Measuring Compliance Maturity and Organizational Integrity: A Conceptual Framework for an Integrated Governance and Ethics Model

This paper examines the evolution and current limitations of compliance maturi-ty models and develops the conceptual foundations of an integrated approach—the Compliance Governance Maturity Model (CGMM). The study is based on a comprehensive literature review covering the period 2018–2025, focusing on governance-, ethics-, and compliance-oriented models as well as emerging inte-gration approaches (Antonsen & Madsen, 2021; Zammit et al., 2021; Makowicz, 2023). The findings indicate that many existing models primarily emphasize regulatory compliance and control mechanisms, while giving limited attention to critical dimensions such as leadership commitment, ethical culture, and organi-zational integrity. In response, the paper proposes an integrated conceptual framework that reinterprets compliance maturity through the systematic incor-poration of governance and ethical dimensions. The Compliance Governance Ma-turity Model (CGMM) is introduced not as a finalized empirical model, but as a conceptual pre-study aimed at establishing a theoretical foundation for measur-ing organizational integrity. The full model development and empirical valida-tion will be conducted in a subsequent phase of doctoral research.