Tesco is an example of how quickly businesses can go from being most admired to most reviled. What happened? A changing market and lots of little things for sure, but at the core is the subversion of Purpose. Purpose is what individuals trust with others to create something greater than themselves, and it was subverted from delivering for customers to meeting investor expectations. Individuals still had Autonomy (they didn't have to do what they did); they developed their Mastery (but at the wrong thing - manipulating reported profits), but this happened because the Purpose had been changed surreptitiously.
Tesco is understood to be on the verge of ditching its auditor PwC following the accounting scandal which saw the grocer report a £263m profits overstatement. According to The Independent, Tesco board members are furious with PwC’s response since the fallout. A new auditor is being lined up for 2016 but sources told the paper this could be moved forward to next year. Tesco chief Dave Lewis was forced to issue a profit warning just weeks into his new role after a whistleblower brought to his attention the accounting scandal. An investigation by Deloitte and Freshfields found that half-year profits were overstated by £263m and that the misreporting spread further than that time frame. The investigation has since been taken up by the Serious Fraud Office.