The rule of thumb is you can never define a Golden Age until it’s already over. Did those passengers who boarded Pan Am flying boats for week-long flights across the Pacific Ocean in the 1930s realise they were pioneers in the Golden Age of Air Travel? Did families huddled around tiny, flickering television screens during the early 1950s realise they were bearing witness to the Golden Age of Television? The answer to both questions is “probably not,” yet surely those early air passengers and TV viewers suspected they were standing on the cusp of something historic in nature. Now, looking back at the past 25 years of the ethics and compliance industry, it seems clear that we in this business have also walked a historic path. When my company, Global Compliance Services, began the first ethics and compliance hotline in 1981, a whole new age was ushered in, though few knew it at the time.
Golden Ages are typically marked by the emergence of an industry as a significant force in our daily lives. By the end of a Golden Age, what was once rare has become commonplace, routine even. In that sense, it is certainly easier to recognise when a Golden Age has already passed.
Wireless phones, personal computers, and internet access have all experienced Golden Ages in recent years. If proliferation is an accurate indicator, one can hazard the guess that corporate and institutional ethics is not only well into its own Golden Age, it may even be approaching the end stage, universal acceptance.
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