试题详情

Text 1 They are falling like dominoes.Executives caught behaving badly might once have been slapped on the wrist.Today they are shown the door.On July 19th Paramount Television fired its president,Amy Powell,over reports of insensitive comments about race.This is only the latest bigwig to go in a line of departures linked to"personal misconduct"."Boards are now holding executives to higher standards,looking not just at how they treat people but also how they talk to and about them,"says Pam Jeffords of Mercer,a consultancy.The thread connecting these incidents is that all are about perceptions of executive integrity,and by extension,trust.Since trust violations are particularly hard for firms to overcome,often more so than incompetence,firms may believe that firing an errant executive can be the safest,most pragmatic course of action.Executives were never alt angels.What has changed is that boards are now far less willing to overlook bad behaviour for the sake of superior performance.A 2017 report from PwC,a professional-services firm,found that the share of chief-executive dismissals that were due to ethical lapses increased between 2007-11 and 2012-2016,not because bosses were behaving worse but because they were held more accountable.Boards seem to be acting thus for two reasons.First,to protect employees and create a safe and inclusive work environment.Second,to protect their brands"reputations.A 2016 study from researchers at Stanford showed that the fallout from chief executives behaving badly,but not unlawfully,was large and lasting.On average each of the 38 incidents studied garnered 250 news stories,with media attention lasting 4.9 years.Shares usually suffered,though not always.And in a third of cases firms faced further damage,including loss of major clients and federal investigations.Should an executive"s words be judged as harshly as their actions?From the perspective of protecting the brand,as well as discouraging a toxic work environment,they probably should.The power of social media to turn a whispered comment into a Twitterstorm,and the fact that everyone now has a mobile recording device,demands a decisive response.But boards and the media also risk rushing to judgment and painting the wicked with too broad a brush.An insensitive remark made long ago or as a one-off is not the same as one made as the face of the firm or as part of a consistent pattern.Disney"s firing of James Gunn,a director,last week over tweets from a decade ago,before he was hired and for which he has apologised,seems to be one instance in which such distinctions have been papered over.And plenty of companies benefit from environments where people can speak openly and brainstorm out loud.Once the fallen dominos have been counted,some firms may turn out to have been too gung-ho in responding to the"Weinstein effect".Many,perhaps most,exits will be justified.But all? The phrase"slapped on the wrist"（Line 2,Para.1）is closest in meaning to_____