When Milton Friedman famously stated that "the social responsibility of business is to increase profits," he furnished ammunition to both free market evangelists and their critics. Where libertarians see profit as the basis of stability and opportunity, others see only greed and rapine. The relationship between the bottom line and the betterment of society is a fraught one, and politicians, social critics, and tycoons have long battled over where the proper nexus of ethics, philanthropy, and profitability lies.

All have tended to agree, however, that the effects of business are primarily driven by economics: nations that are trading partners are unlikely to risk wealth by waging war on one another; rising salaries offer workers welfare and security; increased profits lead to flourishing philanthropy.

But new research suggests that business can have an important -- and positive -- cultural impact as well. Companies that empower their employees to cut costs in the workplace not only improve their bottom lines, but also may foster civic engagement and contribute to peace in the societies where they operate, according to research published in the November 2007 issue of the Journal of Organizational Behavior.

Author Gretchen Spreitzer, a professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, examined survey data from 65 countries around the world, comparing detailed measures of employee workplace empowerment with broader measures about the quality of civic life. Her analysis, based on surveys taken between 1981 and 2001, shows that empowered, satisfied employees tend to live in open, peaceful societies -- and that improvements in workplace empowerment often precede social changes. Employees, it seems, can take lessons learned in the workplace and apply them to social and political life.

Spreitzer's research is preliminary, and does not prove that workplace changes lead to social changes, but it does suggest an important new way of understanding the interplay of business and society. Rather than assuming that peace and civility will provide the necessary platform for economic development, economists and policy makers would do well to consider the role that business can play, even in the most strife-ridden places, in starting positive social changes. Businesses can bring jobs, yes, but they may also ignite other kinds of progress that have nothing to do with money.

"The idea that business organizations can be a sort of olive branch for peace rather than just a harbinger of excess and exploitation is attractive," Spreitzer writes.

Other scholars see the work as opening new avenues of research. In a commentary on Spreitzer's article, Jone L. Pearce of the University of California, Irvine, points out that the central assertion that "empowerment [in the workplace] provides the training and confidence needed to peaceably settle disputes" represents a new way of thinking about the relationship not only between workplace and the wider world, but about the influence of individual persons on society as well. And while Spreitzer's data can't prove that worker empowerment directly causes drops in violence, Pearce predicts that researchers will be interested in tackling the question of causality in years to come.

Read the rest of the article at Boston.com 

via Boston Globe | by Matthew Battles

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