The implicit trust relationship between the corporate world and society
at large has deteriorated due to the arrival of several black swans. One of the
first black swan events of the century occurred when the accounting scandals
at Enron, Arthur Andersen, WorldCom, Tyco, Adelphia, and Parmalat
(of Italy) came to light. Those events led to bankruptcies, large-scale job loss, and billions
of dollars in shareholder-value destruction. As a result, the public’s trust in business and
free-market capitalism began to erode.