Opportunism is defined as taking opportunities that are to your benefit without giving a thought to the ethical issues they may cause. In the workplace, this could be taking more credit than is due on team projects or consistently delegating too much of their own work to others. This can result in a meteoric rise in work rank, but many times the bridges they burn on the way up will not be there to catch them when they need help.
Outside of work opportunism can much more easily go unpunished. There are no real long term effects to cutting someone off while driving or taking advantage of a store accidentally pricing its items too low. The only thing stopping most people from these acts is a code of personal ethics.
In my life, I have had a multitude of times in which I could have acted opportunistically but did not. One example of this comes from online shopping a few years ago. I was on a boutique-type site that pretty obviously looked like it was not professionally made. There were several issues with the site setup that allowed me to purchase items from the site without actually having to pay for them. I could have taken advantage of this, but rather I emailed the site admin about those issues and they were promptly fixed. This didn't result in any kind of tangible benefit to myself, but hopefully, the site owner was grateful and found some way to pay it forward.
Another example of avoiding opportunistic behavior was when I was pulled over driving home from work a few months ago. I knew that one of my headlights had gone out the day before, but I worked odd hours and was not able to get a replacement until right before I had to work. I left work around 2:30 AM and hoped that I wouldn't see any police in my 4-mile drive home. Right before I got into my neighborhood I was pulled over. The officer asked if I knew my headlight was out and I replied honestly, saying I had the replacement bulb in my glovebox and just didn't want to replace it in my work parking lot. Surprisingly he was understanding and he did not issue a ticket. The next morning I promptly replaced the bulb and everything turned out fine.
A final example of a chance to act opportunistically comes from my workplace. I do research in a university data science lab. Most of the work is self-directed, and the research assistants all for their own teams to complete tasks, I was presenting one of the projects that I completed with a lot of help from someone, and the lab leader congratulated me on a job well done, while also implying I had done the work by myself. On paper, he was right, as I wrote all of the final code. However, the other assistant helped me greatly with a lot of the philosophical decisions on how the project should be completed or what the end product should be. It would have been easy to take the credit, but I told the lab lead about the help from the other researcher.
I find my last example most interesting because acting opportunistically probably would have resulted in an equal or worse outcome than acting ethically. Sure, the lab lead could have been impressed that I did all of the work 'by myself', but in the long run showing an ability to work well with others and acknowledge their help probably reflected better on me. Perhaps this is just a naive hope that there is some kind of karmic force, but it does seem that opportunism in the workplace will only end up coming back to bite you.
I have found that being honest when the cops pull you over is a good thing to do. I have no data on this, but I would guess people tend to give them a line most of the time. If so, they must appreciate it when people take responsibility for whatever they've done.
ReplyDeleteEach of the examples you gave might be considered a demonstration of good character. I wonder if you agree. The question then is whether it's possible to identify good character in others and, if so, screen out those whose character may be questionable. This would be a way to substantially lower transaction costs. So, it would be interesting for you to expand on how you got the job in the data science lab. Did you take a course from the lab leader beforehand? If so, was anything about your character revealed during the class? If not, was there a formal interview and did it only focus on technical qualifications or did character questions come up as well?
A related question is whether it is possible to educate people so they develop good character. Presumably parents would do that with their children, but what about such education coming from others? I'm not sure whether the Global Studies course that many freshmen take has a bit on ethics but I'm sure that Business 101 has a segment on that. I'm far from confident that it is effective in delivering the message and possibly changing the student's behavior in a positive way. But I've not seen students opine on this. So here's your chance to do so.
Hello Professor,
DeleteIf I were a police officer I believe I would follow the same line of thought. It would get tiring hearing all of the made up stories when you pull someone over.
I agree that having employees of only good character would reduce transaction costs. It would also make for a much less stressful work environment, which would raise productivity. I did not take a class with the lab leader, nor was there any formal interview process. I talked with the lab lead in early January then started volunteering there. After a couple months and some finished projects they offered me a paid position. I suppose this would work well on getting less dedicated students out of the running, but sadly this method wouldn't work in the professional world.
I definitely think that a person can be educated to have good character. This may be more difficult for college age students, though. If parents instill good moral rules in a child from a young age then that child will have a much easier time conforming to society's moral code than one with a rougher upbringing. That being said, I don't know if a college course is the place to do this education. I did not take business 101, but I did take a biomedical ethics course. I wrote weekly papers on ethical thought experiments in this, which caused quite a bit on introspection on why I held the beliefs I have. However, there were no real debates between students on ethical beliefs. This leads me to believe that a similar course in which good character is taught could just allow a student with bad character a place to rationalize their misgivings. It may take making a few mistakes and seeing the negative consequences of immoral actions for someone to make a change at this point in their life.
There were some people who don't act opportunistically because they want to be a "good citizen" or that action is unethical to do so. You gave several examples where you didn't act opportunistically.
ReplyDeleteFor the first example that you gave us, you had a chance to get products from the online site for free due to its settings. You decided to contact the online shopping seller to let the seller know the problems in the site and avoid revenue loss that the seller could have. In my perspective, your decision was righteous and ethical to do so. Did you let the seller know because you want to be a good citizen or you thought that it was an ethical action to do so?
For the second example, you took an opportunity not to get a ticket from the police by telling the truth. I would appreciate the police officer for not giving me a ticket as well. But, do you think that not getting a ticket was ethical behavior? Or is that a good citizen's behavior?
For the last example, you claimed that you didn't act opportunistically by telling that you got help from others to have better outcome for your project. It is true that your supervisor would be impressed if you didn't tell how you came up with the outcome. As you mentioned in the post, in the long run, it would be more beneficial to tell the supervisor to show that you are good at working with other people. With this statement, I believe that your action can be considered as opportunism in the long run. Or did you believe that if you are patient and other opportunities will come to you later and tell your supervisor regarding the outcome?
I let the seller know that their site was set up incorrectly mostly because I have made plenty of dumb mistakes that could have resulted in disaster had someone not helped me out. I'm a fan of the paying it forward thought process, so I helped them because I know they will be grateful for the help and perhaps would help out the next person down the line. Therefore I think I made this decision based off wanting to be a good citizen.
DeleteYour point about the ethicality of me not getting a ticket is very interesting. I am a fan of the law being enforced evenly, and I absolutely benefited from the police officer deciding to give me a break. Saying this, I suppose I do not think that avoiding the ticket was ethical. However, that decision was on the police so I don't know if I could be held as an accomplice to this unethical behavior. I am thankful for it though.
Finally, in my last example I do not think I was acting opportunistically. For an action to be opportunistic I think that there has to be someone that was made worse in the situation because of my taking the opportunity. In this situation everyone was made better off as my supervisor got the full story behind the project and all people got the credit they deserved.