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NEW
- HRSF WEBINAR
Tuesday, October 26th, 9:00 a.m.
Restoring Trust in Corporations:
Causes,
Solutions, and Questions for HR’s Role
Patrick M. Wright, Ph.D., Director, Center for Advanced HR Studies,
Cornell University
The recent corporate scandals have shed
increasing light on the inability of current governance systems to
adequately monitor and control top executive behavior. Executives at
companies such as Enron, WorldCom, Adelphi, Qwest, Tyco, Arthur Andersen,
and K-Mart seemingly engaged in unethical and even illegal decision making
that lined their own pockets while leaving shareholders holding the bill.
The results have been undeniable. The stock market, which relies on trust in
order to work efficiently, has floundered for over a year, in spite of an
economy whose fundamentals are relatively strong. Employee trust in
top management has eroded to a point almost unheard of since the great
depression. Finally, recent polling data suggests that the public at large
has become disenchanted with corporate executives.
At least in part, some have attributed the cause of scandals
to a failure of senior members of the HR function to play a leadership role
in governance. At a recent gathering of HR executives organized by the
Center for Advanced HR Studies (CAHRS) revealed that in some cases HR may
have been remiss in creating systems and controls to discourage such
actions. This presentation will
explore the potential underlying causes behind the current crisis of trust.
In addition it will raise some of the deeper challenges of which HR leaders
need to be aware and ones that are both critical to solving the crisis of
trust. |
