The media portrayed corporations and their leaders as motivated by greed and has having a callous disregard for public concerns, and even as ignoring the interests of their own shareholders and employees. The integrity of corporate management is increasingly subject to public scrutiny. When entrenched management is preserving its own secure and advantageous position by rejecting takeovers and mergers that might have been of benefit to shareholders, the issue of management's duty of loyalty to shareholders must be raised. In the past, corporate financial decisions were taken as though the public and employees were irrelevant. Seldom has there been an acknowledgment that corporate responsibility includes obligations to employees that go beyond that employment relationship itself.
Shareholders have clearly enforceable rights in law if the company acts contrary to their interests.
Corporation responsibility towards employees is more a matter of corporate conscience than legal obligation. Here we are concerned with how the actions of corporate leadership can maintain or destroy a working environment. Only respect for common values between employer and employee and a commitment to mutual obligations provide the basis for a sense of worth - a vital and necessary component of true loyalty. Corporate leadership seldom exhibits critical self-awareness. This book attempts to delve below surface solutions.