Abstract
Background: Corporate apologies have become standard in reputational crisis management, yet their ethical depth is frequently questioned. In South Africa, scandals involving Tiger Brands, Steinhoff, and Eskom-linked firms have spotlighted corporate responses amid public scrutiny.
Objectives: This article investigates whether corporate apologies issued in these high-profile cases reflect genuine ethical accountability or function primarily as strategic tools for reputation protection.
Method: A qualitative multiple-case article approach was adopted, using discourse and content analysis to examine corporate apology statements, media coverage and public disclosures. A custom Ethical Apology Evaluation Rubric grounded in deontology, consequentialism and virtue ethics was applied to assess eight core criteria across each case.
Results: Findings reveal consistent patterns of partial apologies, strategic ambiguity and limited ethical restitution. While companies such as McKinsey showed moderate engagement by returning illicit fees and reforming internal processes, others such as Steinhoff and Trillian avoided moral responsibility entirely. The rubric allowed semi-quantitative comparisons across cases, highlighting gaps in moral leadership and stakeholder accountability.
Conclusion: Corporate apologies in these cases were largely reactive, reputationally driven, and legally cautious, falling short of ethical standards outlined in normative theory.
Contribution: This article offers a replicable ethical apology assessment tool and argues for the institutionalisation of ethically grounded apology frameworks in corporate crisis management within post-State Capture South Africa.
Keywords: corporate apology; business ethics; crisis communication; reputational management; ethical accountability; South African corporations.
Introduction
Corporate misconduct continues to pose a substantial threat to public confidence in South Africa’s private sector, exacerbated by corporate apologies that frequently appear superficial or evasive. Although foundational studies emphasised the strategic and contested role of apologies (Coombs & Holladay, 2008; Hearit, 2006), more recent work has confirmed that scholarly debates remain unresolved, particularly regarding their ethical adequacy (Shao, 2021; Vaia, 2023). While foundational, these earlier studies predate a more recent wave of literature that calls for greater ethical depth and contextual nuance in corporate apologies, particularly in governance-challenged environments (Shao, 2021; Vaia, 2023). Despite considerable growth in the field of crisis communication research, including the evolution of integrated frameworks that merge image repair with ethical obligation, there is still a notable paucity of studies that systematically apply normative ethical theory to apology analysis within a post-crisis South African context. This is significant given the country’s prolonged struggles with corruption, which have significantly eroded institutional trust (Van Vuuren, 2020). This article critically examines the ethical authenticity of corporate apologies following three highly publicised scandals: Tiger Brands’ listeriosis crisis, Steinhoff International’s extensive accounting fraud, and consultancy engagements by McKinsey and Gupta-affiliated Trillian linked to Eskom. These scandals, extensively documented in the local press and investigative journalism (Business Day, 2018; Du Plessis, 2019; Myburgh, 2017), exposed both pronounced ethical failures and inconsistent, often ambiguous, approaches to public apology. In this context, the article investigates whether these acts of public contrition reflect genuine accountability or merely constitute rehearsed image-repair tactics. To achieve this, the analysis systematically scrutinises the textual content, timing and subsequent corporate actions linked to these apologies. The analysis is grounded in a composite ethical framework synthesising deontological, consequentialist and virtue ethics perspectives (Shaw, 2016; Werhane & Freeman, 1999). Furthermore, the article assesses the effectiveness of apologies in enabling restitution and restoring moral equilibrium (Shao, 2021).
The findings derived from these analyses are synthesised into normative criteria designed to inform and guide ethical corporate communication practices moving forward. The central argument advanced is that many corporate apologies, although superficially compliant with established communicative norms, remain fundamentally deficient when assessed against robust ethical standards. Consequently, explicitly integrating ethical principles into crisis communication practices is not purely a normative obligation but also constitutes a pragmatic strategy for rebuilding stakeholder trust and advancing more ethical corporate governance within South Africa.
Crisis communication and image restoration
Crisis communication scholarship has extensively explored how organisations respond to reputational threats, especially through public apologies. Benoit’s (1997) Image Restoration Theory (IRT) identifies five main strategies: denial, evasion of responsibility, reducing offensiveness, corrective action, and mortification. Among these, mortification, which is an expression of remorse, combined with corrective action is seen as the most effective in restoring public trust (Benoit, 1995). Researchers have argued that many corporate apologies fail to meet this standard and instead serve as strategic, legally sanitised messages with limited ethical depth (Coombs & Holladay, 2008; Hearit, 2006). Coombs’ (2007) Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) adds a situational dimension, suggesting that an organisation’s response should be proportional to its level of responsibility for the crisis. While SCCT offers practical guidance on matching strategy to stakeholder expectations, it remains primarily concerned with reputation management rather than ethical accountability (Coombs, 2007). Critics argue that both IRT and SCCT prioritise image repair over moral restitution, leaving a gap for ethical analysis (Brown et al., 2010).
Ethical dimensions of apology
In contrast to crisis communication frameworks, normative ethical perspectives focus on the sincerity and moral quality of apologies. According to deontological ethics, organisations have a duty to acknowledge wrongdoing irrespective of consequences (Shaw, 2016). Recent scholarship continues to highlight the limitations of purely strategic frameworks. Shao (2021) proposes a six-tenet apology model that blends ethical and reputational goals, emphasising the importance of restitution, empathy and timeliness. Vaia (2023) extends this critique by interrogating how normative ethics can be operationalised within corporate settings, particularly when legal risk suppresses ethical transparency. Both contributions highlight the need for ethically grounded apology mechanisms that account for institutional complexity and power asymmetries between firms and affected stakeholders. Consequentialism evaluates apologies based on outcomes such as restored trust or reparative action, while virtue ethics considers the character and integrity demonstrated in the apology process (Werhane & Freeman, 1999). Scholars such as Smith et al. (2020) argue that corporate apologies often lack genuine contrition and are guided by risk management rather than ethical responsibility. Similarly, Sekerka et al. (2009) emphasise that apologies must be accompanied by concrete actions to rebuild stakeholder trust. Without restitution or reform, public apologies risk becoming superficial gestures designed to appease rather than atone (Kim et al., 2004).
Integrated apology frameworks
Recent interdisciplinary approaches seek to merge ethics and communication. Shao (2021) proposes a six-tenet apology model that includes responsibility, regret, restitution, reform, empathy and timeliness. Smith (2014) similarly suggests a practical framework for evaluating apologies in civil contexts. While promising, these frameworks lack empirical validation in ethically complex environments such as South Africa, where corporate wrongdoing often intersects with weak governance and socio-economic inequality (Van Vuuren, 2020). Supporting this need for empirical grounding, Coustas and Price (2024) conducted a South African study that explored how the content, timing, fairness, and delivery channel of an apology influence employee perceptions of authenticity and relational repair. Their findings suggest that even when apologies meet strategic or formal criteria, failure to align with stakeholder expectations around justice and sincerity can diminish their effectiveness. These insights reinforce the value of integrating context-sensitive, ethically grounded approaches to apology evaluation.
Gaps in the existing literature
Four key gaps emerge from the literature, based on both foundational scholarship and recent contributions (2019–2024):
- Most crisis communication models still prioritise reputational outcomes over moral content (Benoit, 1997; Coombs, 2007). Recent work confirms this critique, showing that apologies are often framed as risk management rather than moral accountability (Shao, 2021; Vaia, 2023).
- Despite high-profile scandals in the post-State Capture era, there are few studies that systematically analyse apology practices within this governance environment (Du Plessis, 2019; Myburgh, 2017). More recent commentary highlights the persistence of ethical evasion in corporate responses (News24, 2024, 2025).
- Much of the literature assesses apology texts in isolation, without incorporating perspectives from affected stakeholders, media or judicial processes (Du Plessis, 2019). Recent studies reinforce this gap: Shao (2021) emphasises the importance of victim and stakeholder perceptions in evaluating apology effectiveness, while Coustas and Price (2024) demonstrate that employees in South Africa assess apologies according to fairness, timeliness and delivery, not just wording.
- While scholars agree that sincerity and restitution are important, little consensus exists on what constitutes an ethically sufficient apology in corporate practice (Shaw, 2016; Smith et al., 2020). Vaia (2023) and Sekerka et al. (2009) add that corporate actors face structural and legal constraints that complicate the operationalisation of ethical principles, but no practical framework yet bridges this theory–practice divide.
This article addresses these gaps by applying a structured ethical evaluation framework grounded in normative theory to South African corporate crises. It offers a comparative case analysis of Tiger Brands, Steinhoff, and Eskom-related firms, drawing on corporate apology texts, stakeholder feedback, media coverage, and recent judicial outcomes. In doing so, it contributes an ethical lens to the existing literature and supports a shift from superficial image repair to authentic moral accountability.
Theoretical framework
This article employs a normative ethical framework to assess the moral integrity of corporate apologies issued in the wake of ethical crises. Normative ethics provides structured principles for evaluating whether actions are morally right or wrong (Vaia, 2023), offering a lens through which to distinguish between strategic communication and genuine accountability. Three key traditions within normative ethics, namely deontology, consequentialism and virtue ethics, are applied in this article to assess the quality of corporate apologies in the South African context.
Deontological ethics (Duty-based ethics)
Deontological ethics, rooted in the work of Immanuel Kant, holds that the morality of an action depends on adherence to duties, principles or rules, regardless of outcomes (Shaw, 2016). Applied to corporate apologies, a deontological approach requires that organisations acknowledge wrongdoing out of a moral obligation to do so, not merely because it benefits their image or reduces penalties. From this perspective, a corporate apology should involve full admission of responsibility; a clear acknowledgement of wrongdoing; and an apology issued even if it incurs reputational or legal costs. A deontological shortfall is evident when companies issue vague or qualified apologies, avoiding direct acknowledgement of their role in harm.
Consequentialist ethics (Outcome-based ethics)
Consequentialism, particularly utilitarianism, evaluates actions based on their outcomes, specifically whether they produce the greatest good for the greatest number (Shaw, 2016). In the context of corporate apologies, a consequentialist analysis focuses on the outcomes of the apology: does it restore public trust, lead to reparative action, and improve corporate behaviour? Indicators of ethically sound outcomes include tangible restitution to those harmed, implementation of structural reforms, and an increase in public trust and stakeholder engagement. An apology is ethically deficient under this model if it fails to change behaviour or repair harm, regardless of how well it is worded.
Virtue ethics (Character-based ethics)
Virtue ethics evaluates actions based on the character and moral intentions of the actor rather than strict rules or outcomes (Werhane & Freeman, 1999). A virtuous organisation demonstrates integrity, humility, and responsibility not only in times of crisis but also as a core part of its culture. In corporate apology contexts, virtue ethics calls for sincerity and emotional authenticity; leadership that models moral courage; and long-term commitment to ethical values. A virtue ethics failure occurs when apologies are issued for show, lacking any connection to an internal commitment to ethical behaviour.
The application of virtue ethics within corporate contexts requires careful qualification. Unlike individual agents, corporate actors often operate under legal, structural and reputational constraints that limit their ability to publicly express moral virtues such as humility, remorse or moral courage (Vaia, 2023). In high-stakes crisis situations, executives may be explicitly advised by legal counsel to avoid personal admissions of guilt or emotionally charged statements, as these may be construed as liabilities in court or by shareholders. This raises a critical question: to what extent can organisations or their representatives be expected to exhibit virtue ethics when doing so may incur significant financial or legal penalties? As Sekerka et al. (2009) observe, the corporate demonstration of virtue is often mediated through institutional design and leadership modelling rather than spontaneous ethical expression. Therefore, while virtue ethics remains a valuable lens for evaluating apology tone and leadership presence, its practical applicability may be inherently limited in adversarial, litigious environments. Recognising these constraints adds nuance to the framework and prevents an overly idealistic interpretation of ethical accountability in corporate crisis management.
Integrating normative ethics into the apology evaluation framework
This article integrates deontology, consequentialism and virtue ethics into a composite evaluation framework designed to assess apology sincerity, effectiveness and accountability. The framework enables a more ethically grounded analysis than traditional crisis communication models by triangulating across duty (deontology), impact (consequentialism), and character (virtue ethics). It is operationalised through the Ethical Apology Evaluation Rubric, presented in Appendix 1, Table 1-A1, which outlines specific scoring criteria under each ethical lens. This targeted application demonstrates the framework’s capacity to distinguish between ethically motivated apology practices and those primarily aimed at reputational management.
Methodology
Research design and justification
This article adopts a qualitative case article approach to deeply explore corporate apology practices in real-world contexts characterised by ethical complexity. Case article research is particularly appropriate as it allows for a comprehensive, contextually grounded understanding of phenomena, facilitating an intensive exploration of ethical communication practices (Yin, 2018). Discourse analysis was selected to critically evaluate how corporate apologies use language to construct meaning, manage identities, and negotiate accountability with stakeholders. Given the inherently rhetorical nature of corporate apologies, discourse analysis provides an essential tool for examining how companies linguistically frame responsibility, remorse, and corrective actions and how these frames shape public perceptions. Meanwhile, content analysis was chosen to systematically identify recurrent ethical and rhetorical themes, omissions or patterns across multiple corporate apologies and related public documents. This method enables an organised and quantifiable approach to assessing consistency or divergence across cases, adding methodological rigour to the analysis of textual data.
Data sources
The primary data include official company statements, press releases and apology speeches. Coverage from mainstream media outlets (e.g., News24, Business Day, Daily Maverick). Legal and regulatory reports, including Parliamentary hearings and findings by the Zondo Commission. Secondary sources include academic and policy analysis of each case. All materials are publicly available and dated between 2017 and 2024.
Derivation and validation of the Ethical Apology Evaluation Rubric
The Ethical Apology Evaluation Rubric employed in this article was developed through a structured, iterative process grounded in existing normative ethical literature (Moffitt, 2014; Shao, 2021; Shaw, 2016; Werhane & Freeman, 1999). This rubric operationalises ethical theory into practical evaluation criteria, focusing specifically on deontology (clarity and completeness of admission), consequentialism (tangible restitution and reform outcomes) and virtue ethics (sincerity, moral leadership and ethical consistency).
The rubric development process involved the following stages
Criteria were initially extracted from normative ethics literature, existing apology evaluation frameworks (e.g. Shao’s six-tenet model) and crisis communication scholarship. Key constructs relevant to evaluating ethical quality (e.g. admission clarity, restitution measures and sincerity) were identified and synthesised into distinct evaluative dimensions aligned with the three ethical theories.
Expert panel review (Validation)
The initial rubric underwent content validation by an expert panel consisting of two governance specialists, a corporate governance legal expert, and a senior communications professional. The panel assessed the rubric for theoretical coherence, conceptual clarity, and practical applicability, providing feedback and recommendations that refined both the clarity of criteria definitions and their relevance to the South African corporate context.
Pilot application and refinement
Following expert feedback, the rubric was pilot-tested on a preliminary sample of corporate apology statements (outside the final article set) to assess applicability, clarity and consistency of scoring. Adjustments were made to clarify ambiguous criteria definitions, enhance interpretive consistency, and ensure reliable application across diverse ethical cases. This rigorous, iterative process ensured that the rubric is not only theoretically robust and methodologically sound but also contextually relevant to the complex ethical and reputational dynamics specific to South Africa’s corporate sector.
Analytical framework
The analysis applies a custom Ethical Apology Evaluation Rubric, derived from normative ethics and previous literature (Moffitt, 2014; Shao, 2021; Shaw, 2016). Each corporate apology was assessed across three normative domains (Table 1).
| TABLE 1: Ethical apology evaluation rubric across normative ethical lenses. |
Statements were coded and thematically analysed to evaluate the degree to which they meet these ethical standards.
Case analysis
Case 1: Tiger Brands and the listeriosis outbreak (2018–2025)
The 2017–2018 listeriosis outbreak in South Africa, traced to Tiger Brands’ Enterprise Foods facility in Polokwane, resulted in over 1000 infections and 218 confirmed deaths (National Institute for Communicable Diseases [NICD], 2018). Initially marked by legal defensiveness and denial of liability, Tiger Brands’ public response evolved significantly over several years. In May 2025, the company offered its first partial settlement to a group of victims, marking a potential turning point in its ethical and reputational management of the crisis (Bega, 2025).
Deontological ethics
Deontology demands a moral duty to take responsibility for harm, independent of reputational or legal outcomes. Tiger Brands’ early responses, issued in 2018, avoided direct admission of liability and emphasised the absence of definitive legal proof, despite the NICD confirming the source (Tiger Brands, 2018). This position failed the ethical duty of openness and responsibility. The 2025 settlement offer, while legally framed as ‘without admission of liability’, was welcomed by class action attorneys as an ‘effective admission of liability’ and a positive shift towards accountability (Bega, 2025). Although still framed cautiously, the company supported its insurer’s settlement roadmap and acknowledged the scientific evidence linking its operations to the outbreak. This represents a delayed but partial fulfilment of deontological obligation, albeit lacking the unequivocal moral clarity expected under this framework (Shaw, 2016).
Consequentialist ethics
Consequentialism focuses on whether the apology leads to tangible improvements such as trust restoration, victim compensation and reform. Tiger Brands initially refused to offer compensation and stalled on relief efforts (News24, 2018). This inaction resulted in prolonged public distrust and criticism by advocacy groups (Mail & Guardian, 2019). The 2025 interim relief payments to victims with urgent needs, followed by formal settlement offers, reflect a more ethically constructive trajectory. These developments could result in reparative justice for many families, pending judicial approval (Bega, 2025). The decision to work with attorneys and public health bodies, and the company’s engagement in tracing unidentified victims, suggests an increasing concern for ethical outcomes aligning better with consequentialist criteria than its earlier response.
Virtue ethics
Virtue ethics assesses whether the organisation displays integrity, empathy and a moral compass. Initially, Tiger Brands’ leadership was criticised for being evasive and overly legalistic, with apology statements viewed as disingenuous and lacking compassion (Daily Maverick, 2018). The absence of direct engagement with victims at the time further compounded this perception. In contrast, the recent statements by Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Tjaart Kruger, coupled with the company’s collaboration with regulators and plaintiffs’ attorneys, present a more ethically grounded image (Bega, 2025). Though still cautious in tone, the gestures, especially the commitment to long-term resolution, reflect a maturing ethical posture, with signs of moral growth and corporate responsibility. Tiger Brands’ case reflects an evolution from reputational defence to partial ethical accountability. While the company fell short of ethical standards in the initial years, its recent actions, including supporting compensation, acknowledging scientific findings, and working with victims, demonstrate progress. Nonetheless, the absence of an unambiguous apology and the slow response timeline leave lingering concerns about the depth of its ethical transformation.
Case 2: Steinhoff International accounting scandal (2017–2024)
In December 2017, Steinhoff International, a global retail and furniture conglomerate, admitted to ‘accounting irregularities’ that led to the collapse of its share price, wiping out over R300 billion in shareholder value (Myburgh, 2017). The scandal became one of South Africa’s most significant corporate failures with global implications. Public and investor reactions were immediate and severe, prompting executive resignations and regulatory scrutiny. Despite this, the company’s apology and ethical recovery process have remained controversial.
Deontological ethics
From a deontological standpoint, the duty to admit wrongdoing was only partially fulfilled. Former CEO Markus Jooste resigned, issuing a brief memo expressing regret but denying any intention to mislead investors (Myburgh, 2017). The company itself issued carefully worded statements about ‘irregularities’ but avoided full admission of corporate fraud, even as investigations unfolded. Over several years, Steinhoff’s leadership focused more on restructuring than explicitly acknowledging ethical violations. The company’s persistent deflection framing the scandal as a ‘legacy issue’ suggests a failure to meet its moral duty to offer a clear and honest apology for one of the largest shareholder betrayals in South African history (Shaw, 2016).
Consequentialist ethics
The ethical impact of Steinhoff’s apology or lack thereof can be assessed through the lens of stakeholder outcomes. Investors, pensioners and small shareholders were left with devastating losses, especially the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) and pension funds such as GEPF which held significant stakes in the company. In 2021, Steinhoff proposed a settlement plan to partially compensate creditors and investors, funded through the sale of assets such as Pepkor and Mattress Firm. While this marked a move towards financial repair, the plan offered minimal redress compared to the scale of losses and included no restitution for smaller retail investors (Daily Maverick, 2021). The compensation mechanisms were widely perceived as a legal necessity, not an ethical contrition. Worse, no senior executives faced prosecution in South Africa as of 2024, further weakening the consequentialist impact of the company’s response.
Virtue ethics
Virtue ethics emphasises values such as honesty, humility and accountability. Steinhoff’s leadership, both during and after the crisis, failed to model ethical leadership. The initial silence, evasive apologies, and ongoing minimisation of responsibility reflect a corporate culture concerned more with financial survival than moral renewal. Unlike Tiger Brands, Steinhoff’s response lacked a visible moral leader who engaged with victims or publicly embodied remorse. The company’s post-crisis strategy focused heavily on legal containment and asset restructuring, offering little evidence of an internal commitment to ethical reform (Werhane & Freeman, 1999). Steinhoff’s handling of its corporate scandal illustrates a low ethical accountability profile. Despite some reparative actions, such as settlement plans and asset sales, the company failed to issue a sincere, values-based apology. Its approach was dominated by risk minimisation, financial containment and legal framing, falling short on all three ethical dimensions.
Case 3: Eskom-linked suppliers – McKinsey & Trillian (2015–2023)
During the State Capture era, Eskom became a focal point of unethical procurement, with several private consultancies and service providers implicated in improper and unlawful contracts. McKinsey & Company, a globally respected management consulting firm, was contracted alongside Trillian Capital Partners, an unregistered financial services provider linked to the Gupta family, despite Eskom failing to follow proper procurement procedures. The Zondo Commission later found these arrangements irregular and ethically indefensible (Zondo, 2022).
Deontological ethics
McKinsey’s public response included a formal apology in 2018, acknowledging that ‘mistakes were made’ and pledging to return R1 billion in fees earned from its Eskom and Transnet contracts (McKinsey, 2018). This contrasts with Trillian, which refused to apologise or return funds, maintaining that its contracts were legitimate and lawfully awarded (Daily Maverick, 2019). McKinsey’s admission fulfilled some aspects of deontological ethics by recognising its failure in due diligence and corporate oversight. However, the apology was carefully framed to avoid legal liability, and no senior executives publicly took personal responsibility. Trillian, by contrast, demonstrated a complete lack of deontological accountability by refusing to acknowledge wrongdoing even after multiple legal findings (Zondo, 2022).
Consequentialist ethics
McKinsey’s decision to repay over R1 billion stands out as one of the few significant acts of restitution during the State Capture fallout. It also engaged with the Zondo Commission and publicly committed to reforming its risk controls and African governance policies (Business Day, 2019). While reputational damage remained, the company took visible steps to repair trust and address systemic failure. Trillian, on the other hand, failed to return funds or engage constructively with accountability processes. The Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) and other regulators continued to pursue recoveries through litigation, reflecting an absence of ethical follow-through on Trillian’s part (Daily Maverick, 2020).
Virtue ethics
McKinsey’s apology, while delayed, displayed elements of virtue ethics: humility, commitment to reform, and responsiveness to public and legal pressure. The lack of personal accountability from senior leadership and late engagement with public sentiment raised doubts about its moral sincerity (Werhane & Freeman, 1999). The absence of visible moral leadership weakened its credibility. Trillian, by contrast, embodied neither humility nor responsibility. Its leadership remained silent or combative, and no efforts were made to demonstrate ethical character or public engagement. Its continued denial in the face of overwhelming evidence signalled a complete failure of virtue ethics. McKinsey’s apology, although strategic, offered partial ethical alignment, particularly under consequentialist standards. Its return of funds and reforms had a tangible impact, although its failure to name personal accountability leaders weakened its ethical stance. Trillian, by contrast, demonstrated an almost complete ethical failure, denying harm, avoiding apology and resisting efforts at restitution.
Table 2 analyses four corporate case studies to assess the ethical quality of public apologies. It illustrates divergent approaches to public accountability, with clear distinctions in ethical quality and restitution outcomes.
| TABLE 2: Comparative summary of the ethical apology evaluations. |
Notes on interpretation
Tiger Brands
Slow and partial evolution towards accountability: Score reflects defensive early posture but moderate improvement through settlement engagement.
Steinhoff
Ethically underwhelming: Repeated avoidance of full acknowledgement and minimal visible leadership engagement.
McKinsey
Most ethically constructive of the four: Tangible restitution, some reforms, but lacked full moral transparency.
Trillian
Total absence of ethical engagement: Denial, no apology, and no meaningful restitution.
Discussion
The ethical evaluation of public apologies across the four corporate cases reveals a consistent tension between legal defensiveness and moral accountability. While each company faced reputational crises of significant magnitude, their responses varied widely in ethical depth, restitution efforts, and leadership engagement. Tiger Brands represents a case of gradual ethical evolution, transitioning from initial denial and legal caution to partial restitution and acknowledgement. Although its early public statements lacked clarity and moral courage, later actions such as victim compensation and regulatory engagement indicate a shift towards ethical repair. The absence of a direct apology and limited executive visibility continue to constrain its ethical profile.
Steinhoff, by contrast, consistently performed poorly across all ethical dimensions. Its statements were vague, strategically worded, and lacked any meaningful acknowledgement of wrongdoing. Although financial settlements were eventually proposed, these were framed as legal resolutions rather than moral redress. Initially, prosecutions were absent, but by late 2024, Steinhoff’s former CFO Ben La Grange was convicted, and further proceedings are underway against Iwan Schelbert, Stéhan Grobler and Hein Odendaal (News24, 2024, 2025). Even so, the company’s dominant narrative continues to frame the crisis as a ‘legacy issue’, avoiding deeper ethical introspection.
McKinsey emerged as the most ethically engaged entity in this analysis, primarily through its decision to return R1 billion in wrongfully earned fees and initiate internal reforms. While its apology was carefully worded and legally guarded, the tangible nature of its restitution distinguishes it from others. Nonetheless, the firm did not go as far as acknowledging individual moral culpability or engaging in meaningful public dialogue, weakening its virtue ethics score. The lack of visible moral leadership, despite corrective actions, suggests a calculated ethical engagement rather than an internally driven transformation.
Trillian, finally, represents an ethical failure in nearly every respect. It offered no apology, denied wrongdoing even after extensive legal scrutiny, and refused to return public funds. Its behaviour is symptomatic of performative legitimacy without moral substance, reinforcing critiques that some entities remain entirely impervious to ethical accountability, even in the face of public evidence and regulatory findings. The Ethical Apology Evaluation Rubric allows us to compare these divergent responses semi-quantitatively, revealing both the limitations of corporate crisis responses and the structural forces shaping them. The most prevalent pattern is a reliance on strategic compliance, with ethics largely subordinate to reputational management and legal advice. This is especially evident in how virtue ethics operates (or fails to operate) in corporate contexts. As discussed earlier, expecting executives to display humility or moral courage in high-risk legal environments may be unrealistic, given the structural pressures to avoid liability. As Sekerka et al. (2009) and Vaia (2023) note, organisational virtue can still be institutionalised through leadership modelling, transparent governance reforms, and proactive stakeholder engagement even if individual executives remain cautious.
What this expanded four-case comparison confirms is that corporate apology effectiveness is not merely a matter of communication style or PR sophistication but of ethical intentionality, institutional design, and accountability mechanisms. The companies that moved closer to ethical recovery did so not through rhetoric alone, but by translating remorse into restitution and abstract responsibility into tangible reforms. In sum, the data suggest that most corporate apologies in South Africa’s post-State Capture landscape remain reactive, reputationally driven and ethically cautious. To shift from image repair to moral restoration, corporate actors must embed ethical accountability not just as a legal risk-mitigation strategy but as a governance imperative.
Conclusion
This article critically examined corporate apologies in South Africa’s private sector, focusing on the cases of Tiger Brands, Steinhoff, McKinsey, and Trillian. Drawing on normative ethics, it assessed whether these apologies reflected genuine accountability or strategic image repair. The analysis revealed a pattern of delayed, ambiguous and legally cautious responses that often fell short of ethical standards such as sincerity, restitution and moral leadership. While McKinsey and Tiger Brands demonstrated some ethical progression through restitution and reform, Steinhoff and Trillian failed to meet even minimal standards of accountability. These findings highlight the persistent tension between ethical responsibility and reputational risk management. The article argues that ethically effective apologies must go beyond strategic communication; they must be grounded in moral integrity and aligned with normative principles. The article contributes to the growing discourse on ethical crisis management and calls for stronger institutionalisation of ethical standards in corporate conduct by proposing an integrated evaluation framework.
Recommendations
Based on the findings, the following recommendations are proposed to improve ethical crisis response in corporate settings:
- Develop ethical apology frameworks to establish internal protocols that require clear admission of wrongdoing, human-centred expressions of remorse, timely response, and commitments to reform and restitution
- Empower ethics officers in crisis teams to ensure that they are integral to crisis decision-making and balancing legal advice with moral considerations in public communications
- Link restitution to reputation recovery by integrating compensation, structural reform, and transparent follow-through in post-crisis plans to align with consequentialist principles
- Train executives in ethical leadership by introducing training in ethical decision-making and communication to help leaders to model virtue ethics during crises.
- Institutionalise stakeholder engagement to convert apology into dialogue by creating feedback mechanisms that involve victims, investors and communities in recovery processes.
Limitations and future research
This article relied solely on publicly available sources such as corporate statements, media reports, and official documents, which while ensuring transparency, limited access to internal deliberations and motivations behind the apologies. As such, the findings primarily reflect external performances rather than internal ethical intent. The lack of direct input from stakeholders such as victims or employees constrained the article’s ability to fully assess how apologies were experienced or interpreted. Future research should incorporate interviews or surveys with affected stakeholders and corporate insiders to deepen understanding of apology authenticity. Expanding the evaluation framework across other national contexts could also test its broader applicability.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Mlandu Kona (legal scholar: Group Head, City of Johannesburg Municipality), Nqobizitha Hluzani (Governance Specialist: Group Governance Department, City of Johannesburg), Eulender Mudau (Communications Specialist: City of Johannesburg Municipality), and Andile Mnyaka (Governance Specialist: Group Governance Department, City of Johannesburg Municipality) for their insightful feedback and support in the drafting and reviewing of the rubric in the early stages of this research.
Competing interests
The author declares that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article.
Author’s contributions
E.K.M. is the sole author of this research article.
Ethical considerations
This article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. As the article relies solely on public domain data, it poses minimal ethical risk. No interviews or confidential internal reports were used. Utmost care was taken to interpret apologies in their full context, avoiding selective quoting or misrepresentation. Where media or third-party commentary was used, credibility was ensured through source triangulation and referencing of fact-checked or official documents. This methodological approach ensured rigour, transparency and ethical sensitivity in evaluating how corporations in South Africa respond to ethical failures through public apology.
Funding information
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Data availability
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and are the product of professional research. They do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated institution, funder, agency or that of the publisher. The author is responsible for this article’s results, findings and content.
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