the word “approved” without identifying the approving body, the scope, and the date can create an impression stronger than reality warrants.
Correcting errors is also part of journalistic professionalism. A trustworthy media organization is not necessarily one that never makes mistakes; it is one that does not hide them, keeps corrected versions identifiable, and, where the correction is material, explains its reason and scope.
Access to Information Is a Precondition for Evidence-Based Criticism
The media, researchers, and citizens cannot reasonably be expected to scrutinize public performance accurately while being denied the information necessary to do so. Criticism without evidence easily becomes guesswork and accusation; transparency increases the possibility of evaluation and correction.
The Law on Publication and Free Access to Information provides that every Iranian person has, except where prohibited by law, a right of access to public information. Public institutions must make information covered by the law available without discrimination and in the shortest possible time, and in the circumstances specified a response to a request should not take more than ten days.4
Article 10 provides for public institutions to publish periodically information such as performance, balance sheets, functions, methods of service delivery, and complaint mechanisms. Article 11 also states that a decision or resolution creating public rights or obligations cannot be classified as a state secret and must be published.[4]
This right is not absolute. The law provides exceptions for classified information, privacy, personal information of third parties, risks to health, and certain financial or commercial harms.[4] Responsible transparency should balance the public’s right to know against legitimate rights of confidentiality.
Disclosing every document without regard to privacy or trade secrets is not transparency. Conversely, broadly labeling information “confidential” should not become a method of avoiding accountability. The boundary should be assessed according to law, the nature of the information, and the real risk involved.
Measuring Ethics Should Be Connected to Conduct
An organization cannot measure its ethics merely by the number of training sessions, signed charters, or posters on the wall. Such indicators measure activity, not outcomes.
More meaningful indicators might include response time to complaints, the number of repeated errors, payment delays, rates of safety-hazard reporting, how conflicts of interest are handled, the quality of corrections to false information, turnover among key employees, and partners’ access to accounts relevant to their rights.
These data should also be interpreted cautiously. An increase in misconduct reports may indicate more corruption, but it may instead show that employees have greater trust in the reporting channel. A low complaint rate does not always mean satisfaction; the complaint route may simply be difficult or costly.
The purpose of measurement should not be to produce a decorative score. Data should answer a practical question: Which behavior is repeating, why did the existing control fail, and what change can reduce the likelihood of recurrence?
Incentives Should Align with Stated Values
If a manager’s reward depends only on sales, speed, or cost reduction, quality, safety, and customer satisfaction cannot be expected to take priority when they conflict. Every metric tied to rewards gradually shapes organizational behavior.
This does not mean removing financial targets. A firm needs to measure revenue and productivity in order to survive. The problem is one-dimensional evaluation. A sales manager should see not only sales volume but also returns, complaints, the accuracy of information provided, and the sustainability of customer relationships.
In employee assessment, mere “obedience” should not be confused with professional commitment either. Sometimes the most responsible person is the one who opposes a popular decision before it causes harm. An organization that treats evidence-based dissent as disloyalty removes unpleasant information from the decision-making process.
Ethical rewards should not become theater either. Choosing an “ethical employee” without clear criteria may replace professional conduct with popularity or closeness to management. It is better to define specific, observable behaviors connected with rights and responsibilities.
Reform Should Begin Inside the Organization but Not End There
Every firm is responsible for building its own confidentiality policy, complaint process, financial controls, training, and internal accountability. Yet not every problem can be resolved within the same organization, especially when those who hold power are themselves involved in the misconduct.
An independent external authority is therefore necessary, depending on the issue: a professional association, regulator, inspector, arbitrator, court, or specialist body. People should know when an internal route is insufficient and where they can seek independent guidance or review.
Conversely, sending every disagreement to court is not desirable either. Many misunderstandings and mistakes can be resolved through a clear response, prompt remedy, and process improvement. Formal adjudication should be accessible, but it should not be the organization’s only tool of accountability.
The proper combination is a network of routes: direct dialogue, internal complaint, mediation or professional-body review, statutory reporting, and judicial recourse. The nature of the issue, urgency, risk, and jurisdiction determine which path is appropriate.
Rebuilding Professional Ethics Is Gradual but Observable
Culture does not change through a sudden order. Over time, people need to see that accurate reports are heard, misconduct by powerful people is also pursued, contracts become clearer, and customer complaints genuinely lead to correction.
Small but consistent actions are more effective than grand promises: clarifying one ambiguous contract clause, designating a responsible person for complaint responses, recording a conflict of interest before a decision, publishing a required financial statement, publicly correcting an inaccurate claim, or creating a safe channel for reporting hazards.
These actions create culture only when they are not exceptions. If an organization becomes transparent only after a crisis and returns to its previous methods once pressure fades, its real message is clear: ethics was merely an instrument for managing reputation.
Sustainable rebuilding occurs when an honest person does not have to bear every risk heroically and alone in order to preserve a right. The structure should support them, provide the necessary information, and offer a route for objection and remedy.
Professional Ethics Should Become Infrastructure
Culture preserves the proper names of conduct. Education builds the ability to recognize situations. Contracts define the boundaries of rights. Professional bodies provide specialist knowledge and routes for review. The media scrutinize claims and narratives of success. Law establishes minimum obligations and enforcement. Firms translate these principles into daily decisions, controls, and accountability.
Removing any one of these components places a disproportionate burden on the others. Without law, individual ethics is defenseless against opportunism; without media and access to information, misconduct remains hidden; without specialist professional bodies, some disputes are understood too late and too imprecisely; without culture, rules are reduced to minimum requirements to be circumvented.
Rebuilding professional ethics does not require a superficial return to the traditional marketplace. Today’s economy deals with data, platforms, intellectual property, artificial intelligence, supply chains, and complex contracts. What remains from the futuwwa tradition is the principle of responsibility toward what has been entrusted—but this principle must be accompanied by clear rights, appropriate technology, independent institutions, and measurable accountability.
Nor is the objective to build a society without mistakes. No such society exists. The objective is to build an environment in which errors are detected earlier, misconduct is not rewarded, harm can be remedied, and people do not have to pay an unreasonable price merely for acting correctly.
The final section of the article brings the main threads of the discussion together: why returning to professional javanmardi does not mean returning to the past, and how stewardship, fairness, and due recognition can be translated into the language of Iran’s future economy.