The New Zealand Business Roundtable should be commended for its courage in releasing yet another intellectually rigorous work on the matter that goes to the heart of corporate governance says ACT Commerce spokesman Stephen Franks.

“The book, ‘Misguided Virtue – False Notions of Corporate Social Responsibility’, was launched today. It deserves a correspondingly rigorous response from New Zealand’s policy makers, not cliches.

“Mr Stephen Tindall’s comments on radio this morning sounded sensible - but we all have a stake in not reopening the door to embezzlers hiding behind fine slogans. The most pious sounding rogues have robbed companies and shareholders, while professing good works and noble intentions.

“I spent enough time helping clean up the mess of the 1980s. People involved had often masked their true character with arts patronage and other purportedly virtuous sponsorships.

“I am only too well aware of how empty corporate governance and social responsibility and environmental responsibility reports often are. An experienced company chairman once told me had two classic warning signs of misdirection of shareholder assets. First and most obvious is the corporate jet. The other is a sudden lurch into noble corporate governance statements and professed social responsibility.

That is the problem when managers are allowed to pursue confused or competing objectives. They can block accountability and instead pursue their own enthusiasms and interests with property that is not theirs,” Stephen Franks said.

Ends

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>