Dr. Jonathan Crawshaw is interviewed by Human Relations on the Special Issue on Organisational Justice and Behavioral Ethics. Jon was the lead editor on this SI, and the host of the International Workshop on Organisational Justice and Behavioral Ethics (IWOJBE II) at Aston University, Birmingham.
Although ethics and justice are not discussed in detail in this report, Gallup has done some interesting work on employee engagement and well being. For instance, on average more than 70% of employees report being ‘actively disengaged’ or ‘not engaged.’ They have found consistent and strong correlations between employee engagement and nine outcome variables including profitability, productivity, product defect rates, theft, absenteeism, turnover, safety, and customer ratings. A great argument for the value of organization behavior research in general, and for potential studies on justice and behavioral ethics. Gallup has run their employee engagement survey in 189 countries with more than 25 million respondents. You can find the report on the American workplace here.
“Freedom” is an idea that seems straightforward but only if you don’t think about it very much. To illustrate, let’s consider the essential 
elements. From a layperson’s point of view, there is something you wish to do. However, there is also a restraint on behavior that circumscribes your actions to an undesirable extent. When you become “free,” you release yourself from these fetters. Picture a prisoner chained to a wall. When the chains are unlocked, he is set free. Stated more generally, there are two forces pulling in different directions – (1) a restraining force that seeks to limit your movement and (2) an internal or “you” force that seeks to purse some goal or activity. When you can follow your internal goals, you are free. When you cannot follow your goals, you are constrained.
This little definition probably does a good job of summarizing the commonsense view of freedom. Nevertheless, I have a concern with it. There is a questionable assumption built into the definition. The aforementioned characterization suggests that our internal desires function as the source of our freedom. The external restrictions that we encounter are the things that take freedom away. If you accept this point of view, then to be free you should follow your desires. If you do otherwise, then you have compromised your personal autonomy. I’m skeptical. I believe we are missing an important part of the story. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey is getting pressure from all sides on his decision to hold a special election rather than appoint a Republican to fill a vacant Senate seat. The prize for Demonstrating Theory goes to former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R), who commented that “All Christie has to do is appoint a Republican. That’s the correct move for him to make.” Anything else was “debilitating stupidity” and that if Christie thought that people would “love him for being the guy who plays fair rather than takes the political opportunity he’s crazy.”
We wonder: What Would Linda Skitka Say? Skitka has done extensive work on what she has defined as the ‘moral mandate effect’, or “the tendency for people to care less (if at all) about procedural fairness and institutional legitimacy when they have strong moral convictions about preferred outcomes.”
The speaker schedule for the Third International Workshop on Organisational Justice and Behavioural Ethics is available here!
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