Wall Street to Main Street: Economic Disparity has One Common

Concern

Dhiman Deb Chowdhury, MBA

Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) Studies

Department of Management,

Aberdeen School of Business, The Robert Gordon University, UK.

&

Director of Technical Program & Project Management,

Allied Telesis, Inc, San Jose, CA, USA

Email: dhiman.chowdhury@yahoo.com

Blog: http://dhimanchowdhury.blogspot.com

Homepage: http://dhimanchowdhury.com

COPYRIGHT © 2011. DHIMAN CHOWDHURY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

he continued anti-corporation protests that now sprung around the world lacks contemplation of

one common concern: the undertow that ostensibly wafts in corporations exist in our society too.

In fact, we are in part responsible. The muddles we encountering today are a derivative of our

often confusing world view. From Wall Street to Main Street we are in it together. So, if we think

“Occupying Wall Street” will somehow eradicate our economic woe or economic inequalities, we are

naïve. Problem is much complex; it is a debate of our time. A paradox that innately question continued

economic progress. Yet, unequivocally we need continued economic progress for a perceived better

world. Or is it? Theories abound including mine that economic progress can coincide with better world,

yet I defer from others on the notion that solution to this predicament is “behavioral” in nature. The

“Corporate Greed” as we connote today has it’s root in the very notion of economics and economic

models, which simply discount interconnectedness of the human systems and that of biosphere system.

T

Firms

Households

Wastes

Society

Wastes

La

bo

r &

Oth

er

Inp

uts

Pro

du

cts

&

Se

rvic

es

BIO

SP

HE

RE

Resource

Extraction

Environmental

Inputs

Energy

Low Entropy

High Entropy

Figure 1. Interconnected economic and biosphere system (Chowdhury, 2011).

This assumption created an ordered set of values that defines our attitude and in turn behavior leading

to the obfuscation. Have we considered Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics” (Younkins, 2011) or

Chanakya’s (Kautilya) “virtuous cycle of economic growth” model (Sihag, 2007), antecedents of

economics or economic theorization would have been different. Nonetheless, in absence of the

dissented ancient wisdoms in ethical business and economics, we are left with a world view that

innately rejects “human value” proposition.

Bhutan, a tiny kingdom of the Himalayas created GNH (Gross National Happiness) in place of GDP to

measure it’s progress (Thinley, 2005), an interesting and pragmatic model of sustainable development

that has global ramification. GNH conjectures a holistic purview of human needs that both physical and

mental and the corollary of this that the model seeks to “promote a conscious, inner search for

happiness and requisite skills which must harmonize with beneficial management and development of

outer circumstances” (Thinley, 2005). Central to this formulation is that GNH emphasizes on “Human

Values” (Chowdhury, 2011) in economic progress including development and commerce.

We too want “Happiness” as the ultimate, yet our world view constraints us to believe that physical

wellbeing is in essence the pathways to the said. Rejection of this viewpoint has been a defacto

formulation in management science, “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” (Mathes, 1981). We are, however,

misconstruing this with self-centered view of physical wealth possession as the way to buy happiness.

Figure 2. Influence of behavioral norm in society and in Organizations (Corporations) (Chowdhury, 2011).

So, if we are witnessing this self-centered view of what we called “greed” in individuals like Bernie

Madoff (Creswell & Thomas, 2009; Lenzner, 2008) or in business magnets like Kenneth Lay (Healy &

Palepu, 2003; MSNBC, 2006; NYTIMES, 2011), we should not be surprised, after all it’s a byproduct of

our social state.

Hence, introspection is needed. What we are dealing here is a behavioral pathology that far reaching

than our common understandings. I contended that solution to our predicament thus needs a

behavioral change which brings together human values and institutions. As it is applicable to

organization so do in our societies. I call this formulation OCBS (Organizational Citizenship Behavior

towards Sustainability) (Chowdhury, 2011). It is a framework that innately finds common ground, if not

win-win paradigm, a mutually beneficial schema for the subjects. The OCBS posits a behavioral

augmentation that is pragmatic and judicious and deviates in few behavioral dimensions from those

defined in the “OCB (Organizational Citizenship Behavior) (Organ, 1988, 1990, 1997; Organ, Podsakoff &

MacKenzie, 2006; Organ & Ryan, 1995), a famous postulation of Prof Dennis W. Organ. In particular

OCBS disagree with “compliance” behavioral dimensions of OCB and put forward a normative

postulation of “controlled discord” to foster creativity and productivity. Many researches on OCB found

significant correlations between OCB and productivity (Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 2006) among many

other elements e.g. job satisfaction, customer service and quality etc. These findings draw my interest in

particulars sets of behavioral dimensions that, as per my meta-analyses, depict the potentiality of

effecting entailed behavioral change towards sustainable corporation and sustainable world – a

paradigm shift for good. This preliminary observation later espoused through a global survey

(Chowdhury, 2011) that measures the presence of different dimensions of OCBS and it’s impact to

corporations, found there is a significance correlation between OCBS and long term viability of

corporations through two moderators: Proactive Competence (.580; P <.000) and Creative Competence

(.599; p <.000).

More importantly, respondents who identified presence of OCBS in their workplace environment

indicated “proactive” and “creative” competence of 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. A quantitative analysis based

on the global survey result depicts Proactive and creative competence has significant correlation with

Profitability & Stakeholders’ Equity, Governance, Innovation, Market Leadership, Human Capital and CSR

and Environmental Performance. This finding depicts a very natural predisposition of human

productivity and creativity.

OCBS

Creative

Competence

Proactive

Competence

Profitability

Market

Leadership

Corporate

Citizenship

Innovation

Human

Capital

.599

P<.000

Governance

.580

P<.000

.503

P<.000

.453

P<.000

.676

P<.000

.715P<.000.615

P<.000

.671P<.000

.526

P<.000

.518

P<.000

.725

P<.000

.675

P<.000

.612

P<.000

.742

P<.000

Environmental

Performance

.515

P<.000

.618

P<.000

.92

4

P<

.00

0

.749

P<.000

.531

P<.000

.638

P<.000

.694

P<.000

.760

P<.000

.668

P<.000

Figure 3. The diagrammatical representation of OCBS and it's correlation with two moderators; creative & proactive competence which in turn having stronger correlation with many independent variables (Chowdhury, 2011).

The “Hawthorne Study” (Franke & Kaul, 1978), an early (1927 - 1932) investigation on employee

behavior and productivity influence found certain environmental preconditions encourage the

productivity. This finding is the precursor of many researches that later followed. Moreover, human

factor is central to many management subjects including Organizational Behavior and Human Resources

Management etc.

Nonetheless, though productivity and services are influenced by human factors, economic

contemplations are oblivious of this fact. This in part contributes to obfuscation in our present-day social

state.

Imperative to this abstraction is, therefore, a behavioral change that purview the holistic aspect of

sustainability considering the harmonious whole: human and biosphere systems; a conjecture that

innately reduces entropy in societal, organizational, political and environmental system.

Reference

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Evaluative Report. Doctor of Business Administration Studies, Aberdeen Business School. The

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