Nouvelles diverses | Page 3

David Larcker, Bradford Lynch, Brian Tayan et Daniel Taylor publient un texte qui revient sur la transparence des ghrandes entreprises américaines en matière de COVID-19 « The Spread of Covid-19 Disclosure » (29 juin 2020). Un document plein de statistiques et de tendances sur la transparence… vraiment intéressant sachant que l’enjeu de la question n’est pas à négliger.

Extrait :

The COVID-19 pandemic presents an interesting scenario whereby an unexpected shock to the economic system led to a rapid deterioration in the economic landscape, causing sharp changes in performance relative to expectations just a few months prior. For most companies, the pandemic has been detrimental. For a few, it brought unexpected demand. In many cases, supply chains have been strained, causing ripple effects that extend well beyond any one company.

How do companies respond to such a situation? What choices do they make, and how much transparency do they offer? How does disclosure vary in a setting where the potential impact is so widely uncertain? The COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique setting to examine disclosure choices in a situation of extreme uncertainty that extends across all companies in the public market. This devastating outlier event provides a rare glimpse into disclosure behavior by managers and boards.

Why This Matters

1. The COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique opportunity to examine disclosure practices of companies relative to peers in real time about a somewhat unprecedented shock that impacted practically every publicly listed company in the U.S. We see that decisions varied considerably about whether to make disclosure and, if so, what and how much to say about the pandemic’s impact on operations, finances, and future. What motivates some companies to be forthcoming about what they are experiencing, while others remain silent? Does this reflect different degrees of certitude about how the virus would impact their businesses, or differences in managements’ perception of their “obligations” to be transparent with the public? What does this say about a company’s view of its relation and duty to shareholders?
2. In one example, we saw a consumer beverage company make zero references to COVID-19 in its SEC filings and website, despite the virus plausibly having at least some impact on its business. In another example, we saw a company claim no material changes to its previously reported risk factors when managers almost certainly had relevant information about the virus and the likely impact on sales and operations. What discussion among the senior managers, board members, external auditor, and general counsel leads to a decision to make no disclosures? What should shareholders glean from this decision, particularly in light of peer disclosure?
3. The COVID-19 pandemic represents a so-called “black swan” event that inflicted severe and unexpected damage to wide swaths of the economy. What strategic insights will companies learn from this event? Can boards use these insights to prepare for other possible outlier events, such as climate events, terrorism, cyber-attacks, pandemics, and other emergencies? Should these insights be disclosed to shareholders?

À la prochaine…

Le 26 juin 2020, Deloitte a publié une étude intéressante : « Global businesses divided on implications of COVID-19 crisis for company ethics ».

Extrait :

As businesses start to look beyond the COVID-19 crisis, the EY Global Integrity Report 2020 reveals divisions on the repercussions for company ethics as a result of the pandemic.

The findings are part of a survey of almost 3,000 respondents from 33 countries up to February 2020, analyzing the ethical challenges companies face in turbulent times. An additional 600 employees across all levels of seniority were surveyed at the height of the COVID-19 crisis in April in companies across six countries – China, Germany, Italy, the UK, India and the US.

The majority (90%) of respondents surveyed during the crisis believe that disruption, as a result of COVID-19, poses a risk to ethical business conduct, but there is a concerning disparity between boards, senior management and employees on the implications for compliance. While 43% of board members and 37% of senior managers surveyed believe the pandemic could lead to change and better business ethics, only 21% of junior employees appear to agree.

The survey highlights that signs of an integrity disconnect at different levels within organizations were evident even before the pandemic with more than half of board members (55%) believing management demonstrate professional integrity, but only 37% of junior employees sharing the same sentiment. In addition, over half of board members (55%) believe there are managers in their organization who would sacrifice integrity for short term gain.

À la prochaine…

Bonjour à toutes et à tous, petite lecture tirée du Oxford Business Law Blog : « Corporate Social Responsibility in the Times of Covid » de Akshaya Kamalnath (12 mai 2020).

Extrait :

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that notoriously evades definition. Some have said that companies should act in socially responsible ways in their daily operations while charitable donations have historically been brought under this umbrella. The former understanding of CSR is often preferred because simply making charitable donations while doing business in an irresponsible manner causing harm to various stakeholders is clearly undesirable.

India’s company law has a CSR provision requiring companies to donate 2% of their profits from the preceding three years on activities designated by the government. (You can read a detailed analysis of the law in an article by Sandeep Gopalan and me here.) One criticism of such an understanding of CSR is that the meaning restricts itself to charitable donations without venturing into how companies conduct their day to day business.

The coronavirus has given us an unpleasant jolt with which to test if companies are happy to simply comply with the CSR provision and do nothing else to accommodate various stakeholders that are suffering in this crisis. Yet many big businesses in India (Bajaj Auto, Tata Sons, Vedanta Group) promised not to cut salaries of staff during the pandemic. Instead, some companies suggested that they were considering a pay cut for CEOs and other members of the promoter group (the controlling shareholder group in India, typically a family).

(…) When viewed from the perspective of the epidemic, charitable contribution seems like a perfectly valid form of CSR. This is not only because the company is addressing an urgent need at the moment but also because the initiatives have come from individual companies rather than as a response to a forced government mandate of requiring a certain amount of expenditure on CSR activities. The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) issued an order stating that companies’ responses to the covid crisis could be classified as CSR. The companies Act only allows spending on designated categories to be classified as CSR. Since one of the designated categories is ‘combating human immunodeficiency virus, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, malaria and other diseases’, the order from the MCA was not too surprising. Obviously, India’s rigid definition of CSR means that innovative responses from companies that offered their resorts to be used as temporary care facilities will not be considered CSR.

The lesson to take beyond the pandemic is for the Indian government to resist the urge to intervene in how companies comply with the CSR provision in the law. Allowing companies to be creative and using their CSR activities to gain reputational capital is not a bad idea. In fact, this should be further encouraged by letting companies disclose their social activities along with the CSR disclosures (relating to the required spending) required by the law.

À la prochaine…

Le Forum économique mondial vient de publier son nouveau rapport sur les risques globaux : « COVID-19 Risks Outlook – A Preliminary Mapping and Its Implications ».

Extrait :

Based on the perceptions of 350 of the world’s top risk professionals, a thorough analysis of early evidence and trends, and the collective knowledge of the Global Risks team and its partners (Marsh & McLennan and Zurich Insurance Group), the report identifies four key areas of concern:

• Economic Shifts: Emerging Risks from Structural Change
• Sustainability Setbacks: Emerging Risks from Stalling Progress
• Societal Anxieties: Emerging Risks from Social Disruptions
• Technology Dependence: Emerging Risks from Abrupt Adoption

Unsurprisingly, economic risks are regarded as the most challenging fallout from the pandemic, dominating companies’ risks perceptions. A prolonged global recession tops the list of most feared risks, closely followed by bankruptcy, industry consolidation, failure of industries to recover and a disruption of supply chains.

Alongside this, geopolitical disruption to business, in the form of policies that exploit COVID-19 to restrict the movement of people and goods, is another greatly feared risk. Couple these with concern of another infectious disease outbreak, an increase in cybercrime and the breakdown of IT infrastructure and networks, and the outlook fuels pessimism.

À la prochaine…

Très intéressant ce qu’offre la plateforme RSE en France. Dans la période exceptionnelle de la crise du Covid-19, la Plateforme RSE a invité ses membres à faire part de leurs réflexions sur l’impact de la crise : Quels sont les défis auxquels fait face votre organisation ? Quelles sont les problématiques que soulève la crise pour votre organisation ? Quelles sont les réflexions portées par votre organisation dans ce contexte ? Quelle peut être la contribution de votre organisation à la résolution de la crise ?

Je vous laisse découvrir les contributions ici !

À la prochaine…

Intéressante entrevue de Jérôme Bédier (Président d’Equalogy, ancien Secrétaire Général et Directeur Général délégué du groupe Carrefour) surtout sur la partie RSE. Un message clair est souligné : « La crise du Covid-19 conduit à revisiter en profondeur la RSE » (Confinews, 26 mai 2020).

Extrait :

La crise du Covid-19 conduit à revisiter en profondeur la RSE. Cette crise affirme la pertinence et l’importance de la RSE dans le paysage et elle donne finalement toute une série d’éléments et d’indications qui vont faire bouger les choses. Prenons un exemple, l’exemple le plus criant de cette réflexion à mener : celui de la relation managériale, la relation de travail et l’organisation de l’entreprise. L’explosion du télétravail, le lien entre le contrat de travail, l’entreprise et les collaborateurs, les sujétions particulières de présence, la façon de relier les collaborateurs à l’entreprise, tout cela se conjuguant avec l’impératif de plus en plus exigé d’équilibre entre la vie professionnelle et la vie privée, tout cela va conduire à des modes managériaux différents. Tout ne sera plus basé sur la présence physique en entreprise, comme cela était le cas jusqu’à présent.

La satisfaction des collaborateurs va devenir très importante : on parle du bien-être au travail, du « caring », cela aboutit à une remise en question des modes d’organisation. On repense l’efficacité des modes de travail, l’épanouissement des collaborateurs, la diminution des sujétions de toute nature. De grands Groupes ont commencé à le dire dans la presse, avec des prises de position assez fortes, concernant par exemple le fait de ne plus avoir de locaux et de faire du télétravail une forme de norme. Il va également y avoir une évolution des comportements sociaux dans l’entreprise : quelles seront les formes de relation ? Quid de la distanciation ? Comment allons-nous manifester notre sympathie et notre empathie ? Comment va se faire désormais l’organisation des voyages, des réunions, des modes de management des entreprises à réseau ? Toute cette partie-là du management, qui était installée dans des habitudes, va être remis en cause. La première conséquence de cette crise va donc être l’innovation dans les modes de management et l’importance apportée à la satisfaction des collaborateurs. Plus ils seront satisfaits et plus ils seront efficaces et productifs pour l’entreprise. Dans ces réflexions, dans ces changements, il faudra accorder un soin particulier à ceux dont la présence physique est indispensable (les personnels de services, les commerçants, les ouvriers, ceux qui travaillent dans l’hôtellerie ou la restauration, etc.). Ils doivent être pris en compte dans ce mouvement.  Pour moi, cela constitue l’élément-clef de la RSE.

À la prochaine…