Unethical Behavior In Organizations and Society: In and Out Group Social Learning

Immoral behavior becomes more common in groups that have been accustomed to accepting and allowing such behaviors as long as they are conducted by fellow in-group members. When racial, religious, or social, political or power considerations come into play in the judging of these behaviors we may find that poor behavior increases as in and out groups become more defined. Likewise, as officials (in public, business, or social circles) support such behaviors they become legitimized and more likely to be repeated in a way that creates risks for the long term financial viability of the whole organization.

Hypothetical Example 1 (Social and Institutional): Someone seeks to exploit racial and religious differences for self gain and uses a network of official and unofficial members to target, bully, and exploit out group members. Behaviors become repeated and grow among a large group of members based on a lack of controls or correction. Voicing disagreement could lead to increases in intimidation and mistreatment. The location had experience economic decline over the past few decades.

Hypothetical Example 2 (Business and Organizational): Executives have used their positions to enrich themselves and have created cultures of corruption that lead to behaviors among many employees, expectations of different rules, and eventual loss of revenue that led to organizational insolvency. Policies and procedures against such behaviors were weak and those who attempted to uphold the missions of the organization were constructively discharged. Stakeholders were aware too late to correct.

A Study on Immorality with In Groups and Out Groups:

Consider a study observed (im)moral in/out group membership and how that changed decisions related to justice in punitive, selfish, or dishonest choices. Research on In-Group Out-Group Immoral Behaviors. Some of the key points and findings are below (Vives, Cikara, & Feldman, 2022)

-N=1358

-Immoral in groups lead to immoral behaviors.

-Immoral out groups didn't have a significant impact.

-Compassionate and generous people didn't make people more moral.

-When there were loop holes (free pass) it didn't curb immoral behaviors.

-Out group honest members improved in group moral behaviors (i.e. moral conscious through modeling and reflecting.)

-In group immorality licenses poor behaviors while out group members buffered against it (a possible additional benefit of diversity)

Discussion:

Consider that in both hypothetical situations the behaviors went down a line of thinking and did so because lack of checks n balances that were not strong enough to correct. The end result was a total net loss to the organization, institutional trust, and performance outcomes. Those that sought to change such poor organizational performances are often sidelined or removed in an effort to maintain a status quo in a way that enriched and helped a few at the expense of the organization, society and its stakeholders.

The problem organizations face is that there is a lack of checks and balances as those within the system have difficulty seeing how their thought processes and moral lapses were costing many others and ran counter to missions. Correcting that is difficult in power over situations where in and out group behavior is common and hyped. Sometimes people within such systems are aware of illegal, immoral or unethical behaviors but have no way of having grievances addressed without serious consequences and backlash. 

What executives and leaders should learn from this is that even though illegal, immoral, or unethical behavior could have helped some succeed in the short run it comes with a cost to the long term value of the organization and/or society.  Thus, it is important to build in checks and balances in policies and procedures to hold to account poor actors who were aware of their behaviors at they time they were engage in such activities least they spread through social learning. Strong ethical leadership is a must for long term success.

Questions: A few questions to ponder

-Why do some organizations act more moral and ethical than others?

-How might leadership quality of the organization determine its performance financially and ethically?

-Do organizations have a vested interested in ensuring the best and brightest come forward versus those within their social circles?

-What are the risks to organizations, institutions, or nations that have higher corruption rates?

-Why does power over dynamics often exist in organizations where immoral and unethical behaviors are encouraged?

-How might the policies, procedures, unwritten values, and written artifacts influence an organization's long term performance?

-Is it possible that toxic leaders (or good leaders) socialize others to certain values through norming?

-Why are their poor environmental and internal performance in organizations where immorality exists?

Vives, M.-L., Cikara, M., & Feldman Hall, O. (2022). Following Your Group or Your Morals? The In-Group Promotes Immoral Behavior While the Out-Group Buffers Against It. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 13(1), 139-149. https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506211001217

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation : Aligning employees to organization mission and goals

Executives often wonder how to motivate their employees and tie them to the organizations mission.
Sometimes looking at studies helps us understand the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of employees and how organizations can influence and encourage engagement for greater company performance. Read The Effect of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation in Employees (Public) and consider the basic key points below. While it is related to public employees the ideas would carry over into the private sector.

Let me also say that in experience many organizations do not do a great job of stating and infusing the values of their mission into everyday working life. As they get busy with the hustle and bustle of life the bigger purposes can get lost and employees pick up on that as there are difference between the official goals and unofficial goals. Ensuring alignment in official and unofficial ways is important.

Findings:  

-349 questionnaires

- Extrinsic motivation was considered more significant than intrinsic

-Positive significant relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations with employee engagement

-Extrinsic motivation was stronger on employee engagement

Recommendations:

-Find ways to motivates and drives employees.

-Utilize motivational techniques with each employee.

-Communicate organizational purpose

-Find alignment between employee and organizational visions.

Retails Sales Up: Spending Contrary to Inflation and Interest Rate

The Commerce Department released some advanced estimates for Sept. HERE  You may be interested in their Economic Indicators for additional information. For the most part its positive news and heading into the holidays we will likely find additional increases in consumer spending. The question on where that money will come from with high inflation and not having wages increase is an interesting one. 

To me improving human capital, orienting the U.S. to the highest place in the global supply chain, and new technology could improve worker value and income. Remains to be seen but there are trends such as manufacturing returning that could make that possible and open a window of opportunity. 

ABC put together an informative article Consumers Defy Prices. The information below was pulled from that. 

-Retail sales up .7% 2x what economists expected.

-Some products decreased and costs were similar so increases were based on spending.

-Sales online rose 1.1%, restaurants .9% and general merchandise. (Increases online likely related to increased digital era integration and socialization of behaviors as younger generations are more familiar with and have preference for online consumer behaviors.)

-Federal Reserve trying to cool. 

-Issue with household income and spending not in alignment. 

-3.5% possible quarter growth for nation.

-Inflation was flat from last month with prices at .4% versus .6% last month.

Delta County Board of Commissioners Meeting (Oct. 10th, 2023) Budgets to Building

Delta County Michigan is zooming forward with discussions on topics including whitetail deer, larger airport planes, legal representation issues, budgets, meeting compensation, healthcare costs, board appointments, opioid monies, so on and so forth. There is room to encourage greater investments to shore up budgets that rests on openness to the new and unique.

Local governments should continuously strive toward moving beyond the budget-expense paradigm and toward resource-growth models. The two different lines of thinking explore various connections in the brain that leads to different types of outcomes. Focusing more on growth versus spending explores unique ideas that can open up opportunities.

One line of thinking asks questions on how to use a limited budget to pay for services that are becoming more expensive and managing loans where interest rates are stifling. This leads to chronic budget short falls and possible waste (as a general conception of governance and not specific to here). The other moves down a path to exploring using local assets mixed with industry/investment, local, state, and federal options to raise long term sustainability (i.e. perpetual sustainable systems). 

Tourism, attracting entrepreneurs, shared marketing to target audiences, reaching out to industrial investors (i.e. ship building, tourism, entrepreneurial tourism-export hubs, paper mill, etc.), asking residents to submit revenue and cost saving ideas, seamlessness of opportunity (county and city offerings), coordinated grants, etc. that often lead to maximization. New doors can open.

A few budgeting and investment articles. Municipal Budgeting Tips, Four Ways to Fund Economic Development, Attracting Investment

Notes: If I make a mistake feel free to leave a comment and I will correct. 

-New Airport Manager: Offering easy in and out flights to major hubs increase tourism. Delta County New Airport Manager

-Prosecuting Attorney: Can appoint new attorney, prosecutor not involved, must have on record reason why prosecutor/civil council is not involved. Insurance attorneys should be first contacted. Department has capacity. Because of lack of MMRA involvement general fund must pay any legal issues and costs. Felt wasn't allow to speak or address concerns. Removal of people from audience rules and procedures were not followed with 10 day written notice. Transparency should be increased. Issues were not allowed to be discussed prior to be passing by committee. September 19th, 2023 meeting was of particular concern. See Article on Prosecuting Attorney Question

-Healthcare Options: Tabled. Rising cost of healthcare.

-Paying commissioner for attending meetings. It makes sense in general if it is well managed and transparent.

-Prosecuting attorney states that salary should go up for retention purposes. She makes a good point if we are not competitive. That will raise costs so the county should think of ways to create net positives that improve the financial health of the budget. 

-Board memberships are made both Republican and Democrat.

-UP Whitetail Association. Clear out trails from small trees and protect rabbit habitat.

-Opioid monies and determining how to spend. Discussion on steering committee. Drug Abuse Report US

- Discussion on getting Veteran Services Officer a secretary. Want to support for the next 5 years.

-Drug abuse impacts community. 

Americans Evacuating: We hope for their safe return home.

 I'm happy to see that Americans who desire to leave are finding a way home. We should pray for long lasting peace.

Life Expectancy Rises with Education

As one becomes more educated they typically live longer. That is in addition to the knowledge that comes from learning and development. What we often find is that education not only comes with a benefit to society but also to the health of people. US Life Expectancy Gap

A few pieces from the article.

-Americans without education are dying 9 years earlier. 

-No degree had life expectancies of 73 yeas old and those with a degree 83 years old.

-The US life expectancy ranking dropped from 40 to 46ths place.

Radicalization and Deradicalization When Mental Health and Group Hate Could be Associated

Hate is a dangerous thing and when allowed to fester it can be inherently destructive to individuals, communities and society at large. It can be difficult for people to understand the deeper roots of hate and why it is important not to encourage such behaviors explicitly or implicitly. Whether we are discussing individual or group hate learning how to minimize its devastating impact can lead to greater societal togetherness and effectiveness of outcomes. Below is information in individual hate, group level hate, radicalization of groups, and deradicalization method.

Individual Hate and Mental Health:

First, while hate isn't necessarily always mental health it is often a contributory factor in consistent erroneous conclusions. In a hypothetical example I have been using, hate was first launched by mental health issues that were associated with bullying, belittling, rudeness, selfishness, so and so forth. Dark triad perspectives can make their way from individuals to social context.

Such existing poor behaviors were signs that those who started and encourage hate had prior mental health issues and no real intent on fixing themselves so as to create higher prosocial outcomes. Is Extreme Racism a Mental Illness? When people engage in extreme hate it impacts their brain functions and activates networks that seem to cater to their deeper mental dysfunctions.  Neural Correlates of Hate

Group Level Hate: 

Secondly, hate is very dangerous on a group level. A study discusses hate in sports, hate of others, other groups, etc. In the example, the group that launched a hate campaign were highly involved in sports and while the hate in this hypothetical example has subsided on this level, they are still very much tied into their cultic type perception of others and stubbornly maintain their own rules, norms, and social structure that could lead to more hate in the future against weaker targets. Such correction is dependent on social learning and the infusion of critical thinking. “Ingroup love” and “outgroup hate” in intergroup conflict between natural groups

Radicalization of Groups:

Third, unchecked radicalization can grow without appropriate challenge. We have seen this in the January 6th sacking of the capital and we see this within some of our hometowns. Thus, it is important to understand how the dysfunction of one can sometimes lead to the dysfunction of others. Radicalization of staunch ideologies can lead to all types of other issues when positions of authority and hate are mixed together. Laws, norms and rules can justify the unjustifiable where they were inherently started with false premises. What Do Former Extremists and Their Families Say About Radicalization and Deradicalization in America?

Deradicalization Models: 

Because radicalization results from social networks and reliance on a hate narrative (misinformation in social networks and online) it is important to encourage deradicalization of such groups making a pathway to hate through more appropriate feedback. Research has shown that misinformation and social networks are often part of the group hate assumptions and critical thinking is often missing (i.e. going back to the same root assumption without double checking. i.e. this person or all those people are like X or Z beliefs which skipping some of the logical steps that lead to a rational conclusion.) Thus, I might use the term Theory of Mirrors (In this sense social mirrors) because some people are unable to think critically about themselves and those they see as different and less worthy of civility.

Contrary to popular opinion, any group can be radicalized if they gain a sense of legitimacy and self confirm beliefs through poor wider false anchoring's of symbolism.  Reflecting back accurate information can and does lead to greater insight and alternative anchoring that not only highlights the danger of such beliefs but its impact on fostering hate on an individual or group level. Bringing people back to their root assumptions and challenging them can make a big difference. 

Deradicalizing a group is not an easy task and comes with perils and dangers themselves for those trying to help others. Somewhere along the line they may have filled in a blank with biased preexisting poor assumptions and getting back to that root assumption is risky at best. Breaking up the Bubble: Improving critical thinking skills and tolerance of ambiguity in deradicalization mentoring.

‘The beast does but know, but the man knows that he knows.’ John Donne(1628)

What WE Stand For:

In this country we believe in freedom of religion and freedom of speech for a reason and those who misuse that are not following the supreme laws of the land. It is also a sign that something can be amiss in some groups and their distorted perceptions. When we stand for our oaths we should do so with diligence to the universal principles we all swore to uphold. Makes no difference what is going on in the world, in politics, or within our own heads. 

Let us not make the world's problems our problems by bringing them here to a land of freedom. Peace is the path and togetherness in support of these shared universal principles that lead to greater prosperity of society. One's religion or politics should not factor into that least they derail the process of critical thinking and essential philosophical truths. Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Black, White, Brown, etc...all human life is precious.

"Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech." Benjamin Franklin