Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose

2. New Age, New Rules, New Capitalism

A darkening shadow hangs over the business landscape, cast by a daunting mass of customers, workers, investors, suppliers, and other stakeholders. Tolerance for executive mischief has run out, exhausted by the likes of Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, Adelphia Cable, and other recent multibillion-dollar corporate scandals.

Avarice in executive suites is not news. Nevertheless, the monetary scale of executive breaches of trust in recent times is without precedent. Over the past decade, a rash of high-office executives raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in salaries, bonuses, and stock options, often while their companies' performance crumbled. Between 1992 and 2001, the top five executives of the 1,500 largest ...