Since the turn of the century we have heard continually that we would never see a return to the “greed is good” era of the 70s and 80s. Business leaders, chastened by the stock market crash of ’87 and the deep recession that followed, it was argued, stepped up to a new set of accountabilities and we saw a governance industry flourish worldwide. Enron, Worldcom and Parmalat were wake-up calls that organisational ethics and culture couldn’t be taken for granted. New legislation, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, was put in place to create an ethical firewall between the consumer/investor and boards of directors and executives intent on corporate malfeasance.

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