Ever work for a company where the boss is, well, a jerk? If the answer is yes, the reason for his or her jerkiness may be simply a matter of compensation -- too much, not too little.
A new study, When Executives Rake in Millions: Meaness in Organization, written by researchers at Harvard Law School, the University of Utah and Rice University, and presented at the recent International Association of Conflict Management, suggests there is direct a correlation between how well executives are paid and how poorly they treat those below them.
One of the study's author, Sreedhari Desai, told the Harvard Business Review (HBR), she wanted to "look at income disparity, power and moral disengagement. Does this income gap help the leaders to feel comfortable setting up policies that hurt the people at the bottom?"
Ms. Desai and her colleagues scored various firms based on employee relations data from Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini & Co. (KLD). As an example, firms that had paid fines for mistreatment of workers were docked points while those that offered profit sharing were granted points. After tallying various pluses and minuses, companies were given a "meaness score."
The researchers then checked executive compensation at the companies based on Compustat data and discovered that higher executive compensation numbers tracked with higher meaness numbers.
Ms. Desai said the findings of the research were "disheartening," but not surprising. According to HBR, the power holding theory sees humans as "world class rationalizers who find ways to insulate themselves from the mean, sometimes unethical or inhumane things they do. Money may be one of those insulators."
Discussion Questions: Do you believe there is a correlation between top executive pay and how well or poorly workers down the ladder are treated in the workplace? Are "mean" corporate cultures any more or less effective than "nice" ones?