Are Jerks More Likely to Have Workplace Power?

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If it were true that disagreeable people had an edge, it would, to some degree, make the challenge of creating an ethical culture harder since leadership is crucial to fostering an ethical climate. I admit it. In the last several years or…

Conflicts of Interest in a Post-Trump Era

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Donald Trump has averaged 2.5 conflicts of interest during each day of his presidency. In a classic Watergate-era Doonesbury, Mark asks a rhetorical question. Is it fair to judge the ethicality of the White House based solely on the various…

The Popular, Bad Arguments Against Stakeholder Capitalism

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Words can easily be used as weapons to turn an intelligent nuanced debate into a caricature, thereby dismissing it from further evolution. The gentlemen do protest too much, we think—with apologies to William Shakespeare for abusing his…

Bob Frank’s Legacy as a Teacher, Behavioral Economist, Economic Naturalist, and Author

“Speaking selfishly as a social psychologist, I will say that Bob Frank is a social psychologist masquerading as an economist,” says Thomas Gilovich, Frank’s friend and research collaborator. In 1966, when Robert H. Frank arrived…

Surveillance Tech Robotizes Employees, Eroding Trust and Well-Being

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It very well may be that the costs to employee well-being actually significantly diminish, perhaps even negate, the supposed financial gains surveillance seems to promise. In some Chinese elementary schools, students wear attention-monitoring…

6 Ways to Rationally Deal with Your Rotten Boss

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If your boss hasn’t stepped up to the challenge of leading with empathy, flexibility, and thoughtfulness in the pandemic, you’re not alone. “He literally pitched my idea to the client as if it was his...right in front of me! I’d…

An Organizational Scholar Explains How to Learn from COVID-19

How do decision makers learn from a rare event and prepare for the future? A few ideas from organizational learning may help: attend to near misses, learn vicariously, watch out for competency traps, and downplay theory. As of today, the…

Sometimes It’s Best to Fight Bias with Bias

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When Christina Fang was a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, in the Wharton School of Business, she took a course on behavioral decision making and it blew her away. It fascinated her that people and firms can deviate systematically…

Conspiracy Thinking in the Workplace Isn’t Harmless Gossip

Conspiracy theories in the workplace can lead to worker disengagement, diminishing positive feelings about the work environment, and appear to encourage turnover. There was a moment, in our recent Breaking the Fever podcast episode, when…

How CEOs Should Think About Rebuilding America

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The OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) loop framework, used by Air Force pilots, is readily adaptable for peacetime use to help CEOs become the fast-evolvers they need to be to survive—or better yet, thrive—in an uncertain business environment. The…