|
Introduction 介绍
2008年之前，公司的成功将决定其声誉（Meinert，2014年）。然而，如今，随着社交媒体的兴起，工作场所中不道德行为的曝光迫使公司在工作方式上更加透明。在这个全球化的时代，工作场所的道德行为已经成为一个广泛讨论的话题。Steiner（1971）指出，“组织中的道德行为是公平的，而且仅仅高于宪法和适用的政府法规。”工作场所中的道德行为通常被认为是良好的道德行为；但是，由于其不符合宪法和政府法规，因此“道德行为”的定义是相当有争议的。根据Touche Ross和Company的一项调查，超过90%的企业领导者认为他们现在的组织面临道德问题（Meinert引用，2014年）。找出这一问题的原因和可能的解决办法具有极为重要的意义。通过案例研究，我们可以找出工作场所不道德行为的可能原因，并找出可能的解决办法。
Before 2008, company success would determine its reputation (Meinert, 2014). Nevertheless, nowadays, with the rise of social media, the exposure of unethical practices in the workplace is forcing the companies to be more transparent in their working styles. Ethical behaviours in the workplace have been a widely discussed topic in this globalized era. Steiner (1971) states that “ethical behavior in organizations is conduct fair and just above and beyond constitutional laws and applicable government regulation.” Ethical behaviours in the workplace are commonly considered as morally good; however, due to the fact that it is out of the constitutional laws and governmental regulations, the definitions of “ethical behaviours” are rather controversial. According to a survey done by Touche Ross and Company, over 90% of the business leaders believe that they face ethical problems in their organizations nowadays (cited in Meinert, 2014). It is of paramount significance to find out the causes and possible solutions for this issue. By using case studies, we can figure out the possible reasons of unethical behaviours in the workplace and find out possible solutions.
Background背景
目前的情况是亚马逊的工作场所有瘀伤。在亚马逊的办公室里，每个人都受到同事和老板们持续不断的批评。这可能意味着要建立一个交叉检查的环境，以确保每个人都在正确的轨道上工作，并迅速扭打想法。这个工作场所的工作作风很严厉。人们似乎无法呼吸。即使当工人有严重的健康问题和家庭事务时，他们也会被解雇，原因是他们不再具有竞争力。这对现有的工人来说是非常令人沮丧的。
The case at hand is Amazon’s bruising workplace. In the Amazon’s offices, everyone is suffering from consistent and continual critiques from colleagues and bosses. It may be meant to build up a cross-checking environment to make sure everyone is working on the right track and wrestle ideas rapidly. The working style in this workplace is very harsh. People seem not to be able to breathe. Even when workers have serious health issues and family matters, they are to be fired with a reason that they are no longer competitive. This is very discouraging to the existing workers.
Identification of Issues and Problems 问题和问题的识别
There are mainly two problems in the workplace of Amazon. The first problem is that workers cannot have a balanced life for work and personal matters due to the long time working and on call at off-office time. It seems that the workers devote all their time on working no matter whether it is office time or not. It may be due to the fact that Amazon would like to heighten the productivity. However, there are a number of adverse consequences stemming from this work-to-family spillover. There may be more conflicts in the marital relationship because of the limited time spending with the spouses (Crouter, Perry-Jenkins, Huston, & Crawford, 1989). According to Lindberg (1996), breast-feeding mothers may face even more problems if they are the full-time staff of Amazon because they can only provide a very short time of breast-feeding for their new born babies. Crouter, Helms-Erikson, Updegraff, & McHale (1999) point out that if parents devote much time on work, they will have less experience with their children. This results in lack of knowledge of their children. The children’s growth may be detrimentally influenced. Repetti& Wood (1997) find out that withdrawal from family interaction will even be resulted from a lack of time with family members. In a serious state, depression may appear (Beatty, 1996); misuse of alcohol will more likely to happen (Frone, Russell, & Cooper, 1993). The quality of life will be deteriorated at last (Rice, Frone, &McFarlin, 1992).
The second problem is that the employees of Amazon suffer from great pressure in the workplace due to the non-stop harsh critiques from colleagues during meeting and anonymously. This is destructive criticism which interpersonal mistreatment intersects with performance feedback (Raver et al., 2011). For those who believe that they receive destructive feedback, they think that the feedback-givers have an aim to harm them. They will blame the feedback-giver, distrust them and even hate them. Research from Kluger and DeNisi (1996) on feedback intervention theory finds out that attention will be shifted from the task to the self after destructive criticism. This implies that feedback on the task may easily result in distrust in personal ability. This may add to the stress of the employees in Amazon. Laboratory experiments indicate that even if feedbacks contribute to 0.4 increase in the average standard deviation, they lower one-third of the overall performance(Drummond, Hadchouel, and Tesnière, 2017). On the whole, criticisms do not improve the companies’ overall performance. They even create a workplace full of pressure and distrust for the employees.
Possible Solutions
To deal with the first problem, Amazon should allow a balanced work-life of the employees. Christensen, Friedman and DeGroot (1998) propose the idea that work and personal life is not a zero-sum game, but complementary. They studied different cases and found out that there were three approaches which yielded encouraging payoffs for the benefits of both the companies and employees. They found out that the managers believe in three important principles. Firstly, they are very clear about the business priorities. They encourage employees to voice their thinking on work and personal life, to talk about the goals both in their work and personal life, and to lay out plans to comfort the employees that the company values personal life as well. Secondly, the leaders support the employees’ roles outside the office. They open-mindedly acknowledged that they can use their skills to contribute in other roles as “whole people”. Thirdly, the leaders reflect on organizational performance and employees’ personal pursuits continually so that he can make sure the employees can be able to balance their work and personal life, and the company is on the right track. The continual reflection and experiments of new ways of working contribute to higher success of the company. Christensen, Friedman and DeGroot’s proposed perspectives are mainly top-down approaches. One drawback is that when the leader of the company is not easily changed, it is hard to attain the benefits stated by them.
For the second problem that the employees are suffering from great pressure due to unexpected and continual criticism, it is recommended that criticism should be stopped instead of finding out the key problems. As pointed out by Larson (1989), studies found out that the objective and persistent working performance problem does not change, the continual appearance of the problem is more serious in causing the problem. It is highly advised that the supervisors should figure out the key problem rather than blaming the employees. Therefore, objective analysis is much more effective than blindly criticizing the employees.
Proposed Solutions
I believe that if the leader of Amazon changes his leading style, Amazon can be changed to a more ethical workplace. As mentioned above, the studies done by Christensen, Friedman and DeGroot (1998) are certain to guide leaders of the company to create tangible payoffs. Tangible payoffs are much more important than short-term profits with high turnover rate. However, whether the leader of Amazon is willing to change of the culture of company, it remains a big question. (Larson, Jr., 1989)’s approach may be a perfectionist way. It is also vague to actualize his ideas because he does not propose any concrete plans. Detailed and concrete guidelines should be provided for the supervisors and employees so as to build up a more harmonious workplace.
Recommendations
I would like to recommend the leader of Amazon to change his way of working himself first. If the top-down approach does not work, an upward approach can be used. Employees of Amazon should unite and voice out their concerns so as to change their leader.
Reference List
Beatty, C. A. (1996). The stress of managerial and professional women: Is the price too high? Journal of Organizational Behavior, 17, 233–251.
Crouter, A. C., Perry-Jenkins, M., Huston, T. L., & Crawford, D. W. (1989). The influence of work-induced psychological states on behavior at home. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 10, 273–292.
Crouter, A. C., Helms-Erikson, H., Updegraff, K., & McHale, S. M. (1999). Conditions underlying parents' knowledge about children's daily lives in middle childhood: Between- and within-family comparisons. Child Development, 70, 246–259.#p#分页标题#e#
Drummond, D., Hadchouel, A. and Tesnière, A. (2017) ‘Serious games for health: Three steps forwards’, Advances in Simulation, 2(1). doi: 10.1186/s41077-017-0036-3.
Friedman, S.D., Christensen, P. and DeGroot, J. (1998) ‘Work and Life: The End of the Zero-Sum Game’, Harvard Business Review, , pp. 119–129.
Frone, M. R., Russell, M., & Cooper, M. L. (1993). Relationship of work-family conflict, gender, and alcohol expectancies to alcohol use/abuse. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 14, 545–558.
Kluger, A.N. and DeNisi, A. (1996) ‘The effects of feedback interventions on performance: A historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory’, Psychological Bulletin, 119(2), pp. 254–284. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.119.2.254.
Larson, Jr., J.R. (1989) ‘The Dynamic Interplay between Employees“ Feedback-Seeking Strategies and Supervisors” Delivery of Performance Feedback’, The Academy of Management Review, 14(3), pp. 408–422.
Lindberg, L. D. (1996). Women's decisions about breastfeeding and maternal employment. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 58, 239–251.
Meinert, D. (2014) Creating an ethical workplace. Available at: https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/Pages/0414-ethical-workplace-culture.aspx (Accessed: 22 February 2017).
Raver, J.L., Jensen, J.M., Lee, J. and O’Reilly, J. (2011) ‘Destructive criticism revisited: Appraisals, task outcomes, and the moderating role of competitiveness’, Applied Psychology, 61(2), pp. 177–203. doi: 10.1111/j.1464-0597.2011.00462.x.
Repetti, R. L., & Wood, J. (1997). Effects of daily stress at work on mothers' interactions with preschoolers. Journal of Family Psychology, 11, 90–108.
Rice, R. W., Frone, M. R., & McFarlin, D. B. (1992). Work-nonwork conflict and the perceived quality of life. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13, 155–168.
Steiner, G. A. (1971) Business and Society. New York: Random House.
|
 |
|||
| 网站地图 |
