BEHIND THE MURDOCH SCANDAL? SCANDALOUS GOVERNANCE

摘要

TWOIMPORTANTTHEMES are already clear in the News Corp. drama, though it still has a long way to run. No matter what happens next-events are galloping ahead faster than in any scandal in memory-large ideas emerging from the story so far will influence companies of all types for years to come. THE ONE-MAN PROBLEM. The companies in the most infamous scandals of the past several years-Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Adelphia, Parmalat, HealthSouth, and now News Corp.-were in widely different industries but shared one trait: All had risen from nothing to huge size and spectacular success as publicly traded companies under one man. (Obviously it could happen under a woman also, but all the outstanding examples so far are male.) These companies never made the transition, which every entrepreneurial success must make, from the magnified reflection of a single person to an institution with a life of its own. They were still Mr. Big's candy store, a baby company in a giant's body. Despite fine-sounding mission statements, the internal reality was that no value outranked pleasing the all-powerful and invulnerable boss, an environment that generally produces trouble.