過去半年，因柴油車安裝作弊軟件以通過美國環保局排放檢測一事被曝光，德國汽車制造商大眾一直處在水深火熱之中。

當時，該公司一位高管曾被迫出席美國國會聽證會。在聽證會上，大眾美國地區總裁兼CEO邁克爾?霍恩遭到了眾議院能源和商務委員會監督與調查子委員會的質疑和批評。霍恩表示道歉，但他聲稱自己并不知道受檢汽車中安裝了作弊軟件。《紐約時報》隨后發表的一篇社論聲稱，我們很難相信這并不是公司的決策，而只是“幾位軟件工程師”的個人行為。文章建議，大眾汽車應該立刻說出實情。

但根據我的經驗，實際情況可能并非如此。作為一名學者和顧問，我在危機處理領域已從業三十多年，目前開始涉足公司責任領域。一味追究某些高管肯定知道事情的原委，可能會錯過危機的根源所在。可能有許多原因導致了此次危機，但我認為，這并不是一次大陰謀，大眾只是又一家不惜一切代價追求增長的公司，是它的績效文化導致了這一問題，而不是來自公司高層的直接命令。

過去兩年來，我耗費大量時間來研究公司責任，并編寫了一本關于公司責任的教科書。最令我感到意外的一項研究來自一次全國商業道德調查，該調查以10年為周期，研究員工如何看待公司的商業道德。

一個重要發現是，導致員工在商業道德方面妥協的最常見原因，確實來自公司的高層，但個中細節并不是你所想象的那樣。研究顯示，70%的員工認為，實現不切實際的商業目標的壓力，是導致他們放棄道德標準的最大原因，有75%的員工表示，公司高層或管理中層是導致公司道德標準下降的主要壓力來源。我在過去二十年的研究便證明了這一點。

例如，早在上世紀90年代，我曾寫過一個關于美國超市連鎖Food Lion的案例。一段秘密拍攝的視頻被ABC新聞頻道曝光。這段視頻顯示，該公司故意出售腐爛的肉，用漂白劑洗過的魚，出售的通心粉沙拉早已超過最佳使用期限，酸奶上的最遲銷售日期也被抹掉。這家公司后來與ABC頻道對簿公堂，并最終贏得了官司，因為這位秘密拍攝者曾經在他的工作經歷問題上撒過謊。盡管沒有哪位公司領導者告訴員工要把壞的魚挑出來，用漂白劑清洗，然后再涂上烤肉醬，但他們也沒有必要發布如此赤裸裸的指令。當公司在努力追求行業第一的時候，員工們自己就會找尋捷徑。

2004年遭遇柴油機微粒過濾器事件的三井有限公司也是如此。我在新書中也提到了這家公司的案例。三井的情況與大眾汽車類似，當時三井一家子公司的工程師，在柴油微粒過濾器的排放數據上做了手腳。為了遵守嚴格的新公共交通（如公交車等）規定，日本許多政府機關采購了這款過濾器。三井公司CEO槍田松瑩對此一無所知。我寫的案例記錄了這位果斷的CEO，如何在幾年內完成了公司文化的驚人轉變。

那么，對于指責大眾公司的監管者以及正努力解決問題的大眾高管來說，他們究竟應該做些什么呢？首先，對于大眾汽車而言，這確實是一次糟糕的危機，但我們必須承認，相比通用汽車的點火裝置故障危機（通用汽車承認死亡人數超過100人）或豐田汽車的突然加速問題（近90人死亡），大眾汽車的此次危機并沒有那么嚴重。而在上面兩個案例中，盡管要處理法律和監管問題，這兩家公司生產的汽車仍然能夠成功售出。大眾汽車同樣會度過危機，繼續銷售汽車。

其次，把時間花在追究某些人是否知情，在什么時間知曉相關問題，并沒有多少意義。相反，調查人員應該研究導致此次危機的公司文化，而大眾汽車需要找到一位領導人，帶領這家偉大的公司度過此次危機，正如三井公司一樣。但不要誤會：這需要時間，而無論是監管機構、媒體還是股東，都不會愿意提供這樣的時間。

第三，大眾汽車既需要關注排放檢測造假的短期問題，也要關注長期的文化問題——這種文化專注于成功與績效，卻忘記提醒它的員工，不要去做任何他們不希望被媒體曝光的事情。他們應該怎么做？

他們要知道，一家擁有強大文化的公司更加難以進行徹底變革，并且他們要專注于長期的文化變革，以避免未來發生類似丑聞。

保證公司的策略與其價值觀和愿景一致。

明確表明對不道德行為的零容忍，并反復強調，沒有任何事情值得公司付出失去信譽的代價。

按照與對待運營和財務風險相同的方式，測量和監測信譽風險。

保證管理高層不會太過專注于管理危機，以至于忘記著眼未來經營公司。

要做到這些并不容易，而且不可能在幾個月內完成，大眾汽車肯定要花數年時間，才能讓員工以在這里工作為豪，讓消費者愿意購買它的汽車，讓社區歡迎它的回歸。

從許多方面而言，相比大眾等公司在危機爆發之后才去努力解決問題，對于正在閱讀這篇文章的高管們來說，避免此類危機的爆發要容易得多。我能給所有公司最好的建議，或許便如希臘哲學家蘇格拉底所說：“獲得名譽的方式是努力，成為你理想的樣子。”如果大眾汽車的每一個人都能認真思考這句話，而不是只考慮如何實現管理層設定的激進增長目標，大眾汽車恐怕也不至于陷入如今的窘境。（財富中文網）

本文作者保羅?A?阿爾真蒂是達特茅斯塔克商學院公司溝通教授。他著有《公司責任》一書。2014年，道德村協會將其評為商業道德領域最具影響力人物之一。

譯者：劉進龍/汪皓

審校：任文科

Over the last half year, the German automaker, Volkswagen, had been in the hot seat for installing software that covered up diesel emissions during testing by the EPA.

As is often the case, the situation came to a head with the obligatory congressional hearing when the company’s Group America President and CEO, Michael Horn, faced questions and criticism from the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. In that testimony, Horn was apologetic, but said he was not aware that the software had been installed. The New York Times was quick to write in an editorial that it is hard to believe this was not a corporate decision rather than the work of “a couple of software engineers.” They went on to suggest that VW needs to come clean now and quickly.

My experience, however, working for over three decades as an academic and consultant on crises and more recently in the area of corporate responsibility, suggests otherwise. And, the idea that someone in senior management had to know misses the point of this crisis. It may be many things, but my sense is that rather than a large conspiracy, it is yet another example of a company hell bent on growth whose performance culture created this problem rather than direct orders from the top of the company.

Over the last two years, I spent a significant amount of time researching and writing a textbook on corporate responsibility. One of the most surprising studies that I came across in my work was a National Business Ethics Survey that looked at how employees viewed ethics in their organizations over a 10-year period.

What the study found was that the most common cause for an employee to compromise ethics did indeed come from the top, but not how you would think. In that study, 70% of employees identified pressure to meet unrealistic business objectives as most likely to cause them to compromise their ethical standards, and 75% identified either their senior or middle management as the primary source of pressure they feel to compromise the standards of their organizations. And my research over the last two decades backs this up.

For example, back in the 1990s, I wrote a case about Food Lion, the US supermarket chain that was caught in a hidden-camera expose by ABC News charging that the company knowingly sold rotten meat, fish cleaned with bleach, macaroni salad put out way past its prime, and yogurt whose sell-by date had been erased. The company fought ABC in court and won because the person using the hidden camera had lied about previous employment. And while no one in the company had ever told employees to keep putting bad fish out and cleaning it with bleach before adding barbecue sauce, they didn’t have to. In their quest to be number one, employees knew how to cut corners on their own.

The same was also true at Mitsui & Co. in its DPF incident in 2004, which I also wrote a case about for my new book. This case was similar to the situation at VW in that engineers at a subsidiary had been falsifying emissions data on diesel particulate filters (DPF). The filters were sold to many government agencies in Japan to meet aggressive new regulations on public transport such as buses. At Mitsui, the CEO, Shoei Utsuda, knew nothing about the situation. The case I wrote chronicled the amazing turn-around in culture that this heroic CEO was able to put into place over a period of several years.

So what should regulators trying to place blame and VW executives trying to fix the problem do? First, while this is a terrible crisis for VW, we all need to recognize that it pales in comparison to the crisis GM faced with its faulty ignition switches (the company now admits over 100 people died) or Toyota’s instant acceleration problem (close to 90 people died). In both cases, however, the companies went on selling cars successfully despite dealing with legal and regulatory issues. VW will also survive and continue to sell cars.

Second, it is useless to spend time trying to figure out who knew what and when. Instead, investigators should be studying the culture that lead to this crisis and the company, like Mitsui, needs to find a leader who can move this great organization beyond this incident. But make no mistake; it will take time, which is something that neither regulators, the media, or shareholders are going to be happy about.

Third, VW needs to focus on both the short-term issue of compromised emissions tests as well as the long-term issue of a culture so focused on success and performance that it forgot to remind employees not to do anything they wouldn’t want to read about online the next day. So how can they do that?

Realize that radical changes are more difficult in companies with a strong culture and focus on the long-term cultural changes necessary to avoid scandals like this one in the future.

Make sure that the strategy of the company aligns with its values and vision.

Explicitly state intolerance for wrongdoing and repeatedly suggest that nothing is worth losing your reputation over.

Measure and monitor reputational risk in the same way that the company looks at operational and financial risk.

Make sure that senior management does not get so caught up managing the crisis that they forget to run the company for the future.

None of this is going to be easy, and it will most definitely take years rather than months for VW to transform itself to the kind of company employees will be proud to work for, customers will be happy to buy from, and communities will be happy to welcome back.

In many ways, it is much easier for executives reading this to stop things like this from happening in the first place rather than trying to fix problems at companies like VW after they happen. Perhaps the best advice I could give all of those many companies was best said by the Greek philosopher Socrates: “The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.” If everyone had thought about that at VW rather than how to meet the aggressive growth goals set forth by management, no one would be questioning them today.

Paul A. Argenti is Professor of Corporate Communication at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. He is author of Corporate Responsibility. The Ethisphere Institute listed him in 2014 as one of the most influential people in business ethics.