In the wake of the corporate scandals of the past year, the idea that trustworthiness and business success go hand in hand now appears almost painfully naive.

FORBES: A Virtuous Cycle

In fact, in the current season, Scott seems to stumble into managerial success, outselling the other branches of the mid-size paper company with a modicum of charm and a naive sincerity that makes him almost impossible to distrust.

FORBES: Commentary

Fortunately, this naive view is wrong, as a train of events that started almost half a century ago showed.

ECONOMIST: Particle physics

In the popular World War II cartoon strip The Sad Sack, the character was a naive, confused, lazy, bumbling private, but happy enough and almost lovable.

CNN: Private Ryan was a hero, but there were bums, too