Corporate honesty counts for more than its products

London

Honesty and integrity are the most important values upon which to judge a company, according to some of the UK’s top industrial and financial board members.

“Honest behaviour counts for even more than the quality of a company’s products and services,” said Matthew Chatterton, director at Ipsos Mori, the polling company that questioned more than 100 directors and chairmen from top UK industrial and financial companies. “In view of the various corporate scandals in recent years and the impact they have had, it’s not surprising that Britain’s business leaders continue to stress the importance of honesty and integrity.”

Four-fifths of the 108 “captains of industry” surveyed by Ipsos Mori from the top 500 industrial companies, measured by turnover, and the 100 top financial companies, measured by capital employed, said they viewed these two qualities as more important than management or financial performance. Twenty-four per cent said financial performance was “extremely” important, down from 35 per cent in 2008 at the peak of the financial crisis.

The findings are in line with broader surveys of public perceptions of business. A recent Ipsos Mori study found that a third of people agreed that honesty and integrity were important when judging a company’s performance — second only to customer service.

The most admired British company, chosen by almost one-fifth of those surveyed, was John Lewis, followed by Rolls-Royce and Virgin. John Lewis has been lauded by government as a model for caring capitalism, as well as for its success in retailing. The John Lewis Partnership, which includes John Lewis department stores and Waitrose supermarkets, is owned by its more than 90,000 staff, or partners, as they are known.

Each year they receive an annual bonus, paid as a percentage of salary, which is decided by the board, based on the surplus after investment is subtracted from the final profit for the year.

Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Group’s founder, was regarded as the most impressive business person in Britain, the third time he has topped the list in four years. Almost a fifth of those surveyed nominated Sir Richard, followed by Sir Martin Sorrell with 13 per cent and Sir James Dyson with 9 per cent. There were no women in the top 10.

The findings suggest that Sir Richard’s personal brand has suffered little negative impact from setbacks and delays to his space tourism project. In October, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo suffered a crash, in which a test pilot was killed.

— Financial Times