Knowledge Centre

Facebook’s big federal fine could just be the beginning

Barbara Ortutay & Marcy Gordon, The Sydney Morning Herald, Sunday 28th July 2019, 26 July 2019 Although Facebook just received a record $US5 billion fine from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), senior management should expect more investigations and regulations to affect the tech giant, according to analysts. Facebook is still facing numerous probes around the world, and the FTC recently announced that the tech giant will be facing an...

reputation socio political environment

Unilever warns it will sell off brands that hurt the planet or society

Zoe Wood, The Guardian, Thursday 25th July 2019, 20 July 2019 Unilever has warned it could sell off brands that do not contribute positively to society as it ponders a cull linked to the company’s sustainable business agenda. Alan Jope, Unilever’s chief executive, said it was no longer enough for consumer goods companies to sell washing powders that make shirts whiter or shampoos that make hair shinier...

reputation corporate responsibility

How our brains decide when to trust

Paul J. Zak, Harvard Business Review, Thursday 18th July 2019, 18 July 2019 Trust is a key enabler of business all around the world. Employees in high-trust companies are more productive, more satisfied with their jobs, put in greater discretionary effort, are less likely to search for new jobs, and are even healthier than those working in low-trust companies. Business with high-levels of trust among their customers are...

leadership communications

Bots are listening to your CEO’s conference call

Simon Jemison, Bluenotes, Tuesday 16th July 2019, 15 July 2019 Natural language processing (NLP) is changing the way we operate. Algorithms, linked mostly to targeted advertising on social media, are now working on divining corporate speak from spin. Why read 20 pages or labour through a conference call when an algorithm can alert you when the company’s investment thesis is pivoting? Or when voice forensics...

socio political environment measurement

Culture matters. Now we can measure it.

MIT Sloan Management Review, July 2019, 02 July 2019 The Culture 500, together with MIT, has used more than one million reviews from Glassdoor to rank corporations along nine dimensions of company culture: agility, collaboration, customer, diversity, execution, innovation, integrity, performance and respect.

Follow this link to see the...

measurement

Gender stereotypes banned in British advertising

Valeriya Safronova, The New York Times, Friday 14th June 2019, 18 June 2019 Scenes which play on gender stereotypes have now been banned in the UK, as a December announcement from Britain’s advertising regulator comes into effect. The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority said in a statement that it will also ban ads that connect physical features with success in the romantic or social spheres; assign stereotypical traits...

socio political environment

Social media are ruining political discourse

Jay David Bolter, The Atlantic, May 2019, 17 June 2019

YouTube’s design to catch you and not let go, where it suggest related content endlessly, seems harmless enough when you’re simply watching movie trailers for half an hour instead of the five minutes you’d planned for. But what if you followed a link to a conspiracy video, which led you to one conspiracy video after another? False conspiracy...

socio political environment

The Investor Revolution

Robert G. Eccles & Svetlana Klimenko, Harvard Business Review, May-June 2019 Edition, 10 June 2019 Most corporate leaders understand that businesses have a key role to play in tackling urgent issues like climate change. But in practice, investors, portfolio managers, and analysts rarely engage corporate executives on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. But the perception that ESG just hasn’t gone mainstream in the investment...

advocacy corporate responsibility csr

Europe sets strict conditions for return of 737 Max

Sylvia Pfeifer, Stefania Palma, Kiran Stacey & Patti Waldmeir, Financial Times, Thursday 23rd May 2019, 22 May 2019 The European Aviation Safety Agency has set out strict conditions before it will allow the troubled Boeing 737 Max aircraft back into the skies, according to a Financial Times report. EASA has told the US regulator, the Federal Aviation Authority, and Boeing it has three ‘pre-requisite conditions’, including demands that design changes for the...

socio political environment

Future-proof your climate strategy

Joseph E. Aldy & Gianfranco Gianfrate, Harvard Business Review Magazine, May-June 2019 Edition, 02 May 2019 The threat that climate change poses for companies is no longer theoretical. Businesses are working to protect their assets from extreme weather events, and more companies are figuring such ‘climate risk’ into their calculations. Investors are paying close attention. But there is a related threat that many haven’t fully taken in: carbon risk – the...

government relations socio political environment corporate responsibility