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Business majors need to know what issues are being taken seriously in today’s boardrooms. Taking a prominent place on many agendas these days are issues of ethical and social conduct. The research of professors Laquita Blockson and James Mattingly are raising the profile of social and ethical considerations in the business curriculum at UNI. It is an outgrowth of a movement started three years ago when one of the foremost authorities on the subject, Donna Wood, came to UNI as the David W. Wilson Chair in Business Ethics.

Mattingly and Blockson meet regularly with faculty mentors Wood and management professor Steve Wartick to refine their ideas about how business can work within the constraints of capitalism to be more socially responsible.

“These young colleagues are pursuing some of the most fascinating and important questions in business scholarship today,” Wood said. “Even better, they are bringing their broad vision of business responsibilities into the classroom.”

Mattingly, an assistant professor of management, began his Ph.D. in strategic management and political sociology in 1999, a time when improprieties in the business world challenged society’s equilibrium. His research, which focused on how relationships between firms and their stakeholders affect business performance, showed that what’s good for business and what’s good for society are often the same thing.

“Democracy and capitalism do not have to be at odds,” Mattingly said. “There are some inherent contradictions, but they can be worked out.”

According to Mattingly, open communication and shared decision-making with stakeholders—other than stockholders—can go a long way toward solving problems. In the ‘stakeholder approach’ to strategic management, there is more to the bottom line than distribution of profits and dividends.

“Research confirms that a business needs the support of multiple stakeholders, including customers, employees, labor unions, regulators and public interest groups,” Mattingly said.

Getting as many stakeholders as possible on the same page can produce mutually beneficial, if not surprising, outcomes. For example, one might expect that cooperation with labor unions always leads to lower profitability. Mattingly’s research showed that in highly politicized environments the reverse was true. In industries such as tobacco, oil and lumber, cooperation with external groups has other far-reaching implications.

“Clashes between public interest groups and corporations tell us something very important about how committed a society is to democracy,” Mattingly said. “That’s why we study business, government and society—because we think the three are interrelated in ways that can’t be pulled apart if we want a more participative society, economically and socially.”

Mattingly said that many firms on the brink of bankruptcy are inert cultures that look only inside for answers, when external forces actually decide how well an organization will perform. And while skeptics might contend that involving ‘outsiders’ in business decisions hinders progress, that position discounts the importance of long-term stakeholder confidence.

“Stakeholders of a firm, as in society, need to know first and foremost that the entity is going to survive,” he said. “So if we generalize a little bit, better representation may not impede business growth, it might actually improve it.”

Encouraging more participation in the boardroom runs counter to ‘command and control’ concepts of leadership, and Mattingly said the challenge is to build a business structure that invites input from all employees—not just those in conventional decision-making roles. “It’s important that managers avoid the mindset that they have a monopoly on good ideas,” he said. That puts responsibility on employees, who must demand to participate, and on managers, who must demand participation from workers.

“Education is the key,” Mattingly said. “We educate citizens for democracy in our society. It’s no different in a business school; we have to teach people to participate in a democratic economy.”

Mattingly’s capstone course in Strategic Management integrates all of what students are learning in the College of Business Administration. Business majors are required to take the course. Mattingly’s appreciation of UNI’s business curriculum is a big reason why he left private industry to return to the classroom. “This is very important work. Students must be educated to be citizens first and proponents of capitalism second.”

Mattingly said a broad cultural movement will be needed for real change to occur, and he encourages his students to stay well informed so they can debate the issues. For many people, issues like economic sustainability will become more important as they start thinking about their own kids. He said it has become true for him as a parent.

“I ask myself what kind of America I want my children to live in. What economic reality do I want to leave to them? I’m telling my kids to demand more of their teachers—make them tell you ‘why.’ Don’t let them off the hook.”

Speaking like an advocate for a democratic economy, Mattingly wants nothing less from his own students. “Thank goodness some of them argue with me,” he said. “I encourage it. I tell them I’d rather they be a pain than a pushover.”

Laquita Blockson, an assistant professor of management policy and ethics, teaches capstone Business Policy And Strategy to undergraduates. Her doctoral studies in multi-sector collaboration focused on how businesses, non-profit agencies, community residents and government can work together to address social issues like urban decay, poverty, housing, unemployment and quality of schools.

Blockson recalled a case in Cleveland, Ohio, where inner city residents in need of groceries had a difficult choice. They could take public transportation miles out of their neighborhoods, or they could shop nearby at under-stocked stores carrying poor quality food. Local residents, human service agencies and government officials recognized the dilemma as a symptom of more ingrained social problems, and agreed that a full-scale grocery store could serve as a catalyst to improve employment, social unification and health concerns.

“The grocery chain that decided to build in the inner city took a proactive approach to work with the community to help address the root problems,” Blockson said. “From an ethical and social justice standpoint, it was an effective model for how business can help rectify some of the social ills that we face.”

Blockson said it is similar to the collaboration on Highway 63 in Waterloo, where the city, local residents and Hy-Vee are working to make business development benefit that part of the city.

This year, Blockson has shifted her research priority to the study of African-American women entrepreneurs. Funded by a grant from the Kaufmann Foundation, she is combining her expertise in ethics and social justice with other researchers who specialize in gender diversity, organizational management, entrepreneurship and urban development.

Blockson and her cohorts are in the process of visiting the nation’s top 25 metropolitan markets for black business growth. While it is early in the two-year study, she said there is evidence that interviewees see success in ways that are not solely economic.

“We are learning that African-American women entrepreneurs conduct their businesses in a manner that is slightly different from what is considered the norm in entrepreneurship.” Blockson said. “We are trying to discover why these differences exist, how they are manifested and what the ultimate outcome may be beyond the individual entrepreneur’s success.”

According to Blockson, African-American women entrepreneurs appear to view themselves as successful if their businesses operate efficiently, if their employees live healthy lives and maintain family relationships, and if they can serve as mentors to local people who may not have other positive role models.

“If they can provide a vehicle through which their employees can do the things that they as entrepreneurs and owners do, then they feel successful,” Blockson said. “They seem to have a passion to uplift the community economically and socially.”
Blockson said she hopes the current study will further illuminate the path by which businesses can operate successfully while helping to solve community problems through various collaborations. “Businesses need to make money. They’re not purely altruistic; realistically, they can’t be,” she said. “But they can balance economic and social perspectives. Businesses that create an environment in which that balance exists are more successful.”

Students in Blockson’s capstone course get to try their hand at reconciling complex, interrelated problems, such as whether a company should fix a costly problem, what to do if the fix leads to layoffs or a shutdown by regulators, or whether to risk damage to a company’s reputation or a hit on share value if the problem is not addressed.

“Students aren’t forced to choose to fix a particular problem,” Blockson said. “Rather, they learn that there are tools to help figure out what might be done in particular situations, and that for every decision made there are going to be consequences

“They get to think about how they might manage trade-offs so that in the end we can get both a return on our investment and maintain our corporate reputation.”

—Denton Ketels

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Last Modified: January 25, 2006