MGMT 2130
Business Ethics and Social
Responsibility
Session #4: Employees
PLEASE SIT WITH YOUR GROUPS!
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Course Structure: Class 4
1) Introduction: What, Why, How
Foundations
2) Macro: Role of Business in Society
3) Micro: Psychology & Foundations of Corporate (Ir)responsibility
4) Business and Employees
5) Business and Suppliers
6) Business and Communities
Stakeholders
7) Business and Customers
8) Natural Environment & Business Models
9) Guest Lecture / Simulation
Applications 10) Guest Lecture / Simulation
11) Applying what we've learned
Final 12) Applying what we've learned
Presentations
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Session 4 Agenda
• Survey
• Types of stakeholder power
• Rights & power of employees
• Happiness
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Discussions
• Did you just summarize the concept? (don’t!)
• Did you give personal example? (Do!)
• Did you provide opinion and rationale? (Do!)
• Did you extend the concept? (Do!)
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Feedback
Thank you!
• Topics:
• Shareholders vs. stakeholder,
• Groupthink (psych safety) – describe a process (not outcome)
• Speed = average (normal distribution around ‘average’)
• Homework = slightly below average
• Want:
• Slightly more of your classmates talking
• Slightly more to talk yourselves
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Group Think & Psych Safety
• Group Think describes a type of process, a kind of
suboptimal group decision making that is caused by
specific factors. This process is suboptimal because:
• Options not considered
• Assumptions not validated
• Compliance, conformity suppress useful ideas
• Psychological safety describes a feeling which, when
present in members of a group, contributes to optional
participation & group decision making
• Allowance to verbalize your ideas, opinions, and feelings
• NOT about being nice or avoiding conflict
• NOT about always disagreeing
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Stakeholder Power
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Stakeholder: What Power?
• Stakeholder Power: Ability to use resources to affect
outcome
Types of power:
1. Voting: Have a say in or control over decisions
2. Economic: Can affect company financial transactions
3. Political: legislation, regulation
4. Legal: Lawsuits
5. Informational: Access /ability to share information
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Exercise – 6 minutes
• Even Number Groups (employees)
1. Why are you working?
• What do you value? What are your interests? What motivates you?
2. What are your rights?
3. What is your obligations?
4. What power do you have
• Odd Number Groups (employers)
1. How can you compensate/motivate employees
• What do they value? What are their interests?
2. What are your obligations to your employee?
3. What is your employees obligations to you?
4. What power do you have?
4. Where do you think your interests overlap?
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Core Rights and Obligations of Employees?
Employee Rights Employer Rights
Employer Obligations Employee Obligations
1. Respect for fundamental human rights 1. Complete their job
2. Fair and decent wage 2. No actions that endangers others
3. Safe and healthy workplace 3. Treat others with respect and without
harassment of any kind
4. Right to equal opportunity / no
discrimination 4. Honesty; appropriate disclosure
5. Fair and just discipline or termination of 5. Respect for employer’s property and
employment intellectual capital
6. Privacy 6. No drug or alcohol abuse
7. Right to blow the whistle 7. Loyalty and commitment
8. To organize and bargain 34
[Case]: Foxconn Employee Suicides
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Foxconn Discussion
• What happened?
• Why?
• How did Foxconn respond?
• Was it an adequate response?
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Audit Process
• How did they do their audit?
• What was their finding?
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A Hard-Hitting Investigative Report Into
Amazon Shows That Workers’ Needs Were
Neglected In Favor Of Getting Goods Delivered
Quickly
• Worker productivity decreases over time, so they
encourage them to leave
• Other industries/jobs like this?
• Up or out schemes?
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Foxconn’s Responses
• Raised salary twice in three months
• Asked employees to sign “no suicide” pledge
• Installed 1.5 million square meters of nets
• Set up 24-hr hotlines and hired sociologists and
psychiatrists
• Was this enough?
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Meaningless work?
A company is responsible for
the mental health of its
employees?
97% Yes
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Happiness Equation: 3 inputs
Happiness = Pleasure + Flow + Meaning
1. Pleasurable Life: Life of enjoyment (pleasure)
2. Engaged Life: Life of engagement (“flow”)
3. Meaningful Life: Meaning, impact, affiliation (purpose)
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Pleasurable life?
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How much is enough? Your answers?
• Realists:
• 7: Infinite
23 • 2: 1-3B
• 4:50-100M
• 1: 1
• Median: 1 million HKD
• Average: 2.8M HKD (366k USD) (removed 14)
• Is there a “cutoff” beyond which point science says
more money doesn’t increase happiness?
• Debatable, some argue between 70k-120k USD, others argue it
never plateaus
• How much your neighbors make (social comparison) matters!
Killingsworth, M. A. (2021). Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,000 per year. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(4).
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Kahneman, D., & Deaton, A. (2010). High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being. Proceedings of the national academy of sciences, 107(38), 16489-16493.
Hedonic Treadmill
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Hedonic Treadmill
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Flow
• Flow is the mental state of operation in which a
person performing an activity is fully immersed in a
feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and
enjoyment in the process of the activity.
• It also happens surprisingly often at work—as long
as the job provides clear goals, immediate
feedback, and a level of challenges matching our
skills.
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Meaning/Acknowledgement Experiment
How low of a salary are you willing to work for?
Group 1 Acknowledged: Look & put into pile
Group 2 Ignored: No name, no look, put into pile
Group 3 Shredded: Put directly into shredder
Ariely, D. (2016). Payoff: The hidden logic that shapes our
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motivations. Simon and Schuster.
Meaning at Foxconn
• Should Foxconn realistically be responsible for its
employees’ search for meaning?
• What meaning can Foxconn realistically introduce
to its employees?
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McDonalds
“America’s best first job”
• Other examples?
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What contributes to work meaningfulness
Relatedness:
“supportive relationships with
colleagues and superiors”
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• Nikolova, M., & Cnossen, F. (2020). What makes work meaningful and why economists should care about it. Labour economics, 65, 101847.
Related Studies on happiness,
motivation, job satisfaction
• Lego building & meaninglessness:
• If you see your efforts go to nothing, you won’t try and stop working
• Ariely, D., Kamenica, E., & Prelec, D. (2008). Man's search for meaning: The case of Legos. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 67(3-4), 671-677.
• Shredding Paper & acknowledgement:
• When our efforts are acknowledged, we’ll work more for less
• Ariely, D. (2016). Payoff: The hidden logic that shapes our motivations. Simon and Schuster.
• Ikea Effect: When Labor leads to love
• When we feel part of creating something ourselves, we value the outcome more
Norton, M. I., Mochon, D., & Ariely, D. (2012). The IKEA effect: When labor leads to love. Journal of consumer
psychology, 22(3), 453-460.
• Harvard Long Term Well Being Study:
• Positive social relationships are major determinant of happiness over the long run
• [Link]
• Call Centers: People work more when introduced to those they’re helping
• Feeling that our efforts positively impact others motivates us to work more for less
• Grant, A. M. (2007). Relational job design and the motivation to make a prosocial difference. Academy of management review, 32(2), 393-417.
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Value for employees
Pleasure:
• Money, free time, comfort, recreation, status, titles
Flow:
• Enjoying task, matching interests to task, “fit” with job
Meaning:
• Values, purpose, mission, impact, responsibility, personal
development,
Achievement:
• Goals completed, recognition, control, titles
Social Relationships:
• Friends, shared activities, “bonding”, offsite retreats, onboarding
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What make you happy in next job
you want next job
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Dream Job. What make you happy?
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How do you reward employees?
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Enjoy Most Now
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My own definition of happiness
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Ready to manage others?
68% No!
32% Yes!
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How do you reward employees?
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32% that are ready to manage
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Takeaways
• “Value” for employees can be more than just money
• Relationship between job satisfaction and money is not linear
• Non-financial considerations influence employee well being,
happiness, job satisfaction
• Companies can ‘pay’ their employees with:
• Meaning, engagement, social relationships, status,
recognition, value alignment, etc
• ‘Shared value’ includes non-financial “value”
• Negotiations involve more than just money
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Companies you want to work for?
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Jobs you Want
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Banker Hours..
• High profile deaths & suicides of ibankers in the news
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Banker Hours..
• In 2021 a Goldman Sachs
internal, employee conducted
survey was leaked online:
• 13 Analysts partook
• Summary…
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• How is the Goldman Sachs situation similar &
different from the one at Foxconn?
• What should Goldman Sachs do and why?
• Is this only a PR problem for GS?
• How is this situation similar/different from Foxconn?
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PVA Pt
Pt 1:
• Complete values exercise / reflect on values
1. Submit your values over Qualtrics
[Link]
Pt 2:
• Make Map
• Meet with partner & share/discuss
• Research two companies
1. Write paper explaining your values & comparing them to those of those two
companies & submit
• Which want to work for & why?
2. Submit values
3. Submit map
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PVA Pt
Pt 1:
• Complete values exercise / reflect on values
• Optional on Qualtrics
• Come up with list of values
• I will host class on this on Monday
1. Submit your values over Qualtrics (required)
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Optional exercise Walkthrough
Starting Values
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Add any that are missing
At the end
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FINALLY
• Submit over Qualtrics (required)
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PVA Part 2
• Meet with partner & discuss values & map
• Pick two companies
• Write essay about which you’d prefer to work for
based on your values
• Submit
• Essay
• Map
• Final values list
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Between Now and Next Class
• Homework:
• Online discussion (Tuesday midnight)
• Homework reading posted
• Late credit for survey until next Tuesday
• PVA instructions released on Canvas this week
• Pt 1 due next week (week 5)
• Optional help Sessions announced on Canvas
• PVA Pt. 2 due by week 7
• Linkedin group: Add & introduce yourself to 1-2 classmates you don’t know
• Feedback / Questions:
[Link]
0LkKyabqANEEjFYRwJlYnlDOl-
0NAIr7AA/viewform?vc=0&c=0&w=1&flr=0
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World’s top happiness scholars
on best ways to be happy
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