Jan. 12, 2018 "How dirty tricks in business can backfire on the offender": Today I found this article by Darah Hansen in the Globe and Mail:
The Globe's bimonthly report on research from business schools.
U.S. President Donald Trump may have given it a new name, but the concept of "fake news" – that is, spreading lies and deception as a means of smearing a rival – is an old trick.
Take, for example, the story of a bakery chain in South Korea. Once a mighty force in the country's food industry, the company was brought to its knees in 2012 after a man posted a photo of a dead rat in a popular online forum, claiming he'd found it baked into one of the chain's loaves of bread.
Nine days later, the story was a revealed as a hoax – spun by the owner of a competing bakery – but by then the victim bakery chain had suffered much damage.
What surprised many watching the fallout, however, was just how detrimental the lies would also be to the hoaxster.
Gene Moo Lee, an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business, remembers the incident well. Years later, he and a team of researchers, all of South Korean origin, used the case as motivation to dig deeper into fake news in the business world.
In particular, the researchers sought to better understand what happens when a company engages in fake news as a means of damaging a market competitor.
The work is published in the Journal of Business Ethics.
The work is published in the Journal of Business Ethics.
What they found was surprising: Yes, the victim of the deception will almost certainly suffer negative publicity and reputation damage, but it's the offending company that will ultimately feel the brunt of the backlash – so much so, the offender may never recover.
"This study showed that deceptive marketing just doesn't pay," says Dr. Lee.
To reach their findings, the team studied three years' worth of data, social media posts, news articles and ad spending related to the South Korean bakery story to determine how the sentiment of consumers toward the two bakeries changed over time.
A detailed analysis of the results revealed a strong pattern. "We found that the victim firm had significant damage, but only in the short term, while the offending firm suffered damage lasting more than two years," Dr. Lee says in an e-mail.
Dr. Lee says researchers were cautious in drawing broad generalizations given the study involved a single case in one industry. However, the team is confident in its conclusions, noting information about the two bakeries involved in the study and public sentiment were available in detail and allowed researchers to thoroughly measure the impact of the case.
"Having said that, the lessons learned from the study are [still] relevant to the business community in general," he adds.
Rule No. 1? Don't underestimate the ability of social media users to notice the details.
In the bakery case, for instance, it was social media chatter questioning the credibility of the rat-in-bread rumour that sparked the traditional South Korean media to investigate the case.
Users questioned the timing of the original post – just before Christmas – and expressed widespread doubt about an attached photo of the rodent.
Critically, users highlighted a location stamp on the attached photo and noted it was taken very close to a franchise operated by the competing bakery.
Users questioned the timing of the original post – just before Christmas – and expressed widespread doubt about an attached photo of the rodent.
Critically, users highlighted a location stamp on the attached photo and noted it was taken very close to a franchise operated by the competing bakery.
"This shows evidence that social media can be self-controlled and self-monitored by the user community," says Dr. Lee.
Lesson No. 2? Don't lie.
"A lot of people spread fake news, but when it is uncovered … it brings lasting reputation damage to the offender," he says.
In the bakery case, both businesses survived the crisis. However, the creator of the fake news was sentenced to 14 months in jail in 2011.
The study, entitled Does Deceptive Marketing Pay?, was co-authored by Reo
Song at California State University, Ho Kim of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and Sungha Jang of Kansas State University.
Song at California State University, Ho Kim of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and Sungha Jang of Kansas State University.
Aug. 8, 2018 "Downward envy: when bosses become jealous of employees": Today I found this article by Lingtao Yu in the Globe and Mail:
Lingtao Yu is an assistant professor at the Sauder School of Business at University of British Columbia.
It’s understandable why employees would sometimes envy their bosses. They earn more money, they make the big decisions and they often garner most of the accolades and perks.
But envy between employers and their employees is not a one-way street. In fact, studies have shown that more than a third of mid-level bosses experience downward envy – that is, envy of their employees – especially if those employees show leadership potential, have a close relationship with senior executives, or have a strong friendship network within the company.
And that envy can have significant consequences for businesses and their workers – both good and bad.
Over the course of nine months, my colleagues Michelle Duffy of the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, Bennett Tepper of Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business and I studied two corporations in China. There, we had supervisors and employees regularly fill out surveys that revealed how they felt about themselves, as well as those above or beneath them.
What we found was that when the envied employees were “cold and competent” – meaning they were capable workers but had a chilly attitude or were more calculated ladder climbers – the employer would be more likely to act abusively and limit that worker’s power.
In other words, when employers feel their employees could go after their leadership position in the future, or may pose some other kind of threat, they strategically try to drive that employee down to negate that threat. They feel the need to take action – and because they are supervisors, they have the power and the resources to abuse their employees.
Downward envy isn’t always counterproductive, however. If the envied employee is seen as “warm and competent” – someone with potential but who is also a supportive and friendly team player – bosses are far more likely to push themselves to improve, rather than pushing the competition down.
So, if a supervisor feels the envied employee is warm and competent, he or she will tend to see the worker as a friend or role model. Even if the supervisor still feels threatened, when they think about how to deal with that threat, they think, “Maybe I’ll improve my own performance and try to catch up with the employee.”
Many studies have looked at what happens when co-workers envy each other, or when workers envy their bosses – but we believe our study is the first to empirically show the existence of downward envy, and to prove that some envy can lead to positive outcomes.
The findings are consistent across both companies, and recent research from the United States and Europe also indicates the results would be consistent across cultures and workplaces.
The research sends a key message to corporate head offices, because senior managers often treat envy as a toxic emotion that only does harm – when in fact it can be a beneficial part of a healthy workplace culture. As a result, it’s important for senior managers to look at the subtleties of employees’ behaviours, for better or for worse.
The research also offers a valuable insight to employees looking to get ahead: don’t act cold in the workplace.
If your supervisor considers you a real threat, they are more likely to abuse you in the workplace. People shouldn’t hide their talents, or act less competent; you need to be competent.
But in terms of warmth or coldness, when it comes to interpersonal relationships in the workplace, it’s far better to play nice, because it’s an excellent way of protecting yourself – and ultimately, of putting yourself in an enviable position.
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