Opus College of Business

Centers & Institutes

The SAIP Institute

The Institute fosters ethically and socially responsible organizational conduct by promoting, applying, adapting, and continually improving the Self-Assessment and Improvement Process (SAIP).  Through its engagements with practitioners and collaborations with scholars, the Institute also aids the formation of ethical, effective leaders.

Activities

  • Facilitating implementation of the SAIP within for-profit and
    not-for-profit organizations, including customized applications.
  • Developing a network of partner organizations capable and
    qualified to administer the SAIP with their clients.
  • Working with academic partners inside and outside the University of St. Thomas to support research and teaching on the issue of institutionalizing ethical business conduct.
  • Enhancing the SAIP and extending the method to new applications.

Offerings

  • The Self-Assessment and Improvement Process (SAIP) -- The SAIP is a comprehensive, systematic ethical self-appraisal for organizations. Modeled after the assessment method pioneered by the Baldrige National Quality Program, the SAIP yields both a qualitative and a quantitative evaluation of a company's operations. The assessment helps leaders identify and address
    critical improvement opportunities. The SAIP is available in three different versions, allowing a company to examine its performance in progressively greater detail. In its current design, the SAIP employs the Caux Round Table Principles for Business. The Caux Principles are based substantially upon the Minnesota Principles, a statement of responsible business conduct developed by Minnesota executives in collaboration with the Center for Ethical Business Cultures, faculty members of the University of St. Thomas' Opus College of Business, and others.
  • The Catholic Identity Matrix (CIM) – The CIM is an organizational assessment and improvement process designed for Catholic healthcare institutions. The CIM helps these institutions evaluate the degree to which their current policies and processes are consistent with ethical aspirations of the Catholic moral tradition.  By identifying gaps between the requirements of these principles and current practices, the CIM enables an organization to modify its operations in a way that better aligns behavior with important ethical values.  Over time, systematic application of the CIM allows a Catholic healthcare institution to strengthen its identity as a Catholic ministry.  The CIM is the product of a collaboration between Ascension Health and the SAIP Institute, with support from the University of St. Thomas’ John A. Ryan Institute for Catholic Social Thought and the Gonzaga Ethics Institute at Gonzaga University.
 

Understand company behavior

"The only way a director can totally understand the behavior of a company is to shake it from top to bottom, by means of a thorough and systematic assessment like the SAIP.  Performing just such an assessment is critical if directors are to assure themselves that the company for which they are responsible is performing as they believe it should."

Charles M. Denny
Former CEO, ADC Telecommunications

   

Profile your company's tendencies

"No tool, including the SAIP, can by itself orient corporate conscience.  But it seems reasonable to suggest that honest, forthright application of the SAIP could help to uncover behavior and tendencies like those that undermined Enron, Andersen, and other companies.  It profiles a company’s current ‘location’ (self-assessment), allows for quantifying a company’s ‘destination’ (improvement), and identifies the magnitude of the gap between them."

Kenneth E. Goodpaster, Koch Chair in Business Ethics, Conscience and Corporate Culture

   

eQuiz

The SAIP Institute, in partnership with the James J. Hill Reference Library, has developed eQuiz, a 20 question survey that takes about 20 minutes to complete. 

It introduces executives to the concept of ethical self-assessment and offers ideas on how to build a culture that supports ethical behavior.

Click here to take eQuiz, a shortened version of the SAIP.