The financial crisis continues to take its toll. Unprecedented public means are used to stabilise the global financial system. Can any lessons be learned from the recent crisis? Corporate leaders have began to address this issue in a workshop at the recent Caux conference. A brief report of this workshop of this event is now available.

Trust and Integrity in the Global Economy

11 – 16 July 2008

Algunos líderes corporativos de Europa, Japón e India, se reunieron en Caux, Suiza, del 11 al 16 de julio, en la conferencia Confianza en Integridad en la Economía Global (TIGE por sus siglas en inglés): Cultivando Conocimiento – Generando Acción. Allí compartieron su profunda preocupación sobre la demanda que existe en las empresas de resultados trimestrales, lo que ha hecho que los gerentes estén demasiado enfocados en los precios de las acciones y los resultados a corto plazo.

Corporate leaders from Europe, Japan and India met at Caux, Switzerland from 11 - 16 July at the The Trust and Integrity in the Global Economy (TIGE): Cultivating Knowledge - Generating Action conference. There they announced their deep concern about the demand for quarterly results which made managers too focused on share prices and short term outcomes.

Nigel Heywood, Team Leader, of the international Action for Life programme reports on Conversations that Matter on ‘Leadership and Values’, held on 24th June in Melbourne, Australia.

Jamshed J Irani, a director on the board of Tata Sons, the parent company of the giant Tata industrial conglomerate, today emphasised the company’s commitment to ‘corporate sustainability’, saying that he preferred the phrase over ‘corporate social responsibility’. The latter was an inadequate term as it sounded like charity, he said. ‘We believe in corporate sustainability. We don’t just look at the community and society as one of our stakeholders. It is the very purpose of our enterprise.’

Caux Initiatives of Business (CIB) launched the opening of its international conference, ‘Asia’s Relevance in a Globalizing World – Trust and Integrity in the New Leadership Model’ at Asia Plateau, Panchgani. A unique feature of this conference lies in the growing partnership between Japan and India in a globalized world. Both these Asian countries are co-hosting and sponsoring this conference.

Globalization involves making deals with the rest of the world. The power to make such deals is usually vested solely with the central or federal government. However, it is mainly the sub-units or states which feel the effects of globalization. Multilateral trade regimes like the WTO can often pit the Centre against the states.

Ultimately it comes down to the choices we make as individuals. We can choose to be part of the problem or choose to be part of the solution.

Globalization is harsh to the poor, the uneducated, the unlucky. It tends to increase inequalities.