MP3 David (Eth) Interview

The speaker is an associate professor at ASU who researches and teaches ethics. They discuss how ethics plays a role in the business world, with ethical issues often being complex. They mention that goals in the workplace can sometimes lead to unethical behavior and moral disengagement. They suggest that focusing on the process of achieving goals rather than just the outcome can help mitigate unethical behavior. They also discuss the universality of morality, stating that while certain moral foundations are shared by people across cultures, there are also differences in moral values. So, thanks so much for doing this with me. I really appreciate it. Sure. Can you tell me a little bit about what you do here at ASU? Yes. So, I am an associate professor in the Management and Organizations Department here at W.P. Carey School of Business, and I research and teach courses related to the topic of ethics. So, this is something that is very interesting to me. So, how do you see ethics in the business sphere? Yes. So, within the business world, there is always something going on to talk about. We have no shortage of ethical scandals. When I teach MBA students or others here at W.P. Carey, they see these sorts of things in the world of work and these sort of ethical issues come up. And sometimes the issues are kind of black and white, but oftentimes they're more complicated. And it's those more complicated issues of how do you balance performance and ethics and standards and navigating your career path on the right trajectory to reach the outcomes that you want, but in an ethical way, in the way that you want to achieve them. You know, this is something that I think everybody wrestles with. And oftentimes we see these students come in and they think, I don't need an ethics class. I'm already a good person. You know, maybe my peers, they need an ethics class. Or, you know, maybe this is going to be boring. Maybe it's going to be like Sunday school and the professor is just going to tell me, oh, you should do the right thing. Okay, you know, we're done. But, you know, fortunately, there's actually a lot of really interesting research that can inform this. And, you know, why even though we have good intentions a lot of the time, we want to do the right thing, yet we know we're not perfect. Like our values do not always match with our behaviors. Sometimes we fall short. It's like, what does that happen? You know, what are our ethical blind spots? You know, what are the situations where, you know, if we look at it with hindsight or if we think about it a little bit more, it's like, oh, you know, I could have done something different there. I could have been a little better. Exactly, exactly. So, from your experience, what are some of the, like, what are some general examples of where people think they're doing the right thing, but it's actually harming someone else? So, how would I see that in, like, the company that I work for? Yeah, so there's probably a lot of potential examples, but one that is of interest to me and that I studied a little bit relates to performance and performance goals. So, yeah, so, you know, of course at work on a given day we're thinking like, hey, how can I deliver on the tasks that are given to me? Like, how can I be successful at my job? And oftentimes we're not even thinking about ethics, right? Like, unless something comes up, you know, it's like, oh, this is an ethical issue. We're just thinking about, you know, what are the goals that I have? What are these objectives? And so, you know, goals can be really powerful. Like we said, goals, if they're specific, if they're difficult, if they challenge us, they can motivate us to perform better. But like a lot of good things, there can be unintended consequences. And so, like, that's something that I've studied. So I've looked at, you know, how goals can lead to moral disengagement, by which I mean, like, rationalizations and justifications that you might come up with to hit your organizational goals. Like, hey, it's no big deal if I take this shortcut. Or like, oh, like my boss really wants this, you know. It's my boss' fault if I do this, you know. You're the one who told me to, you know, achieve this performance objective in this particular way. Goals can also put the blinders on us, you know. We have less moral awareness. We're focused on performance. We're not thinking about ethics. We're just thinking about, you know, accomplishing the task. And so sometimes we don't notice those issues. They can wear us down a little bit as well. You know, goals are highly motivating, but you put in all that energy, you can get worn down. Sometimes you're not at your best. You're just slogging through. You're like, maybe you see this, you know, with like university papers at the end of the semester, it's crunch time, right. And you're like, man, I have this goal to get this paper done. I'm just like so slammed by it. Like you're worn down, you know. So these would just be some examples of how something essentially good, like a performance goal, can also maybe blind us to the ethical challenges associated with pursuing that goal. So on the one hand, I want to make us aware of some of those pitfalls. And then I've also done some stuff in terms of how can you use goals more effectively. How can you get that motivation without also the ethical downsides, potentially. Yeah, absolutely. And how, like, can you give me some examples of how we can? Yeah, yeah, for sure. So one example that comes to mind, we did a paper with some Ph.D., or former Ph.D. students of mine and I, where we basically looked at two different types of goals. And one of these types was really just focused on the outcome. Like what is the goal at the end of the line? Like bottom line performance, achieve this, right? And the other type of goal, it was the same end result, but we focused on the process of the goal. Like learning development, like what is this goal actually like? Encouraging you to do, like the process along the way. Exactly, yeah. So we did a number of studies with both employees and with, you know, students that we assigned goals to. And we gave them the same goal but in different ways. If you focus just on the outcome instead of focusing on, like, here's the process behind the goal, here's like what you're actually trying to learn or develop, you know, those have vastly different outcomes in terms of people being motivated to behave unethically. Interesting. If it's just all about the outcome, you can take a shortcut, you can cheat, you can get that outcome. Yeah. But if it's about the process and you actually buy into that, then like cheating doesn't really help you develop in that sort of way. So some of it just has to do, this is certainly not the only solution or the only way to use goals effectively. But what it does tell us is like, you know, if you're in an organization and you're just a manager giving employees this goal and you're like, hey, just bring me these numbers, just get me these results, I don't care how you do it, or like I'm not going to be involved in the process or in your development, you know, then it's easy for these employees to think, you know, maybe I'll take some shortcuts to get there. But if the process is important, then maybe goals don't necessarily have these same sort of side effects. Like cheating doesn't get you what you want there. Yeah, exactly. So what makes a process important? Is it the people you're working with? Is it the, you know, the many goals you have along the way? How do you define that? Yeah, so there's certainly a lot of things in the environment itself, like we call that like an organizational culture or climate, like the people around you, the boss setting the standards, like what are people around you doing, you know, do they care about ethics like as well? But here in this particular context, we're kind of focusing, I think that the outcome versus the learning goal is getting at the underlying motivation for the goal. And, you know, if we want to get into sort of some of the technical terms here, one is like an extrinsic motivation, right? It's like the carrot, like it's external. And the other is more sort of intrinsic. We all have these intrinsic goals that we want to improve ourselves and develop and learn new skills and be better at our job and all that. But that's a little bit different than saying, I want that raise and that promotion or that pat on the back, which is more extrinsic. So, you know, both can be valuable, but if you focus too much on the extrinsic motivators and you forget about the sort of intrinsic motivation there, then people can get sidetracked and they can just be thinking about those short-term rewards rather than like what the goal is actually trying to accomplish. Exactly, yeah, exactly. Wow. So on a more broader term, when we're talking about morality in general, from your perspective, do you think that morality is universal? Yeah, so that's a great question, and it's a great question because it doesn't have an easy answer. Lots of people talk about this, psychologists, you know, moral psychologists talk about this. So I think I have maybe two things to say about this. One is that there's some really interesting research, moral foundations theory and the work of Jesse Graham and Jonathan Haidt. They survey people across different cultures all around the world, in the West, in, you know, the East, in all different parts of the world, and what they find is that people have some of the same underlying what we call moral foundations, but this can differ within each society based on where people fall on the political spectrum within that society. So for example, what we tend to find across a wide variety of cultures is that all people, or you could say it's kind of universal, that people tend to care about things related to harm to others. Like harm is something that's like a core value that almost everybody has. Yeah. And the same thing with fairness or ideas of justice. Now that might differ in terms of what justice or fairness looks like, but these are sort of core foundations that everybody shares to a certain extent. Yeah. But we also have some other moral foundations that people tend to disagree on, and so you have things like loyalty to the group, you know, loyalty or conformity to authority, and like notions of purity or sanctity. So some people will say like, oh yeah, like loyalty, maybe to my country, like that's super important, or loyalty to your family, like if I have an opportunity to lie, but it would help somebody that I'm close to, maybe I feel that pull of loyalty, like that's important. Or maybe I feel like, you know, authority really is important within a culture, and people should respect their elders, and they should respect tradition, we shouldn't just try to tear things down. Or this idea of purity or sanctity, you know, that like your body is a temple, you live your lifestyle in a certain way, like some people that's a very core value for them, and other people are like, no, no, no, like that just seems like something that's outdated. And so what you have is people that tend to be on the left or the more liberal side of their society in every culture, they tend to really focus on those harm and fairness foundations, like for them that is really the core of morality. And people that tend to be on the more conservative side, they also care about the harm and fairness, maybe to a slightly lesser extent, but they also really value these other things like loyalty, or like authority, or like purity. And so people can talk past each other. You could have somebody that's maybe more liberal say, like authority, like why would I care what some authority figure thinks, like maybe we need to challenge authority, or overturn power structures, or hierarchies, or something like that. And then other people are saying, like you have no national pride, or you're not loyal to your group, your country, what about loyalty to your own family? So there can be these competing values that you don't always universalize in that same sort of sense. Yeah, that's so interesting how the specific types of morality kind of correlate with different sides of the aisle, political aisle. I never really thought about it from that perspective, so that is really interesting. And hopefully recognizing it can allow us to talk to people that see the world differently from us. Like for example, like something like this idea of sanctity or purity, maybe that resonates with you, or maybe it doesn't. But like if you're talking to somebody that like, you know, they feel a certain way, like maybe they have ideas about getting a tattoo, or like eating or drinking like some particular thing, like for them that's like a moral issue. And maybe for other people that's just like a matter of preference. Like do whatever you want, you know, don't, you know, whatever. So just I think understanding these sort of different perspectives like, you know, realize, you know, maybe that isn't my own moral code or my own values, but I can appreciate like a lot of people in a lot of cultures like really care about these things. That is part of morality for them. Exactly, yeah, exactly. That's awesome. Well, to be honest, those were all the questions I had. That was very wonderful. I should be having, I have the, I'm going to be.