In India, Ratan Tata was a revered figure, dubbed Mr. Clean,
until the end of 2016, by which time serious allegations of financial
improprieties had cut into the stellar reputations of both the man and the
famous company founded by J.N. Tata, who had intentionally applied his Parsee
ethic to the founding of India’s first steel company with a zero tolerance for
corruption. Generally speaking, strategic ethical-leadership and even the resulting
reputational capital depend on the persona of whoever is in charge of a
company, and not even family linage can be counted on to perpetuate a culture
of ethical leadership and protect a company’s accrued reputational capital.
The full essay is in Cases of Unethical Business: A Malignant Mentality of Mendacity, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.
