WEF’s Facebook Survey Sees Financial Crisis As Crisis of Values
John Elkington
January 18, 2010
Over two-thirds of people believe the current economic crisis is also a crisis of ethics and values. But only 50% think universal values exist. These are among the findings of the World Economic Forum’s Faith and the Global Agenda: Values for the Post-Crisis Economy, an annual report on issues related to the role of faith in global affairs. The report contains a unique new public opinion poll on values conducted through Facebook. The poll reached over 130,000 respondents in France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey and the United States.
The poll results point to a trust deficit regarding values in the business world. Only one-quarter of respondents believe that large, multinational businesses apply a values-driven approach to their sectors, while over 40% believe that small and medium-sized businesses apply such an approach. Almost two-thirds of respondents believe that people do not apply the same values in their professional lives as they do in their private lives. When asked whether businesses should be primarily responsible to their shareholders, their employees, their clients and customers, or all three equally, almost half of the respondents chose the option of “all three equally”.
When asked to identify the values most important for the global political and economic system, almost 40% chose honesty, integrity and transparency; 24% chose others’ rights, dignity and views; 20% chose the impact of actions on the well-being of others and 17% chose preserving the environment.
Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, said the report underlines the need for a set of values around which our global economic institutions and mechanisms of international cooperation must be built: “Our present system fails to meet its obligations to as many as 3 billion people in the world. Our civic, business and political cultures must be transformed if we are to close this gap.”
