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To win back some of the trust it has lost, business must start voicing opinions on moral matters, argues Sir Geoffrey Chandler
Trust in business has rarely been lower. In a recent poll only government ministers, estate agents and tabloid journalists ranked lower in the scale of trust than the managers of large companies. This is bad for business and bad for society. Financial scandals and corporate greed aggravate the situation, but distrust fundamentally arises from the absence of any criticism from within business of actions that bring it into disrepute. In any other walk of life – medicine, law, even sport – anyone who brought the core activity into disrepute would face condemnation from within. Not so with business. It is therefore seen as an activity incapable of self-regulation, with a moral vacuum at its collective heart.
There is, of course, principled leadership within good companies, but it stops at the company gate. There is little willingness to break out of the defensive posture which unthinkingly fights regulation that might improve overall behaviour. Redress for the victims of Bhopal in India (perhaps the worst corporate crime of the postwar period) or of asbestosis in South Africa finds no champions in the business community and the companies responsible hide behind a corporate veil.
When in 1984 inadequate safety measures in the Bhopal plant in India of the US company Union Carbide led to the death of thousands of people whose families remain inadequately compensated to this day, not a breath of criticism was heard from within the business world; not a murmur of disapprobation from the United States Council for International Business, a body presumably concerned with the reputation of the activity it represents. After the British company Cape abandoned South Africa and left its former employees suffering from asbestosis, refusing compensation on the grounds that the conduct of its subsidiaries was not its responsibility, not a word of criticism was heard from the International Chamber of Commerce, the Confederation of British Industry, Business in the Community or any corporate leader. This is a self-inflicted wound, the responsibility lying squarely on the shoulders of the corporate world, and if it is to be remedied it is up to the corporate world to act.
Individual business leaders, aware of their own human fallibility, may be hesitant to put their heads above the parapet. We therefore need national and international business organizations that act as promoters of principle, not just servers of interest reflecting a lowest common denominator of behaviour. Silence sullies the reputation of good and bad alike. It is time to speak out for principle if trust is to be regained.
Trust in business has rarely been lower. In a recent poll only government ministers, estate agents and tabloid journalists ranked lower in the scale of trust than the managers of large companies. This is bad for business and bad for society. Financial scandals and corporate greed aggravate the situation, but distrust fundamentally arises from the absence of any criticism from within business of actions that bring it into disrepute. In any other walk of life – medicine, law, even sport – anyone who brought the core activity into disrepute would face condemnation from within. Not so with business. It is therefore seen as an activity incapable of self-regulation, with a moral vacuum at its collective heart.
There is, of course, principled leadership within good companies, but it stops at the company gate. There is little willingness to break out of the defensive posture which unthinkingly fights regulation that might improve overall behaviour. Redress for the victims of Bhopal in India (perhaps the worst corporate crime of the postwar period) or of asbestosis in South Africa finds no champions in the business community and the companies responsible hide behind a corporate veil.
When in 1984 inadequate safety measures in the Bhopal plant in India of the US company Union Carbide led to the death of thousands of people whose families remain inadequately compensated to this day, not a breath of criticism was heard from within the business world; not a murmur of disapprobation from the United States Council for International Business, a body presumably concerned with the reputation of the activity it represents. After the British company Cape abandoned South Africa and left its former employees suffering from asbestosis, refusing compensation on the grounds that the conduct of its subsidiaries was not its responsibility, not a word of criticism was heard from the International Chamber of Commerce, the Confederation of British Industry, Business in the Community or any corporate leader. This is a self-inflicted wound, the responsibility lying squarely on the shoulders of the corporate world, and if it is to be remedied it is up to the corporate world to act.
Individual business leaders, aware of their own human fallibility, may be hesitant to put their heads above the parapet. We therefore need national and international business organizations that act as promoters of principle, not just servers of interest reflecting a lowest common denominator of behaviour. Silence sullies the reputation of good and bad alike. It is time to speak out for principle if trust is to be regained.
Sir Geoffrey Chandler was founder-chair
of Amnesty International UK Business Group
of Amnesty International UK Business Group
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