Why managers fail to do the right thing

When Société Générale said in January a relatively junior trader had lost the bank billions of euros in unauthorised derivatives trading, there were predictable comparisons to Nick Leeson, the trader who brought down Barings. The media coverage has been reminiscent of that for companies such as Enron and Tyco, and of Martha Stewart – the style guru who was jailed for five months for lying to investigators about her sale of shares in ImClone.

Craig Smith, the INSEAD Chaired Professor of Business Ethics and Corporate Responsibility, is fascinated with understanding why managers act this way, and discovering practical ways that unethical behavior can be deterred and prevented. Read more..

Managers today juggle more responsibilities than ever and for many of them networking becomes an afterthought. Herminia Ibarra, INSEAD Professor of Organisational Behaviour says that’s a potentially fatal career mistake. “What you know is who you know,” she says and warns that managers who neglect to build their networks risk failing or remaining stuck in middle management. Read more..

It’s been just over 400 years since a Dutch company became the first organisation to sell shares and became publicly traded. By 2007, more than one billion people owned a stake in the world’s companies worth more than $75 trillion.

Kevin Kaiser, INSEAD Affiliate Professor of Finance, says that’s a dramatic change from the days when monarchs and dictators owned everything and used their country’s resources for their good alone. Now, we own the companies as shareholders and Kaiser says that has a number of consequences.  “One of the key themes is integrity,” he says. As consumers, we demand that these companies work for us, always providing better products and services at cheaper prices.  We want safer, more reliable, more feature-rich products and services, and we have the tools to help us get the best deal available. Read more..

Best practices only work in a given context, says Günter Stahl, INSEAD Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour. “So what works for one company may not work for another.” 

That’s one of the key findings of The Global Human Resource Research Alliance, a study of best practices in talent management on which Stahl was a lead researcher. It investigated the processes and practices of 37 multinational companies, selected on the basis of their international scope, long-term performance and reputation. Read more..