Businesses sometimes align themselves with important values such as a clean environment, feminism, or racial justice, thinking it’s a win-win: the value gets boosted along with the company’s bottom line. But be careful, warns new research. Using these values primarily for self-interested purposes such as profit or reputation can ultimately undermine their special status and erode people’s commitment to them.

Toronto — Businesses sometimes align themselves with important values such as a clean environment, feminism, or racial justice, thinking it’s a win-win: the value gets boosted along with the company’s bottom line.

But be careful, warns new research from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.

Using these values primarily for self-interested purposes such as profit or reputation can ultimately undermine their special status and erode people’s commitment to them.

«It sets a different norm for appropriate use of the value,» says research author Rachel Ruttan, an assistant professor of organizational behaviour and human resources at the Rotman School, who co-authored the study with Loran Nordgren, a professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School of Management. «These are things that we are supposed to pursue as ends in themselves and this is shifting how people might think about that.»

In multiple studies using hundreds of participants, Dr. Ruttan found that people exposed to more self-interested uses of «sacred» values not only demonstrated diminished regard for those values subsequently but were less willing to donate to causes that supported them.

Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Toronto, Rotman School of Management. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.