Wall Street to Main Street: Economic Disparity has One Common Concern

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The continued anti-corporation protests that now sprung around the world lacks contemplation of one common concern: the undertow that ostensibly wafts in corporations exist in our society too.   In fact, we are in part responsible.  The muddles we encountering today are a derivative of our often confusing world view. From Wall Street to Main Street we are in it together. So, if we think “Occupying Wall Street” will somehow eradicate our economic woe or economic inequalities, we are naïve (this statement does not preclude free speech, in fact, many thanks to those who highlighted the issue).  Problem is much complex; it is a debate of our time.  A paradox that innately question continued economic progress. Yet, unequivocally we need continued economic progress for a perceived better world. Or is it? Theories abound including mine that economic progress can coincide with better world, yet I defer from others on the notion that solution to this predicament is “behavioral” in nature. The “Corporate Greed” as we connote today has it’s root in the very notion of economics and economic models, which simply discount interconnectedness of the human systems and that of biosphere system. 


Figure 1. Interconnected economic and biosphere system (Chowdhury, 2011). 

This assumption created an ordered set of values that defines our attitude and in turn behavior leading to the obfuscation. Have we considered Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics” (Younkins, 2011) or Chanakya’s (Kautilya) “virtuous cycle of economic growth” model (Sihag, 2007), antecedents of economics or economic theorization would have been different. Nonetheless, in absence of the dissented ancient wisdoms in ethical business and economics, we are left with a world view that innately rejects “human value” proposition.
Bhutan, a tiny kingdom of the Himalayas created GNH (Gross National Happiness) metrics in place of GDP to measure it’s progress (Thinley, 2005), an interesting and pragmatic model of sustainable development that has global ramification. GNH conjectures a holistic purview of human needs that both physical and mental and the corollary of this that the model seeks to “promote a conscious, inner search for happiness and requisite skills which must harmonize with beneficial management and development of outer circumstances” (Thinley, 2005). Central to this formulation is that GNH emphasizes on “Human Values” (Chowdhury, 2011) in economic progress including development and commerce.
We too want “Happiness” as the ultimate, yet our world view constraints us to believe that physical wellbeing is in essence the pathways to the said. Rejection of this viewpoint has been a defacto formulation in management science, “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” (Mathes, 1981).



We are, however, misconstruing this with self-centered view of physical wealth possession as the way to buy happiness. So, if we are witnessing this self-centered view of what we called “greed” in individuals like Bernie Madoff (Creswell & Thomas, 2009; Lenzner, 2008) or in business magnets like Kenneth Lay (Healy & Palepu, 2003; MSNBC, 2006; NYTIMES, 2011), we should not be surprised, after all it’s a byproduct of our social state. 
Figure 2. The influence of behavioral norm in society and in organizations (Corporations) (Chowdhury, 2011).



Hence, introspection is needed.  What we are dealing here is a behavioral pathology that far reaching than our common understandings. I contended that solution to our predicament thus needs a behavioral change which brings together human values and institutions. As it is applicable to organization so do in our societies. I call this formulation OCBS (Organizational Citizenship Behavior towards Sustainability) (Chowdhury, 2011). It is a framework that innately finds common ground, if not win-win paradigm, a mutually beneficial schema for the subjects.  The OCBS posits a behavioral augmentation that is pragmatic and judicious and deviates in few behavioral dimensions from those defined in the “OCB (Organizational Citizenship Behavior) (Organ, 1988, 1990, 1997; Organ, Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 2006; Organ & Ryan, 1995), a famous postulation of Prof Dennis W. Organ.  In particular OCBS disagree with “compliance” behavioral dimensions of OCB and put forward a normative postulation of “controlled discord” to foster creativity and productivity. Many researches on OCB found significant correlations between OCB and productivity (Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 2006) among many other elements e.g. job satisfaction, customer service and quality etc. These findings draw my interest in particulars sets of behavioral dimensions that, as per my meta-analyses, depict the potentiality of effecting entailed behavioral change towards sustainable corporation and sustainable world – a paradigm shift for good. This preliminary observation later espoused through a global survey (Chowdhury, 2011) that measures the presence of different dimensions of OCBS and it’s impact to corporations, found there is a significance correlation between OCBS and long term viability of corporations through two moderators: Proactive Competence (.580; P <.000) and Creative Competence (.599; p <.000).  


More importantly, respondents who identified presence of OCBS in their workplace environment indicated “proactive” and “creative” competence of 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. A quantitative analysis based on the global survey result depicts Proactive and creative competence has significant correlation with Profitability & Stakeholders’ Equity, Governance, Innovation, Market Leadership, Human Capital and CSR and Environmental Performance.  This finding depicts a very natural predisposition of human productivity and creativity.  . 


Figure 3. The diagrammatical representation of OCBS and it's correlation with two moderators; creative & proactive competence which in turn having stronger correlation with many independent variables (Chowdhury, 2011).
The “Hawthorne Study” (Franke & Kaul, 1978), an early (1927 - 1932) investigation on employee behavior and productivity influence found certain environmental preconditions encourage the productivity. This finding is the precursor of many researches that later followed. Moreover, human factor is central to many management subjects including Organizational Behavior and Human Resources Management etc.  


Nonetheless, though productivity and services are influenced by human factors, economic contemplations are oblivious of this fact. This in part contributes to obfuscation in our present-day social state. 


Imperative to this abstraction is, therefore, a behavioral change that purview the holistic aspect of sustainability considering the harmonious whole: human and biosphere systems; a conjecture that innately reduces entropy in societal, organizational, political and environmental system.  



[ To Be Continued ....................]



Reference





  1. Chowdhury, D.D., 2011. Organizational Citizenship Behavior towards Sustainability (OCBS): An Evaluative Report. Doctor of Business Administration Studies, Aberdeen Business School. The Robert Gordon University (RGU).
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