German corporations have long prided themselves on being above-board, but scandals at some of the country's multinational icons have seriously tarnished that reputation. The scandals allegedly involve hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes, the procurement of prostitutes and misbehavior by some of the country's most senior executives. One corporate figure already convicted was a confidant of former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and worked with him in a much-publicized attempt to reform the country's rigid labor system.
The scandals, implicating officials at Siemens, Volkswagen, Deutsche Bank and other firms, have been so grave that they may prompt German executives to adopt Anglo-American style corporate-governance principles, according to governance and business ethics experts at Wharton and in Germany. These principles would make the firms more transparent, give investors more say in how the companies are run, and diminish the role of banks, which have long been major players in the operation of German companies by having bank executives sit on corporate supervisory boards (the equivalent of boards of directors in the U.S.).
Hit by an Earthquake: How Scandals Have Led to a Crisis in German Corporate Governance - Knowledge@Wharton
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