Whilst it is our hope that the common sense of developers, the common sense of those being developed and the common sense of organisations funding developmental activities will prevail it is also our belief that this can be effectively aided and guided by a simple set of guidelines to ethical behaviour.

The essential ingredient of AMED's approach is a vigorous and critical debate of current and new practices and procedures. Bearing in mind the often very personal nature of development activity, open discussion by all those involved would seem essential to good practice. We would also acknowledge that the media has a role to play in bringing some of these issues into open forum.

We suggest the following framework for use by AMED members:

AMED members will strive to uphold the following ethical principles:

1. to work within and comply with relevant law;
2. not to discriminate on grounds which are not relevant to job performance;
3. to ensure that it is clear to all involved in a process:
   1. who the AMED member's client is;
   2. what the process to be followed involves and what its implications are;
   3. how the process will be delivered and by whom;
   4. what the nature of the commercial relationship is, including costs and method of payment;
   5. where the review and potential exit points are.
4. to work in an open manner, so that in any situation where a conflict of interest between an individual and their organisation may arise, the nature and direction of the AMED member's loyalties has been explained to all parties;
5. to maintain confidentiality and not to abuse a position of power in which they might find themselves;
6. to take responsibility for the outcome of any process in which they are involved (for example not to require the signature of disclaimers in this respect);

AMED members accept that it is their responsibility to:

1. maintain professional and personal integrity in their work;
2. do their best to evaluate client needs and deliver appropriate, efficacious services;
3. ensure that their clients and all those participating in any process know what will be involved (given that detailed information may be inappropriate in some cases) and have given their informed consent before the process commences;
4. take account of the rights, needs, pressures and problems of others and seek to avoid asking others to do things which offend their conscience;
5. give their own continuing professional development a high priority;
6. represent their own competence and experience objectively and avoid the use of inaccurate or deceptive language in describing themselves or their services;
7. recognise the limitations of, and work from a base of, their own competence and experience;
8. if they cannot meet the clients' needs, they should refer that client to other competent practitioners.
   

Given the diversity of services offered by AMED members, it is not possible to find a single term to denote the recipients of and participants in those services. We have chosen to use `client' in this document to cover internal and external customers, participants in development programmes and processes, students of management education and anyone else with whom our members have a professional relationship.