Articles & features
CHARITY COMMUNITY
Balancing finance, culture and impact: the leadership challenge for charities
- Dec 2025
- Sharon Bell
Leading a charity today means juggling competing priorities: financial sustainability, organisational culture and delivering meaningful impact. For small charities in particular, this balancing act can feel relentless. How do leaders keep the mission alive while ensuring the numbers add up? This article explores practical ways to navigate these tensions and build strong foundations for the future.
New ICAEW guideline puts HR due diligence under the spotlight
- Nov 2025
- ICAEW Insights
A new guideline from ICAEW’s Corporate Finance Faculty focuses on the cultural and people-related risks and opportunities that need to be considered in a transaction.
Corporate culture and how to measure it
- Nov 2025
- ICAEW Insights
Your organisation’s culture is the corporate governance risk that might not be on your radar. So how can you measure it – and what should you do when you realise there’s a problem?
Ethics: four questions to assess company culture
- Oct 2025
- ICAEW Insights
When stepping onto a board or taking up a leadership role, how do you assess the ethics of the organisation? Here are the key questions you need to ask.
Building ethical culture in small business and practice
- Sep 2025
- ICAEW Insights
Stakeholders are now asking even the smallest entities which practical steps they are taking to embed ethics into their organisational cultures, says Vicky Andrew FCA.
Guidance
Ethics and AI
- Report
- Oct 2024
- PDF (1,006kb)
In 2024, ICAEW’s Trust and Ethics Team hosted roundtables on shaping guidance for the accountancy profession on the ethical use of artificial intelligence. Read an overview of the discussions, offering insights into real-life use cases and the risks that must be managed.
Why accountants need to align sustainability and finance data
- Helpsheets and support
- Jul 2024
For a sustainable shift in corporate behaviours to succeed, finance professionals must ensure meaningful connections are being made between sustainability and financial information.
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
How boards of accounting and finance firms can benefit from shadow boards
- Helpsheets and support
- May 2024
Shadow boards can be considered as a tool for navigating a turbulent and ever-changing business landscape. Find out how accountancy businesses can see the same benefits from setting up a shadow board that other sectors are already experiencing.
Sharpening the focus on corporate fraud: an audit committee perspective
- Report
- May 2023
- PDF (803kb)
This is the second of two interview-based publications about fraud. In this report, the Audit and Assurance Faculty considers audit committee perspectives on corporate fraud and how it can be better prevented and detected.
BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT FACULTY
Why culture is important
- Report
- Jun 2021
A business’s greatest asset is its people, and the way in which the business values its people is reflected in its organisational culture. It is this culture that defines the way businesses innovate and ultimately how they transform.
BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT FACULTY
Organisational culture: leadership styles
- Report
- Jun 2021
It is recognised that an effective culture can reduce risk and improve performance of an organisation, and that the success or failure of the culture is greatly influenced by its leaders. This guide, written by Jenny Jones, explores different leadership styles and the impact they can have on organisational culture.
Exclusive
BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT FACULTY
Why culture is important and the power of culture metrics
- Helpsheets and support
- Nov 2020
- PDF (207kb)
This guide, written by Jenny Jones, explains the importance of organisational culture and why businesses must get it right. It considers the benefits of a new metrics-based approach to measuring culture, and how the data gathered can support the organisation as it evolves.
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
How whistleblowing helps companies
- Thought leadership report
- Apr 2019
- PDF (775kb)
The latest ICAEW Connect and Reflect report shows how whistleblowing can help companies and provides an action plan for boards. We explore the five benefits of whistleblowing for companies and then outline the five-point action plan that boards can implement in order to maintain their systems of checks and balances.
Webinars and other recordings
Merging firms made simple: culture, tech, and introducing Capium 365
- Webinar
- Oct 2024
Insight into merging accountancy firms and the practicalities of bringing together cultures and technology.
How a board should maintain the right culture during periods of fast growth
- Podcast
- Nov 2022
In the first of two Insights In Focus special episodes an experienced panel discuss a dilemma facing a fictional software company.
Exclusive
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE COMMUNITY
The importance of a whistleblowing framework and how to respond when an employee raises a concern
- Webinar
- Mar 2022
This webinar discusses the importance of an effective whistleblowing framework, along with factors to consider when establishing such a framework and responding to concerns raised by employees.
Exclusive
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE COMMUNITY
Climate change and corporate value: what companies really think
- Webinar
- Mar 2021
Hear what company executives could be doing now to ensure the future resilience of business against climate risk.
Bloomsbury Accounting and Tax Service
Eligible firms have free access to Bloomsbury Professional's comprehensive online library, comprising around 80 titles from some of the country's leading tax and accounting subject matter experts. Find out who is eligible and how you can access the Accounting and Tax Service.
Exclusive
Culture, ethics and the board
- eBook chapter
- 01 Dec 2024
- Andrew Chambers
- Bloomsbury Professional
- Corporate Governance Handbook
A chapter focusing on the board's role in reviewing their company's culture, ethics and behaviour.
Terms of use:
You are permitted to access, download, copy, or print out content from eBooks for your own research or study only, subject to the Acceptable usage terms.
Useful links
Corporate culture (FRC)
- 03 Oct 2023
FRC resources on corporate culture. Publications, podcasts and case studies.
Tone at the Top
- 14 Jul 2023
Bimonthly quick-read newsletter from the Institute of Internal Auditors, aimed at executive management, boards of directors and audit committees. Provides information on how to establish the appropriate tone at the top.
Corporate Governance Review 2023
- 24 Jun 2023
Grant Thornton's review of the annual reports of 252 of the UK’s FTSE 350 companies. Contains a section on 'Purpose and Culture'.
Board diversity and efffectiveness in FT350 companies
- 20 Jul 2021
Research by The FRC and the London Business School designed to both understand the implications of changes in board diversity in response to the Davies Review, Hampton-Alexander review and the Parker Review and to look forward, to suggest how they can be accelerated. The report was launched with the press release Diverse boards lead to better corporate culture and performance
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