What do you think the biggest socially iressponsible companies in America are? Insider Monkey has recently published an interesting article about this topic. It’s somewhat surprising that companies would even risk being socially irresponsible and ruining their reputation among the public given the importance it can play in their success, and their own knowledge of that. Of the CEOs surveyed by Burson-Marsteller, 95% believed that their corporate reputation was important or very important to the company achieving its goals.
Now without a further ado let’s see what Insider Monkey has investigated for us. We have picked three companies from thier list.
The first one is Volkswagen AG. In 2015, the U.S Environmental Protection Agency slapped the automotive giant with an emission violation notice that resulted in one of the biggest scandals involving major corporate fraud. The agency found that Volkswagen AG (ADR) (OTCMKTS:VLKAY) rigged its vehicles to pass emission tests, forcing the brand to pay about $20 million in fines and legal fees in the U.S alone. Then-CEO Martin Winterkorn had to step down amid the scandal, while several Volkswagen executives were suspended. The second one is American International Group Inc. A key figure in the 2008 financial crisis, American International Group Inc (NYSE:AIG) makes it to our list of the 10 biggest socially irresponsible companies in America with its highly-questioned bailout deal amounting to $182 billion. After less than a decade since the financial crisis hit the world’s top financial institutions, many are still raising questions about the controversial deal between the insurer and the Federal Reserve. A congressional report said the Fed used taxpayers’ money to rescue AIG instead of requiring the banks to clean up the mess they created in a greedy attempt to rake in profits.
Charter Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:CHTR) became the second-largest cable operator by number of subscribers in the U.S, as well as the third-largest pay television service operator when it bought Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable for $65.5 billion. Some said that the merger did not bode well for the public, as it would give less incentive for Charter to enhance its services. Sure enough, Charter currently has one of the poorest ratings on the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Its reputation score on the Harris Poll also recorded one of the biggest slips by any company in the last year, falling by just under 2 points to 62.80, which is considered “poor”.
For any further interesting information read Insider Monkey’s article about 10 biggest socially iressponsible companies in America.
