Fantastic exaggerations can be told about the products

[City City Bang Bang Self-regulatory market a false concept - Santosh Desai, TOI 27 Oct 2008: The widely held joint stock company in its purest form has no single owner, no one human source that we can attach consequences to. Theoretically, everyone has a share and no one is eventually responsible. The goals of a corporation, the driving ambitions that it nurtures are those of a self-sustaining organism. The corporation is its own justification. The idea of nameless and fragmented shareholders whose interests seemingly drive it, allows the corporation licence to drive an agenda divorced from any larger social context. The reductive nature of the corporation allows it to multiply endlessly - without any sense of the consequences of its actions. The corporation cannot say no, unless the law explicitly requires it to say so. The owned-by-no-one nature of corporations allows a culture to develop where actions do not need to conform to any rules but those developed internally. People can be fired overnight, fantastic exaggerations can be told about the products that it sells and its financial performance can be window-dressed without any great self-doubt. santoshdesai1963@indiatimes.com]

[Brand trust will finally be about people
D Shivakumar, ET, 27 Oct, 2008: Building trust in today’s society is not about plain size or economics in terms of turnover, profit and brand value. Consumers and communities have less faith in advertising, business, government and politicians than they did a few years ago. The challenge for all of us is to build back the trust in institutions. Organisations are institutions that house brands. The essence of a future brand is the totality of what it represents. Outside of the media hype, a brand will only endure if it is able to be seen as genuine and trustworthy in the way the consumer and community defines it. The good word of the public and the community will go a long way in building brand trust. Pure financial, rational logic has to give way to community involvement and a social commitment.]

Despite the ills listed by a front ranking insider in a dismal milieu, the corporation is still the best mechanism devised by the human mind. [TNM]