<I think I can back off railing regarding how rotten the American corporate culture is getting. >
Raymond, I'm all for slating the USA where needed, however, rotten corporate culture isn't high on my list. Also, as with race and the individual, corporate culture is a matter for individual companies - not all, or even most, individual people or companies can be squeezed into a stereotype. Individual companies are a function of the people running them and the laws and enforcement cultures that surround them.
USA corporate culture is better than that of other countries and QUALCOMM is, as far as I can tell, the best corporate culture on earth. That's why I invest in the USA in general and QUALCOMM in particular. I also admire $ill Gates' and Warren Buffett. Those people are admirable. They are the high priests of American corporate culture.
Yes, there are outright criminal corporate bosses in the USA. But they actually go to gaol if caught. In many other countries, the laws bend a long way and few corporate bosses go to gaol.
The value created for the world through American corporate culture is spectacular.
An important input into corporate culture in the USA is the legal system. Texaco was ripped apart by a judge a couple of decades ago. Exxon too. In my time in BP I used to argue that BP should pay a LOT of attention to environmental liability because having acquired Sohio [and recently other companies], they were to a large extent an American company and should expect to be sued in the USA for damages, negligence etc for actions or lack of actions around the world.
For example, BP was selling a neurotoxin, lead, which was purported to be fit for people to put in their cars as fuel. The lead sprayed out the back and poisoned and damaged childrens' developing brain, resulting in an average IQ deficit of about 0.2 IQ points [which doesn't sound much, but the value of that is actually huge when the numbers are understood, especially when the lack of benefit from lead is considered]. There were also benzene and other health and environmentally damaging consequences of selling BP products.
I considered it a serious risk that the USA would sue BP for damaging childrens' brains, causing leukaemia, dissolving buildings [SOX emissions], burning people alive with high volatility fuels, not to mention frying the world with CO2 entrapment of heat.
I'm pleased to say that BP has more or less adopted my philosophies on that stuff. In the 1980s, they had a hard time 'getting it'.
Anyway, an important driver of the corporate culture is the USA legal system which forces companies to be very careful about any damaging activities or lack of activities they indulge.
My driving force was an ethical approach. But I couldn't suggest to BP that we just leave the lead out of petrol. That would mean BP petrol would be too expensive and although women would buy it [if they were aware of the lack of lead and that it was a damaging thing to have in petrol] because they [generally] are prepared to pay more [of their husband's efforts] to have things nice and civilized. Males tend to be more barbaric and self-interested. BP would be sanctimonious and broke.
The answer was to promote to governments legislative changes to require all companies to meet government-set environmental standards for community protection. I don't think the oil companies have quite gone that far yet, but they are better than they were. BP seems to be actively promoting community protection these days and investing in solutions. John Browne, the boss, seems to be doing it right and my congratulations to him. I hope an echo from my pressure was instrumental [years later] in forming that approach.
The laws force the culture and the threat of lawsuits keeps the corporate world in line. Not all companies and individuals have to be kept in line - plenty of people are ethical, including corporate bosses. Those people need protection from companies which are unethical.
I think cynicism, or at least skepticism, is always good to have close at hand.
Well, there's a rant!
Mqurice |
