PricewaterhouseCoopers Center for Innovation in Professional Services

"Rebuilding Respect and Trust in Business: What is the Role of 
Wisdom and Integrity?" 
 
McIntire School of Commerce
Oct. 24, 2003

 

FACULTY CO-LEAD David Glen Mick  Robert Hill Carter Professor in Marketing in the  School of Commerce McIntire School of Commerce	FACULTY CO-LEAD Susan E. Perry  Professor  McIntire School of Commerce

DESCRIPTION

Long before the Enron debacle, rampant corporate downsizing, and unrelenting solicitations by phone and Internet, America was evolving into a low-trust society. For example, one survey from a decade ago showed that only 37 percent of Americans felt that most people could be trusted. Today, public confidence in business leaders, corporations, and the capital markets appears only to be weakening. Although a variety of well-intended responses recently were implemented, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the National Do-Not-Call List, many complex and fundamental questions still need to be addressed. Chief among them are the following: How can essential confidence in business be restored? How can the public’s concerns be sincerely mitigated? What are the nature and role of wisdom and integrity in business today for accomplishing these pressing goals?

Certain qualities distinguish wisdom and integrity. These include knowledge with uncommon breadth, depth, and balance; expertise in listening, evaluating, and advising; asking difficult questions, including excellence in life; an ecological sense of the interdependence of all things; and an ability to integrate knowledge, moral principles, and action over time for the well-being of oneself and others. Ultimately, the recovery and enhancement of public respect and trust may largely depend on new efforts toward authentic wisdom and integrity, emanating from business leaders, inculcated throughout corporate cultures, and engendered in business education at all levels.

Within this context, the fall forum, titled “Rebuilding Respect and Trust in Business: What is the Role of Wisdom and Integrity?” and co-sponsored by the PricewaterhouseCoopers Center for Innovation in Professional Services and the proposed McIntire School of Commerce Institute for Wisdom and Integrity in Commerce and Consumption,  stimulated spirited debate among business leaders, regulators, educators, and students on the role of wisdom and integrity in restoring public respect and trust in business.

The forum began with keynote presentations from Professor William Wilkie from the University of Notre Dame and Professor Katherine Schipper from the Financial Accounting Standards Board. These keynote speakers presented their individual perspectives on the role of wisdom and integrity in rebuilding respect and trust in business, followed by a short break. Next, Edward Breen, the CEO of Tyco; Tony Conti, the Managing Partner for the Southeast Region’s Assurance and Business Advisory Services of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP; Henry Dudley (McIntire ’70), a Senior Advisor to and Retired President of Riggs and Company responded to the keynote speakers’ comments and then formed a panel that both elaborated on earlier remarks and responded to additional questions from McIntire Professor Susan Perry. The session concluded with final questions from the audience directed to the keynoters and other panel members.