In this paper, with a view to the high levels of absence due to sickness and presenteeism, it is explored how management and team leadership can be integrated on a more sustained basis in health prevention. Private sector enterprises on one hand, and organisations in the public sector, on the other, pursue and prioritise in this aspect different approaches, which are traceable to their different traditions. Specifically in Germany in the public sector, the principle of due care has had a long tradition that grows out of social responsibility, which contrasts with the perspective of commercial enterprises that emphasises the economic aspect. The study undertakes to determine the particular strengths of each of the sectors and to demonstrate their different approaches. The examination refers in its methodology to qualitative social research. In the systemically structured survey design, Seventy six experts were approached with questions concerning different aspects such as corporate culture, business processes, organisational integration, qualification, risk assessments, and concrete actions in health prevention. Complementary to the expert survey, documents such as corporate guidelines and policies, management tools, results from risk assessments and employee surveys or quality offensives were referred to. This analysis supplied insights on how the declared health prevention policies in an organisation can be effectively implemented at the strategic and operational level in corporate culture and leadership culture with a long-term continuity, and which organisational prerequisites in the corporate hierarchy and corporate decision making and business processes may reinforce and sustain successful implementation of health prevention. Of particular importance in the process is operative management. For the sake of effective team involvement in own and team-specific health prevention, an eight-stage team feedback was devised, which includes elements of self-reflection and perception by others in an iteratively structured process.

Using the example of the automotive industry, this paper explores with a view to the many scandals in this particular branch (such as the Dieselgate scandal) how the values declared in the codes of conduct in this industry can be practiced in a more sustainable manner in daily business. This is because the branch has been not short on declared values, or the many strategic and operative guidelines to follow. A solution to this challenge thus likely only can be expected from a systemic approach. Based on the assumption that the level of appeal of a code is a vital but by no means sufficient prerequisite for internalisation of values, firstly indicators have been developed to assess the appeal of a code of conduct, such as the topicality of scope, comprehensiveness, relevance, comprehensibility of language and content, formal design and didactic transformation. Using these criteria, 18 codes of conduct have been analysed of companies from the automotive industry and the devised pool of criteria condensed to the key attributes that define the measure of appeal of a code. In the follow-up step, experts have been approached to give their opinions on how the values declared in the codes of conduct can be implemented in a more sustainable manner in strategic and operative alignment of corporate and management culture. This is because alongside a topical and didactically structured code of conduct, the likelihood of internalising values is higher where also the corporate organisational structure and process flows as well are adjusted for compatibility with such norms. With the aim to make the codes more effective, a total of 10 main scales and 62 criteria have been determined. Three of the scales deal with the didactic and content design of the codes, five with the organisational structure, corporate processes and controlling and two with qualifications and personal growth. The values of the variables on the scales are comprised into a summary value that represents the development level of a corporate value culture. The summary value and profiles can be used as benchmarking references and a basis for self-evaluation as well as a dynamic value management. The scales aid successful internalisation and implementation of the value culture as part of corporate culture.