Challenges of Addressing Conflicts of Interest and Disclosure Management
Increased complexity and lack of transparency has compelled many organisations to realise the need to track and update conflicts of interest (COI). Creating a culture of ethics and trust starts from the tone that you set at the top. When it comes to disclosure management that means being open with your employees and constituents that you do not want to control their relationships but you do need to know about their existing relationships to reduce the risk due to potential conflicts.
If your organisation does not have a straightforward place for those disclosures to be made, they can easily be postponed or forgotten altogether, putting your organisation at greater risk. Organisations need a clean way to communicate what those conflicts of interest may be, and provide an easy, unthreatening way for those disclosures to be made.
Start with Training on Conflicts of Interest