Only if management enforces it or the company is offered tax breaks, incentives, or funding for abiding by the codes of conduct.

In the UK, we have "official watchdogs" (offtel, offcom, offwatch, etc) and these watchdogs have virtually No effective controls or effect on their industries whatsoever. I know from personal experience that companies laugh at, and completely ignore any "formal decisions" by these watchdogs and treat them with contempt, as they know that they won't really DO anything, because they are filled with people that hve either worked in, or are still involved with, their own industries, and so they know that they will "let them off really". As such, when the government makes a declaration that any industry will agree to abide by a "voluntary code of conduct", that industry sits there laughing at the declaration and continues exactly as they were before. If any company, or industry, is doing soemthing wrong, they generally already know that they are doing it and so will completely ignore any "voluntary code of conduct" as long as it will impact on their profits in any way whatsoever. They will continue to do whatever they like and ignore anything said in that "voluntary code of conduct" as if it weren't there (which, to them, it effectively isn't). If any government wants regulation of any industry, it really needs to provide a real watchdog / ombudsman / depratment that will have REAL powers to prosecute any offenders, and not rely on any "voluntary" agreements, or those industries will pay absolutely no notice of it whatsoever. It's rather like being at school and having some wimpy little "prefect" that snivillingly tells the school bullies "please dont do that, or I'll cry?". Sucessful businessmen do not become sucessful without being fairly ruthless, and they generally bend the laws governing their business as far as they feel that they can possibly go, before they feel that they are likely to get into real trouble (and often beyond that point too), and so expecting them to act on a form of "code of honour" is laughable, because they BECAME sucessful by ignoring that exact kind of thing. They will only alter their behaviour if they are threatened with either loss in profits or imprisonment (and even then, many of them will STILL try and get away with it and try to blame low level employees if and when they do get caught).