How to treat the lack of integrity in milk business operations

The main manifestations of the lack of integrity of some enterprises in our country are: counterfeit and shoddy goods flooding the market, common commercial fraud, corporate tax evasion and the release of false information, etc., which have seriously damaged the healthy development of enterprises and the national economy; the main reasons are: The reasons are: deviations and confusion in people's understanding, imperfect corporate governance, low cost of dishonesty, etc. It is proposed to build a new social and corporate integrity culture, improve corporate governance structure, increase the cost of dishonesty, improve the social credit system, and standardize Governance measures such as government actions.

1. The harm caused by the lack of honesty in Chinese enterprises

(1) The lack of integrity affects the development of corporate credit and increases transaction costs. Due to the lack of integrity among enterprises, the normal concept of credit has been destroyed, and the function of credit as a means of payment has also been greatly weakened, making it difficult for transactions such as credit sales and prepayments between enterprises to proceed normally. At present, transactions between enterprises mostly use cash transactions without granting credit to each other; some enterprises even use barter transactions, which seriously reduces the efficiency of the use of funds. The lack of credit has also greatly increased the operating costs and investment risks of enterprises, increased the uncertainty of investment expectations, and made enterprises' investment activities more cautious and shrinking.

(2) Lack of integrity will make corporate brand building more difficult. Brand is the "business card" of an enterprise, representing its image, quality and credibility. Corporate brand building should be based on honesty, otherwise the brand may become a castle in the air. Excellent brands are accumulated by good integrity records, such as Haier, Tongrentang, etc. In the future, the competition among enterprises will be the competition of brands and the competition of integrity. At the same time, once a well-known brand loses its trust among consumers, it will be ruthlessly abandoned by the market. In this tainted milk powder incident, the Sanlu brand has been ruthlessly abandoned by the market, and famous brands such as Mengniu, Yili, and Guangming have been severely hit. Their stock prices have been cut in half, resulting in heavy losses.

(3) The lack of corporate integrity undermines the healthy development of my country's market economy and the establishment of a harmonious society. First, over the past 30 years of reform and opening up, my country's economy has gradually entered the era of shortage economy, and the market has also entered the buyer's market stage. To maintain long-term and healthy economic development, expanding domestic demand is an inevitable policy choice. However, due to the lack of corporate integrity, the market is flooded with fake and shoddy goods, commercial fraud is difficult to detect, consumers lack a sense of security when shopping and consuming, and their desire to consume is suppressed. As a result, the savings rate of urban and rural residents in my country remains high, domestic demand is not strong, economic development relies heavily on foreign countries, the economic structure is not reasonable, and the overall economy fails to develop healthily and sustainably. Secondly, for many years, the national medical reform, the establishment of the social security system, the reform of the education system, etc., due to the lack of support from the credit system, have made policy implementation more difficult and the implementation results less than ideal, thus affecting the establishment of a harmonious society in our country.

(4) The lack of corporate integrity damages the image of Chinese products and, to a certain extent, undermines my country’s foreign economic exchanges. In foreign economic exchanges, some companies pass off inferior goods as good ones, and even sell fake and shoddy goods abroad, harming the interests of foreign consumers, ruining the reputation of Chinese companies, and damaging the image of Chinese goods.

(5) Lack of corporate integrity may lead to the loss of social morality. From a social perspective, the lack of corporate integrity sets an example of "bad boys" for the entire society. If this behavior cannot be effectively eradicated, breach of trust will inevitably break through the boundaries of the enterprise and spread to society, leading to the loss of social morality and endangering social stability.

2. Reasons for the lack of integrity in Chinese enterprises

(1) The market economy challenges traditional morality, causing deviations and confusion in people's understanding. Since the reform and opening up, traditional values ??of integrity have been severely impacted by the market economy, and people's understanding has experienced certain deviations and confusions. The main manifestations are as follows: First, the enterprise is regarded as just an economic entity, with the pursuit of profit maximization as the ultimate goal. , neglecting its social responsibilities.

Who knows, once a company becomes a purely "economic animal", it may become a "social nuisance". The "Sanlu poisonous milk powder" incident is a clear proof. Second, one-sided understanding that market economy is a legal economy ignores that it is also a moral economy and credit economy. In fact, in order for the legal system to gain lasting vitality, it needs to seek a more advanced form of realization, and moral self-discipline becomes the highest form of legal order. Third, the traditional culture of integrity also has certain limitations. The traditional culture of integrity is compatible with the self-sufficient natural economy and the political system of an autocratic monarchy. Its limitations are as follows: although integrity also has a purposeful aspect, it is more of a means, and there are differences. For example, trusting the monarch first is loyalty; trusting one's father secondly is filial piety; trusting husband, wife, brothers, sisters, relatives and friends is righteousness; the rules to be followed for strangers are less involved and are almost blank. Influenced by traditional culture, many companies have formed their own standards for reducing credit, which is to have more credit for special customers and less credit for general customers; more credit during special periods and less credit during general periods.

(2) The corporate governance structure is imperfect and the construction of corporate integrity culture is lagging behind. Corporate culture is the internal values ??and behavioral patterns formed by the long-term development of an enterprise. It embodies the image of an enterprise and determines the depth and breadth of its development. The construction of corporate culture depends on the improvement of corporate governance structure. At present, my country's corporate governance structure has problems such as "one dominant shareholder" in the ownership structure, serious internal control problems, weak internal corporate governance mechanisms, lack of effective external governance mechanisms, and vague selection of corporate governance target models, which directly affect the integrity culture of listed companies. Construction, which in turn affects the effective operation of corporate credit mechanisms,

(3) The social credit evaluation system and corporate credit files have not yet been effectively established. As an emerging market economy country, our country needs to establish a sound social credit assessment system and corresponding corporate credit files. However, at present, my country's social credit evaluation system has not been effectively established. Enterprise credit evaluations have only been carried out in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing and other places. However, the credit evaluations in various places are only valid locally and not in other regions. In addition, my country's credit evaluation also has problems such as low overall level, small market size, incomplete information, and disorderly competition between evaluation agencies.

(4) Social moral standards have declined, and "bad money drives out good money." Corporate integrity is the manifestation of social ethics in corporate operations. If there is a serious credit crisis in the entire society and the social moral level declines, then the integrity of the enterprise will inevitably decline. It is undeniable that the current moral level of our society has seriously declined, and phenomena such as low-quality management personnel, bribery by law enforcement personnel, and financial personnel engaging in malpractice for personal gain often occur. Many local governments have also adopted an inactive attitude towards the production and sales of counterfeit and shoddy goods, allowing them to develop. Once these dishonest social trends are formed, honest enterprises will be squeezed out by dishonest enterprises, which is the so-called "bad money drives out good money".

(5) Laws and regulations are not sound enough, and the cost of corporate dishonesty is low. At present, the reason why some enterprises in our country are not honest is closely related to the low cost of breach of trust. When the costs of dishonesty are less than the benefits of dishonesty and dishonest behavior is profitable, business operators may choose or even proactively choose to dishonest behaviors, and a large number of dishonesty phenomena will occur. On the contrary, when the cost of breach of trust is greater than the benefit of breach of trust, business operators will try to avoid breach of trust, thus promoting the improvement of the integrity environment. Judging from the actual situation, my country's relevant laws and regulations are not sound enough, and the sanctions and punishments for untrustworthy behavior are limited, which objectively condones the untrustworthy behavior of enterprises. This is reflected in the following: First, so far, our country has not established laws directly related to credit management. It only regulates integrity and law-abiding in relevant laws such as the "General Principles of Civil Law" and "Contract Law". Relevant laws have poor adaptability and cannot handle the ever-changing situation of credit issues, providing opportunities for companies to break their trust. Secondly, the relevant laws do not punish enterprises for breach of trust sufficiently, and they mainly focus on compensatory fines. Enterprises can still profit from breach of trust.

Third, relevant departments fail to enforce the law, and some local governments deliberately favor local companies. This spreads corporate dishonesty and harms the entire society.

3. Countermeasures to address the lack of corporate integrity in our country

(1) Build a new social integrity culture that is compatible with the market economy. In the process of constructing my country's new integrity culture, we should do the following: First, continue to vigorously promote and carry forward the excellent elements of my country's traditional integrity culture. For example, integrity has become the core content of the traditional virtues and traditional culture of the Chinese nation. Improve the integrity quality of citizens and enhance their awareness of integrity. At the same time, we must abandon the unreasonable parts of the traditional integrity culture, such as the differences in integrity, and build a new social integrity culture in which everyone is equal that is compatible with the development of my country's market economy. Second, we should be more open-minded and widely absorb the advanced content of Western integrity culture. Faith is the core element of a culture. Whether a person is honest and trustworthy directly depends on his faith. Third, we must pay attention to and publicize the social and moral responsibilities that enterprises should bear. An enterprise is not only an economic entity for profit, but also a carrier of social ethics. It plays an indispensable role in the process of creating a new social integrity culture in our country. Alternative dominant role.

(2) Improve the corporate governance structure and create a corporate integrity culture. In view of the existing problems in my country's corporate governance structure, the following measures can be taken to improve it. First, considering that our country is an emerging market economy country with a prevailing traditional culture with Confucianism as its core value, and it is difficult to meet the external market conditions required by the British and American corporate governance models in a short period of time, the choice of the target model should be Based on the Japanese-German governance model that focuses on internal control. At the same time, since commercial banks are the largest creditors of state-owned holding companies, commercial banks should be allowed to hold shares in client companies and establish a master bank discretionary governance mechanism. Second, optimize the equity structure and improve the corporate governance mechanism. Third, improve the market system and create conditions for establishing effective corporate external governance mechanisms. Fourth, improve the incentive and restraint mechanisms for operators.

To create a culture of corporate integrity, first of all, the main business operators should set an example, establish a strong concept of integrity, and practice it. Secondly, they should strengthen integrity education and management of ordinary employees. Thirdly, enterprises should use certain communication methods to show their corporate culture of integrity to the society and establish good credibility.

(3) Strengthen the construction of laws and regulations to increase the cost of corporate dishonesty. First, we must improve credit legislation. For example, the national legislative body should formulate higher-level normative documents and specialized laws and regulations as soon as possible to regulate various credit behaviors of enterprises and individuals. In particular, it is necessary to establish and improve the punishment mechanism for breach of trust as soon as possible to clarify what are the legal boundaries of breach of trust in the market economy? To what extent is breach of trust? What form and degree of sanctions will be imposed? By establishing a punishment mechanism for breach of trust, the punishment for breach of trust will be increased. Risk costs force companies to be honest and abide by the law. Secondly, it is necessary to amend the punishment measures for breach of trust in existing laws and regulations, and change compensatory punishments into punitive punishments. The new laws and regulations should increase the intensity of punishment, so that those who break their trust will not only lose profits, but will suffer lifelong consequences and even lose their entire family. Third, we must manage and rectify our country's judicial and law enforcement teams to form a good institutional environment that guarantees the realization of credit.

(4) Improve the social credit system, establish corporate credit files, and combine my country’s national conditions and learn from the experience of developed countries to establish and improve credit rating assessment, collection and provision of credit status, and credit supervision. , and covers the social credit system organically composed of social individuals, enterprises and government credit. Utilize the advantages of modern information technology and the Internet to establish corporate integrity files and publish relevant information such as corporate integrity and credit ratings to the public for inquiry by all sectors of society. Corporate integrity files will force companies to accept social supervision and consciously adhere to honest operations.

(5) Standardize government behavior and establish an image of government integrity. Standardizing government behavior can provide a stable policy environment and help people form stable expectations. First of all, the government must take the lead in being trustworthy, consistent in words and deeds, and be a model of honesty and trustworthiness.

Secondly, the relationship between legislation, administration, judiciary and mass media should be properly handled, and the mutual checks and balances between legislation, administration and judiciary should be strengthened, so that the mass media can become an independent tool to supervise private public opinion and supervise the work of the government. Third, we should speed up the reform of the administrative system and accelerate the transformation of government functions, so that the government can transform from a high-ranking leading agency into a tool for providing public services to society and enterprises, and improve work efficiency.