INSEAD

Governance Watch - Issue 52

Governance Watch - Issue 52

Change and Evolution

Beware the Ides of March, as they can prove to be treacherous. At a time when Britain appears ever more deeply mired in political stasis over the Brexit vote, we have also seen a steady roll-out of government reforms to improve corporate governance and the running of our businesses. The aim is to restore trust in business and its place in society, although ironically the Edelman Trust Barometer of 2019 shows that the British public trusts business far more than it trusts the government – as mentioned in the last Governance Watch.

If these reforms are now seen not to deliver real change, the threads of that trust will scatter on the chilly wind.

Governance Watch - Issue 20

Governance Watch - Issue 20

Culture

On a fundamental level, good governance is about good behaviour, and conduct contributes to culture – whether it is business culture, or what is considered acceptable in civil society. In Britain, in corporate governance circles we talk about the need to ‘tone from the top’, with the implication being that those in leadership roles set an example by their behaviour. But when the media headlines are full of revelations about sexual harassment in the corridors of political power, and the country has a female Prime Minister, it all starts to get interesting in terms of the winds of change.