Management Faculty Research

Scared to negotiate job offers? Do it anyway. Here’s why.

Jennifer Anzaldi — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 14:17:48 +0000

Scared to negotiate job offers? Do it anyway. Here’s why. Jennifer Anzaldi Tue, 07/16/2024 - 10:17

Getting a job offer can be a joyful experience. Often, however, the elation quickly gives way to a state of anxiety, as candidates agonize over whether to accept the terms on the table, or negotiate for better ones. After all, it’s commonly believed that job candidates who negotiate, risk losing the opportunity.

Einav Hart

Einav Hart, assistant professor of management at the Donald G. Costello College of Business at ��ӽ紫ý, challenges that assumption in a recent research paper for Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. Her findings suggest that the expected worst-case scenario—having a job offer rescinded—may be a much more remote possibility than most job candidates believe.

The paper was co-authored by Julia Bear of Stony Brook University and Zhiying (Bella) Ren of University of Pennsylvania.

The researchers conducted seven studies involving more than 3,000 participants. To start with, they surveyed job candidates, hiring managers, and experienced professionals. These surveys showed that job candidates thought it highly likely that negotiating would lose them the job offer, while managers took a more flexible view. The hiring managers reported extending an average of 26.9 job offers during their careers, only 1.73 of which were withdrawn after a candidate negotiated.

In subsequent studies using in-person and online negotiations, Hart and her co-authors found that even taking on an imaginary role changes how one views the negotiation and its risks. They randomly assigned participants to play either a “job candidate” or a “hiring manager,” with real money at stake based on any agreed-upon job offer.

The researchers found that two psychological mechanisms were particularly relevant to explain job candidates’ exaggerated risk estimation: zero-sum perceptions, or the idea that parties in a negotiation are fighting over a fixed and finite resource, and power perceptions, i.e., how much candidates felt they had the ability to influence the hiring manager. Moreover, because of their concern about losing the deal, nearly half the candidates chose to accept the offer as is and not to negotiate.

All else being equal, candidates tended to take a much more competitive (i.e., zero-sum) view of negotiations and a less optimistic view of their power than did the “managers.” This may help explain why so many of us shy away from bargaining for better job offers, to our own detriment.

Hart says that “negotiating is not just zero-sum. Besides negotiating salary, maybe you care more about teleworking than a small signing bonus. The hiring manager might really appreciate the savings and be flexible about how often you come into the office. Thus, this negotiation (and many others) can have a win-win, mutually beneficial solution.”

Indeed, candidates primed to consider negotiation as a potential win-win interaction (as opposed to zero-sum) were less likely to fear losing the deal entirely, and by extension to forgo negotiations. Likewise, candidates primed to have higher power perception were less concerned about jeopardizing a deal and less likely to forgo negotiation. However, even with low zero-sum or power perceptions, candidates still overestimated their risk of losing the deal.

“Besides negotiating salary, maybe you care more about teleworking than a small signing bonus. The hiring manager might really appreciate the savings and be flexible about how often you come into the office. Thus, this negotiation (and many others) can have a win-win, mutually beneficial solution.” —Einav Hart

At the same time, Hart’s prior work suggests that negotiation is a decision that should be made carefully by each party. A previous paper introduced the concept of “Economic Relevance of Relational Outcomes” (ERRO), which points to the fact that there is often a long-term financial advantage in preserving strong relationships, over and above incremental gains to be won in any one negotiation.

Hart says, “Consider negotiating for a babysitter’s rate. What use is negotiating for a great deal on the rate if the babysitter feels bullied in the negotiation and is not excited to take care of your kids?”

Negotiating a job offer is tough and there is a legitimate risk that negotiating can jeopardize the deal. However, Hart’s research suggests that job candidates overestimate this risk and can often obtain better outcomes through negotiating a job offer—at least if they preserve a good relationship.

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Women’s empowerment in the workplace starts with smarter networking

Colleen Rich — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 17:13:51 +0000

Women’s empowerment in the workplace starts with smarter networking Colleen Rich Mon, 03/11/2024 - 13:13

Women’s History Month offers a chance to examine the gender leadership gap. According to a 2022 World Economic Forum report, just 31% of global leadership roles are held by women.

Sarah Wittman. Photo provided

Networking is one effective way to bridge the gap, but research shows that women are at an unfair disadvantage in this area. Sarah Wittman, an assistant professor of management at Costello College of Business at ��ӽ紫ý, unpacks this complex problem and proposes some potential research-based solutions.

Why is it important for women to network as much—and as strategically—as men?

To rise to the top, you have to be known and known of. You have to have social capital—and a social network that makes a difference. Of course, nobody likes to be thought of as “that person”: the person who uses other people for their own advancement. Yet research suggests that in professional networks women are less likely than men to network instrumentally, accumulate instrumental ties and, thus, less likely to have within their networks the powerful people who can help them advance and get things done. Over time, women’s network deficits accumulate: especially in an age of online social media including LinkedIn, if you didn’t connect with colleagues in your last job, you likely aren’t connecting this job. And those people are the ones who know you and could help you land your next job.

What, then, can women do to build useful career networks?

One piece of advice is, of course, to change your mentality—so that networking becomes relationship-building not just contact-accumulation. That fits better with what is expected of women and is less likely to receive backlash. Where networking is “just” relationship-building, it becomes less intimidating and, quite frankly, less grossly utilitarian. Especially when you’re not needing anything now, you can creatively focus on what you might give. Rather than thinking about the resources you might need, think about what resources you might represent for others. The universe repays, and having established contacts when you do need to leverage them is invaluable.

Second, make network-building easy on yourself. Just do it. LinkedIn particularly and other similar online social media are amazing tools because they are both personal and surprisingly impersonal. These days, people link with people they don’t even actually know—but perceive as working in the same industry, or in a relevant function. Linking with those possibly relevant others will not only be low risk (the “no,” if there is one, doesn’t come face-to-face), but where you engage with the platform, the professional content that you produce will allow you and your resources to become known, and known of, across your contacts’ feeds.

It’s easier to start with networks that you legitimately belong to alumni of – your high school, university, or sorority, and people who share some element of your professional past or present (ex- or present colleagues). You never know who is doing what, and how that might be related to your own career.

Unbeknownst to you, you may already have valuable social capital at your fingertips, in so-called “multiplex” ties—ones that can serve multiple ends. Do you know what your neighbors do for work? What about your children’s friends’ parents? Or your spouse’s co-workers’ spouses (or children)? But, again, the more of a decent human being you are in these relationships, the more likely they might be willing to provide professional value as well.

So the networking gap boils down to women being “too nice,” not aggressive enough to put themselves out there?

No! Scholars have written extensively on the so-called “double-bind” for women, especially those in leadership positions. Research shows that—regardless of what they do—they will be judged negatively based on warmth versus competence. Too nice? Not smart, and disrespected. Too strategic? Cold and conniving, and disliked. This goes for networking, too. Women who “reach for the top” in their networking are not seen as team players (violating feminine norms of communalism) and may suffer a status penalty versus women who have less instrumental networks. But women who don’t have those instrumental ties aren’t able to advance.

“Fixing women” is not the answer. In the C-suite, empowering words for women must be matched by action. Senior leaders must be ready to appoint capable and deserving women to positions of organizational relevance.

Closer to home, men who love women and have seen women’s challenges firsthand tend to be some of our biggest allies. CEOs with daughters, for example, are more likely to have women join their boards. Men: Understand that the women whose advancement you empower today will—en masse—be the role models that pave the way for the advancement of your own daughters, nieces, and granddaughters.

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Two Mason professors receive NSF grant to study wearables and inclusive workplaces

Marianne Klinker — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 14:35:55 +0000

Two Mason professors receive NSF grant to study wearables and inclusive workplaces Marianne Klinker Wed, 10/11/2023 - 10:35

Can wearable tech resolve the crisis of underemployment among neurodiverse individuals? A multidisciplinary Mason research team is about to embark on a major study to find out.

Two ��ӽ紫ý professors have been awarded a $1.87 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop wearable technology designed to help neurodiverse individuals succeed in the workforce.

Sarah Wittman

Sarah Wittman, assistant professor of management at the School of Business, and Vivian Genaro Motti, associate professor of information sciences and technology at the College of Engineering and Computing, will carry out a series of laboratory studies as well as a field study seeking to “support job tasks with a personalized wearable design to make the future of work more inclusive and equitable for neurodiverse adults.”

Wittman and Motti’s research began with the recognition that while many neurodiverse people are eager for employment and fully capable of performing well at work, the routines, expectations, and atmosphere of the contemporary workplace do not always accommodate their needs. Business environments can present all sorts of stressors—sensory, social, organizational—that can affect the productivity and mental health of neurodiverse individuals. Therefore, the extremely high rate of unemployment (up to 85%) among neurodiverse adults should be seen as an equity issue, rather than a reflection of ability or fitness to work. Wearables can contribute to resolving these inequities, helping users adjust to difficulties in their environment by, for example, reminding them to take a short break or do breathing exercises at moments of peak stress (indicated by an increase in their heart rates).

Vivian Genaro Motti

The concept behind the grant originated in 2017, with Motti’s contribution to developing WELI, a smartwatch application designed to assist students in Mason LIFE, a four-year program for neurodiverse young adults combining postsecondary coursework and employment opportunities in a supportive environment. The WELI project was funded as part of a three-year grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR).

After WELI showed impressive results in a field study spanning the entire 2017-18 academic year, and following NIDILRR recommendations, the research team expanded the scope of the project beyond the college campus. Motti started to investigate how such technology could be adapted for the workforce. She joined forces with Wittman, a widely published management scholar specializing in work/life transitions.

The pair set out to better understand the pain points neurodiverse individuals face at work. Supported by seed funding from the Institute for Digital Innovation (IDIA) and the work of PhD student Niloofar Kalantari, who scoured Reddit and other online forums where neurodiverse people were posting about their workplace travails. Their data analysis revealed a wide range of challenges, with a high degree of variation correlated to different types of neurodiversity (ADHD, autism spectrum, Down syndrome, etc.). This confirmed their hypothesis that a one-size-fits-all wearable solution is not viable; instead, they began to pursue interventions tailored to individual user needs and specific segments of the neurodiverse population.

The four-year NSF project begins in January 2024. In the research studies planned, the PIs will recruit a large sample of adults with ADHD and those on the autism spectrum, working, for example, as stockers and order-fillers in the retail industry (or whose work might see them doing tasks with similar hand movements). Through a series of laboratory experiments, Motti and Wittman will refine the wearable technology and assess its positive impact upon both task-based performance and user well-being. Finally, they will launch a three-week field study intended to “test real-world efficacy and build guidelines around work times, tasks, and spaces for this technology”.

Beyond making life easier for neurodiverse individuals in the workplace, Motti and Wittman believe that their interventions will generate useful data for fuelling the ongoing push for more inclusive working environments. If successful, their wearable application will conclusively demonstrate the immense value that neurodiverse individuals bring to the labor force, while educating future researchers and employers on how best to foster inclusive work environments that can unlock that value for the benefit of all.

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What’s worse than a ‘toxic’ workplace? One that gaslights employees

Marianne Klinker — Mon, 11 Sep 2023 19:15:18 +0000

What’s worse than a ‘toxic’ workplace? One that gaslights employees Marianne Klinker Mon, 09/11/2023 - 15:15

When it comes to relationships between co-workers, organizations’ stated priorities must match what’s happening under the hood.

These days, we hear a lot about “toxic bosses,” “toxic companies,” and the like. It’s easy to forget that non-toxicity is not all we want from an employer. If we’re really honest, most of us want to be part of an organization where working relationships are consistently healthy and supportive. Our dream company would also be a place where advancement opportunities were available to all, not only those who regularly have lunch or go golfing with the right people.

It might not shock you to learn that few companies have fully achieved this sort of actively anti-toxic as opposed to superficially non-toxic working culture. Those that have, though, tend to be more resilient when crisis hits, according to Kevin Rockmann, professor of management at ��ӽ紫ý School of Business.

Kevin Rockmann

“If even one person is an isolate, that’s a problem,” Rockmann says. “That’s information you’re not benefiting from…It’s not about everybody being best friends, it’s just about having productive working relationships that are characterized by respect, so that when the [expletive] hits the fan, people are going to step up.”

In a recently published paper for Strategic Organization, Rockmann and co-author Caroline A. Bartel (of University of Texas-Austin) theorize that such working cultures require concerted and sustained attention at all organizational levels—especially the top. Unstinting focus from above spurs the creation of structures and practices for supporting positive interpersonal relationships, which the paper terms “systems for relational advocacy.”

Rockmann’s theory adopts the attention-based view of the firm as an interpretive framework for organizational activity, as opposed to its chief competitor, the resource-based view. While the latter, according to Rockmann, centers on “the resources that an organization has or can access,” the former recognizes that “Resources are important, but it’s really about how we leverage those resources. What are organizational leaders paying attention to?” His paper forms part of a special issue of Strategic Organization devoted to the attention-based view.

Outside of relational advocacy—which relatively few firms actually practice—the paper identifies two main types of relational systems, reflecting different ways senior leaders can manage their attention.

Relational antipathy describes organizations that have made a strategic decision to deprioritize relationship-building among employees. This may be because senior leaders believe that a culture of competition rather than cooperation would be better for their firm, or because the business model is thought to lend itself to more transactional relationships (e.g. gig economy start-ups). In any case, Rockmann emphasizes that relational antipathy can be a workable system, especially when characterized by fairness as opposed to exploitation.

Rockmann reserves his strongest criticism for systems of relational indifference, where lip service may be paid to the importance of positive relationships (“we care about everyone!”), but senior leaders do not allocate the attention needed to create and maintain those relationships long-term.

“I was talking to an HR person at this company, who said, ‘We started this awards program to recognize employees who helped each other out.’ I asked them, ‘That’s great, so how many people are getting awards?’ They said ‘Well, no one’s been getting the awards recently. We keep forgetting to send the announcement out and the rewards behind it are pretty minimal.'”

To Rockmann, this is a quintessential example of the dangers of relational indifference because it shows how espoused good intentions become mere gaslighting without organizational follow-through. “Nobody was told that part of their job evaluation that year was to make sure they do that awards program,” he explains. “What could have been a way to bring people closer together and incentivize stronger relational connections falls by the wayside. And that weakens the organization, because relationships are how we’re going to solve crises.”

Instead of a tightly woven, resilient network of relationships, relationally indifferent organizations are susceptible to cliquishness and a social order split into in-groups and out-groups. As with any laissez-faire system, the concentration of capital—in this case, social capital—is much less democratic. This can torpedo morale throughout the organization, as mutual resentment and incomprehension sets in among outsiders and insiders.

Due to these dynamics, leaders of relationally indifferent organizations cannot necessarily trust what their own employees are telling them. “Typically, what happens is you do a survey and the people that feel like they aren’t going to be listened to don’t fill it out. And so you get results that are positive or very positive, and you think, well, our workplace is great.”

Rockmann therefore advises that leaders should “realize that they are products of the clique-ish system, so they need objective data. Be willing to listen to ombuds or consulting companies who come in to assess your workforce.”

If they find there’s a need to move from relational indifference to relational advocacy, what should leaders pay attention to first? “To me, the lowest-hanging fruit are the job descriptions. Put in the manager’s job description that part of their incentive is how well-connected their people are. Put in the employee's job description that ‘part of your job is helping other people do theirs’.

“A lot of people are not intrinsically motivated to form supportive working relationships,” Rockmann summarizes. “So if they’re not relationally motivated, you have to be explicit.”

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Mason professor contributes to groundbreaking mega-study in behavioral economics

Marianne Klinker — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 13:44:11 +0000

Mason professor contributes to groundbreaking mega-study in behavioral economics Marianne Klinker Wed, 08/09/2023 - 09:44

A new "mega-study" consisting of dozens of simultaneous, independently designed experiments–shows that competitions have no automatic impact on our morality.

Academic research is tapping into the power of the crowd, thanks to an emerging paradigm known as the “mega-study.” Instead of one experimental design with a single set of parameters, mega-studies utilize a diverse array of simultaneous studies submitted by independent research teams, with a shared research question and participant pool.

In addition to efficiencies of scale, mega-studies can help scholars more quickly come to grips with the slippery issue of generalizability–i.e., the degree to which findings in one context apply to other contexts. For example, something that motivates people to do one prosocial behavior (e.g., recycling) might be different from what motivates people to do another prosocial behavior (e.g., donating to charity). Observing the full range of results across dozens of studies provides a clearer sense of how different environmental conditions may affect research outcomes.

The mega-study model is ideal for the field of behavioral economics, which explores how various factors in the world around us influence our daily decision-making. Human behavior, after all, is extremely complicated and changeable.

Einav Hart

Einav Hart, an assistant professor of management at ��ӽ紫ý School of Business, participated in the first-ever crowdsourced mega-study in behavioral economics, recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Hart’s experimental design was one of 45 selected for the mega-study. The broad research question was “Does competition erode, promote or not affect moral behavior?”

The mega-study was conducted to better understand and reconcile previous findings about the relationship between competition and moral behaviors. Previous (individual) studies have yielded mixed results. While some studies show that competition promotes moral behaviors such as trust and reciprocity, others point to a moral erosion.

In the mega-study, 18,123 online participants were randomly assigned to the 45 research designs. Notably, the 45 experiments were quite eclectic in their interpretations of “competition” and “moral behavior”. One research team, for instance, proposed a game in which participants solved puzzles either in or out of a competitive scenario, and were asked to self-report their performance. In this case, the honesty or dishonesty of their self-reported scores was used to measure “moral behavior”. Another proposed design was an online game in which an “investor” granted points to an “investee”, who could then choose whether or not to return the favor.

The pooled data from all 45 experiments showed that competitive conditions led to a minor decline in participants’ moral behavior. However, the size of the decline varied considerably from study to study. Further analysis revealed that the majority of the variance was due to the design differences among the 45 experiments.

The authors conclude that when it comes to broad research questions that admit a wide range of interpretations, there may be limitations to what a single study with a specific context–even one with a very large sample size–can reveal. Hart says, “This shows that in any individual study, you could observe very different results even with the same ‘ground truth,’ and this variance is largely dependent on how competition and moral behavior are operationalized.” In these cases, true generalizability may arise only from a greater diversity of experimental approaches, such as the mega-study and other crowdsourced research paradigms. As the PNAS paper states, “Our findings provide an argument for moving toward much larger data collections and more team science.”

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Defuse anger in the workplace with humor, Mason expert says

Colleen Rich — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 15:10:05 +0000

Defuse anger in the workplace with humor, Mason expert says Colleen Rich Fri, 04/28/2023 - 11:10

Whether it is pressing deadlines, overwork, or employees feeling they are not being supported, anger in a work environment can be unavoidable. Over time, the anger and frustration can compound, causing anger to spread through the entire team or organization, creating what ��ӽ紫ý expert Mandy O’Neill calls a “culture of anger.”

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In her research, O’Neill, an associate professor of management at Mason’s School of Business, found that a culture of anger not only leads to problems for individuals, such as increased alcohol consumption, work-family conflict, and high-risk behaviors, but it also presents problems for teams as a whole.

In a study of a large retail organization, O’Neill found that employee anger stemmed from a culture in which employees did not feel supported by their managers, leading to more employee absences and higher turnover. Additionally, individual high-risk behaviors can lead to a decrease in workplace safety as a whole, including safety violations, accidents, and injuries.

Mandy O'Neill. Photo by Creative Services

Recognizing a culture of anger

O’Neill explains that when dealing with anger in a team environment, whether it’s a workplace, group project, or sports team, it’s important to draw a line between a team experiencing occasional anger and a team defined by a culture of anger.

“All emotions have a social functional purpose,” said O’Neill. “Anger can serve important purposes around, for example, moral outrage against social injustice, or action tendencies that cause a person to rise up against obstacles thrown in their way.”

However, in a culture of anger, “it's not just one incident, one time that made everybody angry. Rather, it's when anger is kind of everybody’s default emotion,” O’Neill said.

Dos and don’ts

O’Neill highlights two common methods of fighting anger that can actually make matters worse. “Emotion suppression, which is essentially to put the lid on an emotion and not let it be expressed, is very destructive,” said O’Neill. “Even if you think you're not expressing [anger], it leaks out in ways that you may not necessarily be aware of or able to control.”

Additionally, O’Neill found that allowing members of a team to vent their anger without restraint can serve to intensify the anger. Paradoxically, venting can reactivate and spread anger rather than resolving or calming the feeling.

So, what can be done to help improve an angry team culture?

Through interviewing emergency responders at fire stations in the southeastern United States, O’Neill found that the most effective teams were those who supplemented feelings of anger with joviality.

“Expression of joviality and humor is a way of channeling anger in ways that actually can promote group bonding,” said O’Neill.

She also found that companionate love, "the connection felt between people whose lives are closely intertwined,” also helps fight anger. Affection and caring, for example, creates a sense of familiarity between members of a team that helps to resolve issues, and can make a jovial culture easier to foster as members of the team know how and when to use humor without going too far.

O’Neill believes that introducing joviality and companionate love to a team can help team members work with anger to turn it into a positive, productive emotion. “Anger paired with positive emotions lends itself to a very different scenario than if you have anger without these emotions,” she said.

O'Neill is actively engaged in organizational research, employing both quantitative and qualitative methods to the study of employees and organizational units. She has worked with organizations across a wide range of industries including health care, technology, emergency services, and retail.

To reach Mandy O’Neill directly, contact her at ooneill@gmu.edu.

For more information, contact Benjamin Kessler at bkessler@gmu.edu.

About ��ӽ紫ý

��ӽ紫ý is Virginia’s largest public research university. Located near Washington, D.C., Mason enrolls nearly 40,000 students from 130 countries and all 50 states. Mason has grown rapidly over the last half-century and is recognized for its innovation and entrepreneurship, remarkable diversity, and commitment to accessibility. In 2023, the university launched Mason Now: Power the Possible, a $1 billion comprehensive campaign to support student success, research, innovation, community, and sustainability. Learn more at www.gmu.edu.

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Envisioning a sustainability-oriented future for corporate governance

Jennifer Anzaldi — Thu, 01 Dec 2022 14:19:59 +0000

Envisioning a sustainability-oriented future for corporate governance Jennifer Anzaldi Thu, 12/01/2022 - 09:19

The “G” in “ESG”, which stands for governance, comes last, but not least. In fact, corporate governance may become the most important member of the trio, as mounting ESG awareness continues to enlarge the current conception of risk management. Soon, directors of publicly traded companies may be held increasingly responsible for heading off business risks related to the “E” and the “S”, such as the societal ramifications of carbon emissions and human capital flight due to less-than-living wages.

Cases in point: Boards of directors of Facebook and other high-profile companies have been sued by shareholders for breach of DEI pledges. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has broadened its regulatory agenda to include climate change, cyber risk governance, board diversity and human capital.

Given this context of change, it was an appropriate moment for the Business for a Better World Center (B4BW) to convene an in-person Stakeholder Roundtable on the subject of Corporate Governance. The half-day event took place at Point of View International Retreat & Research Center at Mason Neck in Lorton, VA on October 21.

Previous Stakeholder Roundtable events were held virtually with the stated mission of “engag[ing] tri-sector leadership, our faculty and students to ensure forward progress is made on business meeting the values and expectations of society as well as its various stakeholders and to drive stakeholder capitalism further into the mainstream.”

After encouraging opening remarks from Dean Ajay Vinzé, a keynote speech was given by Michael Sion, a partner at Bain & Company who also sits on B4BW’s Advisory Board. In his talk, Sion laid out four main stumbling blocks preventing corporate boards from pivoting from the doctrine of shareholder primacy to a more stakeholder-oriented view. Lack of information means that directors are often ill-equipped to understand trade-offs between stakeholder and business outcomes. Lack of representation results in board composition that is misaligned with the demographics – and thus the concerns – of the broader society. Lack of incentives lessens the motivation for directors to rethink how they make decisions, unless they are pressured to do so for core business reasons. Lack of transparency hinders corporate accountability for decisions incurring environmental and/or social risks.

B4BW Executive-in-Residence Rashed Hasan then described a solution that would address the aforementioned challenges. Currently in development, the Stakeholder Value Index uses a wealth of corporate data to quantify the value firms bring to their employees, communities, customer and suppliers as well as the planet, shareholders and the company itself.

Narrowing the focus to one key stakeholder – employees – Tannia Talento, regional director from the office of U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), spoke of the Senator’s efforts to advance legislation that would incentivize corporations to invest in worker training by offering a business-related tax credit. Warner also co-authored a letter to the SEC urging the agency to require labour-related corporate disclosures, including the percentage of workers classified as “independent contractors” and thus exempted from many protections.

The following speaker was Cambria Allen-Ratzlaff, managing director and head of investor strategies for JUST Capital, an independent non-profit whose rankings and indices are designed to “drive capital toward good corporate citizens.” Allen-Ratzlaff explained that JUST Capital derives its priorities by polling the American public on their priorities. Consistently, paying a fair and living wage and job creation in the U.S. come in first and second in the polls. In addition, she presented a data-driven case that fair and equitable human capital management was completely in line with business objectives. Better corporate citizens, she argued, are also better managers and can deliver higher shareholder returns on average.

Usman Ahmed, head of global public affairs and strategic research for PayPal, described how the digital-payments giant launched the Worker Financial Wellness Initiative. The purpose of the initiative was to increase workers’ Net Disposable Income (i.e. the amount left over after taxes and necessary expenses) from as low as four percent in some regions to 20 percent across the board. To achieve this, PayPal extended equity eligibility to all employees, reduced healthcare costs, reviewed and raised wages, and provided financial consulting services. Consequently, the minimum global NDI for PayPal employees reached an estimated 16 percent in 2021.

However, corporations must balance the feel-good factor and social mission of stakeholder capitalism against potential legal limitations, especially in our age of rising shareholder activism. Donald Kochan, a professor at ��ӽ紫ý’s Scalia School of Law and deputy executive director of the Law & Economics Center, cautioned the group that shareholder value maximization has been enshrined in the U.S. legal framework for corporate oversight. He zeroed in on the distinction between a “corporation”, which is owned by shareholders and holds a unique legal status, and a “business”, an entity with no prescribed ownership structure that has wider decision-making latitude. For corporations, shareholder value is the sole legally acknowledged criterion for measuring managerial performance. Adding other decision-making criteria – beneficial as they may be for society – would give shareholders actionable cause for complaint. Therefore, Kochan argued, boards of directors need to develop ways of driving business growth (and, by extension, shareholder returns) that also, as a secondary effect, benefit other stakeholders.

Other than the above-named speakers, attendees at the Roundtable included B4BW staff, Mason School of Business faculty, MBA students and law students. Rounding out the proceedings, participants engaged in breakout sessions on corporate information transparency and how boards can advocate on behalf of employees.

Rashed Hasan, who leads the Stakeholder Roundtable Series, observed at the end of the day, “This is very exciting to see everyone is opening up to meet in person and now we are able to convene a small group of tri-sector leaders, our faculty and our students to engage in open and frank discussion on some of the challenging issues facing business and society.” The next Roundtable is being planned for the later part of spring 2023.

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Helping high school girls master the art of negotiations

Jennifer Anzaldi — Thu, 10 Nov 2022 17:25:10 +0000

Helping high school girls master the art of negotiations Jennifer Anzaldi Thu, 11/10/2022 - 12:25

Suzanne C. de Janasz

On the morning of Wednesday, October 26^th, ��ӽ紫ý professor Suzanne C. de Janasz conducted her first-ever negotiations workshop for female high school students at McLean High School in Northern Virginia. An enthusiastic audience of about 100 young women came to hear de Janasz explain why negotiation is important for women of all ages and walks of life, and how to build negotiating skills for the future.

De Janasz, an organizational researcher who holds a joint appointment in the School of Business and the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, says there is a pervasive cultural bias against women who ask for what they deserve. The negative labelling begins in childhood, with terms such as “bossy” being applied to more assertive girls.

As she writes in a recent post for AACSB Insights, “Equality-minded negotiations professors can enable women to overcome this gap…by engaging younger age groups. If we introduced core negotiations concepts and skills to high school students, they would hopefully be seasoned and poised self-advocates once their careers began in earnest.”

To that end, de Janasz’s McLean High School workshop, which was organized by the student body’s Girls’ Leadership Group, touched upon the obstacles women negotiators face but mainly offered advice on getting around them. She detailed how the strengths commonly associated with women—asking, involving, seeking participation and consensus—can be leveraged for positive results in negotiations and interpersonal conflicts.

A good negotiator, de Janasz explained, is well-equipped to turn gender-biased situations into fairer ones. She called on the students to recognize incidents of bias or unfairness as opportunities to negotiate better outcomes rather than as fixed and final. She also suggested that the girls look out for each other, amplifying other girls’ voices or inputs (that are more often ignored than those of boys), and introducing their accomplishments or expertise, which girls frequently find it hard to do for themselves. This sets the model for others to follow and invites reciprocity.

For example, she asked the McLean students what they would do if they discovered they were being underpaid for a babysitting job. One of the students countered this hypothetical scenario with one from her own life, in which the couple for whom she was babysitting neglected to pay her for her services. The student let the apparent oversight pass without comment, for fear that the couple would think she was too demanding and not call her again.

For de Janasz, the student’s story perfectly illustrates why the workshop was necessary. “As women, we often face an opposition between being seen as a nice person and getting what we deserve. I want to teach young women strategies for negotiating that, which they can carry throughout life,” she says.

Toward the end of the workshop, students paired off for a simulated negotiations exercise. One played a student wanting to hold a potentially divisive fundraising event at their school; the other acted the role of the principal, wary of the pushback from parents and administrative headaches such an event might cause.

The workshop was well-received by the student attendees, as well as McLean High School principal Ellen Reilly. McLean sophomore Maymuunah Little says, “I found your workshop to be helpful and informative. I have been slowly implementing the negotiation skills and tactics you taught me in my daily life. And this upcoming week, I plan to use them in my very first job interview!”

De Janasz says she hopes this is only the beginning of a much broader initiative. “My hope is that we use this event as a springboard for other events like this in the community, state and nation,” she says.

Suzanne C. de Janasz is the author of Interpersonal Skills in Organizations and Negotiation and Dispute Resolution, among other books. She is available for comment, as is Principal Reilly and the co-presidents of the Girls’ Leadership Group at McLean High School.

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The secrets of embracing change in work and life

Marianne Klinker — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 18:14:02 +0000

The secrets of embracing change in work and life Marianne Klinker Wed, 09/14/2022 - 14:14

In This Story

Sarah Wittman

Kevin Rockmann

Today's workforce might best be described in terms of tumult: Great Resignation, Great Retirement, Great Reshuffle, etc. In this "new normal," managers must learn to navigate a state of continual transition in their teams and organizations, while keeping up with day-to-day demands. Likewise, ��ӽ紫ý School of Business Management Professors Sarah Wittman and Kevin Rockmann believe that it is time for scholars to change the way they think about role transitions to better align their theories with our increasingly uncertain world.

Over the last few decades, management theorists have sought to understand transitions by means of attributes such as voluntariness, social desirability, and predictability — generalizable qualities that tend to encourage binary thinking with implicit value judgments attached. While such catch-all labels theoretically make it easier to compare and contrast different types of transitions, Wittman points out that at the end of the day, they may raise more questions than answers. "Attributes are not measurable, plus they’re subjective for each person," she says. "Is accepting a promotion voluntary or involuntary? There are many situations in which it would really not be voluntary."

Sarah Wittman

Along with Mailys M. George (a faculty member at EDHEC Business School), Wittman and Rockmann authored a paper for Academy of Management Annals laying out an entirely new mental model for studying role transitions. Instead of attributes, their proposed paradigm is structured around experiences – in other words, what a role-switch looks and feels like not only for the person undergoing the transition, but for everyone indirectly affected (managers, colleagues, etc.). The experience-based approach would be open-ended enough to encompass transitions in both the professional and personal spheres – as well as addressing the impact that each sphere has on the other.

To illustrate their method in action, the paper posits a hypothetical employee named Maria who enjoys a healthy work/life balance and high productivity. Maria undergoes a role-transition as she becomes the primary caregiver for her aging father. Cataloguing the attributes of her life change would hardly do justice to its magnitude. Every area of her life would be impacted, from her ability for colleagues, friends, and relatives.

The paper’s experience-based framework defines Maria’s disruption as movement across four transition dimensions – psychological, physical, relational, and behavioral. To be sure, not all transitions are as major as Maria’s – smaller ones might not involve all four types of movement. And dramatic movement in one area can easily lead to more subtle shifts in another, as when the isolation of work-from-home causes psychological strain for employees new to remote working.

Often, movement is accomplished on some levels but not on others. Our fast-paced business world particularly neglects the psychological dimension, hurrying people between roles without allowing time and scope for proper emotional adjustment. As Wittman explained in a prior paper, this can result in "lingering identities" – the spillover of inherited ideas, habits, expectations, etc. into a new role where they may not fit. People who have made the transition physically but not psychologically will generally struggle more in their role, due to their sense of not-belonging.

In addition, the movement of individuals can set the people around them into motion, an outcome Rockmann calls "collateral transitions." For example, his prior research that predates the pandemic found that individual employees’ decisions to work remotely influenced colleagues to do likewise, as the office gradually emptied out and became a lonelier place to be.

The researchers suggest that by making these kinds of complexities (among others) more accessible to scholars, their experience-based framework helps theory keep pace with reality. It may also give managers something to consider.

"We’re pointing toward a much more human perspective, not economic rationality" says Wittman. "This is not the usual conception of a worker’s utility, as measured in salary, working conditions, etc. It’s a hidden utility. It’s taking a whole-person perspective on who is the worker at work but knowing that work is not their whole lives."

In a work-appropriate way, therefore, managers need to be at least minimally aware of what is going on in their team members’ personal lives, especially during times of transition. Returning to the paper’s hypothetical employee, the success of Maria’s transition would largely depend on her supervisor being understanding of both her family situation and its likely effects on team cohesion and productivity. Further, success depends on Maria’s supervisor making sure that others are not negatively impacted by Maria’s transition and that they understand, if not the details, the general nature of why Maria’s behavior has changed. Rockmann emphatically believes that the responsibility for maintaining open lines of communication is one-way. "To be frank, that’s the job of the manager. Enforcing policies and procedures, that’s the easy part. The more difficult part of it is helping people understand one another. That’s really difficult, to take that mind-set. Someone who’s not only interested but can actively manage the relationships in order to mitigate any potential issues."

Individuals undergoing transition can use the experience-based framework to help them anticipate challenges for themselves and others. This may also unlock buried resources of resilience. Just as the border between work and life is often more permeable than theory suggests, lessons learned from successful transitions in one sphere may be translatable to the other. Widening the frame of reference can help scholars, as well as the rest of us, learn more about how to build what Rockmann and Wittman call "transition muscle."

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