Ethics

Unethical Decisions: When Ordinary People Cross The Line

With so many ethical scandals breaking out in recent years (e.g., Deutsche Bank and money launderingVolkswagen and the manipulation of diesel emissions testingWells Fargo and unethical sales tactics), it leads one to question: What is running through the minds of the people participating in the unethical acts? At the Canadian Centre for Advanced Leadership in Business’s annual year-end celebration on April 11, the former CFO of Enron, Andrew Fastow, provided a glimpse into what his mindset was leading up to the demise of Enron.

How is it possible to be the CFO of the year and commit the greatest corporate fraud in American history for doing the same deals? Every single deal I did was approved...If I had to sum it up in one word, the word I use is ‘loopholes’…You’re technically following the rules, but you’re intentionally going around the principle of those rules.” While Fastow followed then-current accounting rules and guidelines, he also intentionally misrepresented Enron’s financials to appear like they were performing better than they were - in other words, he found a loophole. The problem for him wasn’t choosing between right and wrong – it was knowing the difference between legality and ethicality, the difference between what you’re allowed to do and what is the right thing to do.

We’d like to think that unethical decisions are only made by ‘bad’ people or criminals, but that simply isn’t true – it can happen to an average person who is highly motivated to reach a result and perform. In Warren Buffett’s words, “[w]hat starts as an ‘innocent’ fudge in order to not disappoint ‘the street’ – say, trade-loading at quarter-end, turning a blind eye to rising insurance losses, or drawing down a ‘cookie-jar’ reserve – can become the first step toward full-fledged fraud.” We are all subject to the overconfidence bias, in which we are likely to overestimate our ability or think that we are an exception to the odds. However, there is often a disparity between our intentions and our actions. Research supports this, as a study finds that when asked, 96 percent of people said that they would oppose an unethical request. In contrast, in a subsequent study, only 14 percent actually refused, and nine percent ‘blew the whistle’ and reported the misconduct to authorities.

What influences how likely we are to make unethical decisions? While some personality traits may certainly make you more likely to make unethical decisions or try to get around the rules (e.g., ‘dark-side’ personality traits like Honesty-Humility), there are also psychological processes that can tip the scales. For example, moral disengagement describes how people can mentally distance themselves from their moral standards to avoid feeling guilty about unethical conduct by justifying potential harm to others and linking it to worthy purposes or downplaying the extent of harm through comparisons to worse behaviour.

At this point, you might be wondering what kind of control you have over finding yourself in an ethical dilemma?

Although an organization does have a responsibility to ensure they are defining processes and boundaries to reward for ethical behaviour, as Fastow said, "compliance isn’t the guardrail for ethics – culture is.Research by the University of Calgary finds that when there is a culture of ethics and with supervisors role-modeling ethical leadership, employees were less likely to engage in unethical decision making. In his closing comments of the CCAL event, Mac Van Wielingen, stressed the importance of culture. “It’s not just about wrongdoing; great culture will implicitly embrace learning, commitment, transparency, accountability, trust, and reliability. That creates support and collaboration, and you can all move together towards common goals. And, that creates performance.”


Author

Stephanie Law, Viewpoint Research Team

Theranos and the wake-up call for ethics

If you have been following the story of Theranos, a $9 billion blood testing company that was built on a lie, you have probably come across the newly released documentary, The Inventor, and podcasts detailing the scandal. While there are many lessons and takeaways (for example, the fact that the pressure to succeed and oversell is a reality for many startups), the deep, dark game of deception played by Theranos should be a wake-up call for investors and boards everywhere.

In the podcast, The Dropout, co-workers discuss how founder and former CEO Elizabeth Holmes had carefully crafted her image and deceptively ran the company. She adopted Steve Jobs' iconic turtleneck sweater and allegedly faked her deep baritone voice. Co-workers would catch Holmes occasionally falling out of character and speaking with a higher pitched voice after drinking.

Holmes knew what she needed to do to get noticed. As research suggests, when men or women, deliberately lower their voices, they are perceived as more dominant. She composed a board of government veterans instead of doctors or scientists, knowing that they wouldn't challenge her on the feasibility of the technology. She also made sure the board didn’t have a regulatory or oversight function, giving it merely had an advisory role, which made it ineffective at detecting the massive fraud that was occurring right under its nose.

Theranos claimed they were working on a device that could perform a traditional blood test with just a single drop of blood, analyzed almost instantly. However, due to the complex machinery required to perform a blood test, including robotic arms and needles, it was physically impossible for it to work properly in such a small box. This led to wildly inaccurate testing results, and people being falsely diagnosed with serious diseases. Holmes and her team then worked on creating an illusion – diluting the finger prick blood tests and manually running them on common, commercially available Siemens machines in a secret basement lab. One employee recalls her experience, saying “I don’t feel like I was scammed. It started off as one lie, and snowballed into this really crazy situation.”

Holmes created a culture of paranoia so that her own staff couldn’t piece together the puzzle of the lies. Although few questioned the ethical ramifications of their work, given Holmes' celebrity-like reputation at the time, many employees began to feel as if they were the ones missing something. She would prevent teams from communicating, leading to duplicated work and misdirected initiatives. This exacerbated the problems with the devices and stunted progress.

Theranos has become a case study, leaving directors and investors alike contemplating the red flags others may have missed. According to an article by Inc., investors and potential board members should verify company claims with external sources, audit financial statements, discuss what process of due diligence others have done before joining, and conduct a character check by talking with the CEO’s former colleagues or investors.

While Theranos was a wakeup call for companies in the Valley, reflecting on the ethical consequences of the “move fast and break things mentality”, it ultimately serves as a warning to investors and board members about the destructiveness of unethical behavior left unchecked.


Author

Stephanie Law, Viewpoint Research Team

What Did Michael Cohen’s Testimony Teach Us About Ethics?

On Wednesday, Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, was brought before a congressional hearing to testify about his involvement with Trump’s various dealings, including his alleged collusion with Russia and the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels. The hearing broke the seal for Cohen, where he revealed the darkest depths of his time alongside Trump, proclaiming “He is a racist. He is a con man. And he is a cheat.”

Driven by power and ambition, Cohen explained that “being around Mr. Trump was intoxicating” and he had been persuaded into doing unsavory work without being directly asked. “Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress. That's not how he operates.”

What would compel Cohen to jeopardize his future without being instructed to do so? What frame of mind would an established, successful professional have to be in to needlessly risk (and ultimately lose) his freedom?

Parallels in the business world could help us understand Cohen’s motives. As Harvard Business Review explores “Despite good intentions, organizations set themselves up for ethical catastrophes by creating environments in which people feel forced to make choices they could never have imagined.” Trump’s “unspoken” desires created an environment that pressured Cohen to live up to his expectations of him, similar to when employees of thePhoenix Veterans Administration felt forced to manipulate their hospital wait times in order to meet targets without being specifically directed to do so, ultimately leading to the death of 40 veterans waiting for care.

There have been a number of studies that suggest power corrupts everyone in one form or another. If Cohen was “mesmerized” by the power he gained working with Trump, why would he suddenly come clean now about Trump’s wrongdoings? According to Harvard Business School research, people can behave unethically in situations that favour them, without even realizing it. Studies also show that people who believe they share bonds with others, real or imaginary, will mimic other’s behaviours. For example, people are more prone to litter in areas covered in litter, but also likely to be more environmentally conscious when told other people are doing the same. Based on this these studies, there is a chance that Cohen’s case could have been the result of his environment, if indeed his allegations turn out to be true.

However, it is worth noting that individual autonomy still exists. Our individual dispositions can predispose us to be unyielding to pressure to act unethically. An example of such an individual disposition is “honesty-humility”, a personality trait. Being high in “honesty-humility” means you’re more willing to rise above a high-pressure environment to make the right choices. Perhaps the recent events involving former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould might suggest that she is high on honesty-humility. She stood up to the Liberal Party and Prime Minister Trudeau when asked to “help out” SNC Lavalin and skirt around the rule of law. At the end of the day, a toxic environment may urge us down a dark path, but our individual dispositions and convictions are what ultimately saves us from walking it.


Author

Viewpoint Research Team

How to Keep Control When Employees Start Crossing the Line

Ignoring health and safety procedures, incivility between employees, fraudulent reporting of hours worked – these workplace deviances can be the death knell for the culture and finances of any business. Although these may be signs of endemic issues within an organization, it can still be difficult to identify these problems before they manifest. What is the cause of workplace deviance and incivility, and what can be done to prevent it?

A study from 2016 concluded that unsatisfied workers use these deviances as a form of protest against their employers if faced with harsh working conditions, high periods of anxiety or stress, and limited opportunities for social interactions. In particular, these workers skirted proper procedures and paperwork in order to accumulate more free time for themselves. However, the workers in the study still understood the importance of being seen as a “valuable employee”, so they would be subtle in their deviances. “The study suggests that workers were far more likely to game the system rather than slack off. So rather than resist work entirely, workers were resisting the negative and precarious aspects of work.”

Working on “auto-pilot” may be leading some employees to break company policies. In one study, workers at a Japanese bank who were given a wider variety of tasks were found to adhere to the company’s strict break times better than those who had less variety in their tasks. Additionally, studies have shown that people are less likely to cheat on tests that have different types of questions interspersed with each other, as opposed to tests with long sequences of similar types of questions. Thus, keeping workers cognitively stimulated can help keep them mindful of company policies.

Anti-social behaviour (e.g., yelling, destroying property, and stonewalling) is also becoming an increasingly pervasive issue“According to a study that was reported by Fortune magazine, U.S. firms spend 13 percent of their time addressing the incendiary fallout of workplace incivility.”  However, research shows that in most cases of incivility, the victim is likely to be of lower status than the perpetrator. In other words, most incivility is an abuse of power. To make things worse, employees who witness their leaders’ distasteful behaviour can see it as a signal to what is acceptable in the workplace, and can end up propagating further incivility and creating a malicious work culture. It takes mindful and engaged leadership to ensure the self-feeding cycle of incivility never takes root. One suggestion is to implement zero tolerance policies and reward acts of cooperation between employees and leaders. By upholding cooperation as a core principle at your organization, you can plant the seed for a more inclusive, empathetic culture where every employee understands the impact of their actions.


Author

Viewpoint Research Team

Machines and Morality: How and Why We Should Make AI More Human

We are entering what some call the “fourth industrial revolution.” Whereas the first industrial revolution mastered the power of the steam engine, the fourth will flourish on the backs of big data, artificial intelligence and robotics.

China has recognized the importance of these three keystone technologies and have committed to creating a $150 billion AI industry in the hopes of becoming the global leader by 2030. However, China’s vision for AI may be at odds with the vision of Western democracies, “AI in China appears to be an incredibly powerful enabler of authoritarian rule” with face scans, citizen databases and censorship taking centrestage, while Western AI is focused on the monetary potential - mapping consumer behavior, making cities more efficient and improving consumer technology.

So with the world accelerating towards an AI-dependent future – it leaves us to ask one question: What role does morality play with AI? Can AI itself be programmed with the concept of morality and hold itself accountable?

Interestingly, yes - AI can be as moral as the humans who code it. By crowdsourcing ethical decisions from subjects around the world, scientists have been able to create a morale framework to help self-driving cars make decisions in difficult moral dilemmas. If a malfunctioning self-driving vehicle is barreling towards an elderly couple or a young child, how should it react? The results may surprise you – and they depend on your cultural background. For example, in China, Japan and South Korea, the elderly are held in high esteem, so subjects were less likely to save the child. According to an MIT review of the study“countries with more individualistic cultures are more likely to spare the young”. As dark as the prospect of AI out-competing human productivity and creativity, the future may not look so bleak if it can adhere to a human-based moral code.


Author

Viewpoint Research Team

Is Canada Losing the Battle Against Corruption?

Corruption has a high price. Globally, corruption has been estimated to total to 2% of the global economic output, which is around $1.5 – 2 trillion. How is it so rampant? Bribery and unethical behaviour can be contagious- “competitors that offer better products lose out in an unfair marketplace and this triggers a race to the bottom..." This is already happening in some regions, with Amazon employees allegedly leaking data for bribesNovartis embroiled in controversy over bribing Chinese healthcare professionals to boost sales in 2016, and the Danske Bank found to have laundered over $234 billion between 2007 to 2015.

Just having anti-corruption laws might not be enough.

Canada signed the OECD convention to stop white-collar crime more than two decades ago. However, a new report suggests that Canada is losing ground in the battle against corruption, with active enforcement of foreign bribery laws declining. “Canada is at the ‘back of the pack’ of OECD countries when it comes to clamping down on the bribing of officials abroad,” with only four foreign bribery cases being initiated and one concluded in three years.

Though law enforcement and policy makers play a big role, there are things businesses can do to take a stand against corruption. There needs to be focus from the inside out; corporate boards and top management must focus on aligning strategy, embedding a culture of compliance, and providing consistent processes on monitoring and reporting unethical behaviour. Mac Van Wielingen, founder of Viewpoint and Canadian philanthropist, has advocated that corporate boards should take a more active role. “As leaders who oversee the most important decisions in an organization, directors have an unshakeable and implicit responsibility to ensure management pursues a path of ethics and legitimacy, through embedding a culture of compliance and ethics, and “ethical performance” through culture, strategy and accountability systems.” Directors cannot afford to be bystanders; instead, they must be actively responsible for the outcomes.


Author

Viewpoint Research Team

Is Ethical Culture in Banks an Oxymoron?

Canadian banks have had the bragging rights of not following in their southern neighbors’ footsteps during the financial collapse of ‘08/’09. However, recent allegations from employees of Canada’s five major banks of intense pressure to meet sales goals, even at the unethical expense of misleading clients, sounds eerily similar to the recent Wells Fargo scandal.

The toxic sales culture in Canadian banks was brought to light after “Go Public” (an investigative news segment of the CBC) reported that staff at TD were experiencing intense sales pressure, with the threat of dismissal should they not meet quotas. Over 1,000 emails from employees at the other four major banks(Scotiabank, BMO, CIBC, and RBC) detailing the same issues followed shortly after that initial report.

Even though the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) has started a business practices probe that will look at sales practices and whether guidelines on express consent and fee disclosure are being followed, there is still the question of how it was allowed to get this bad in the first place. 

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE STATES

In America, a similar ethical dilemma is being fought in the courts, with Wall Street continuing to fight for brokers’ right to give unregulated advice to retirement investors. Currently, it is legal for financial professionals to recommend higher-cost investment products that provide them with a higher commission but their clients with lower returns. Investors choose these options because they are endorsed by their advisers, believing that they are receiving advice that suits their best interests. 

This is happening at an expedited rate, given that the fiduciary rule set into motion by the Obama Administration that would require the protection of investors welfare, was supposed to be implemented earlier this month. However, on April 5, the Department of Labor delayed implementation of the rule until at least June 9. 

This process was first started in 2010, but action was delayed so that stakeholders could be consulted, the current version of the rule was proposed in 2015. A press release from the Economic Policy Institute states that, “Every seven days that the rule’s implementation is delayed will cost retirement savers $431 million over the next 30 years. All told, the proposed 60-day delay will cost workers saving for retirement $3.7 billion.”

IT ALL BOILS DOWN TO CULTURE

Culture and ethics need to be an ingrained and put into practice, instead of having policies in place that tick off all the right boxes, but are only reviewed during training or predetermined reviews. This matters in banking just as much as it does in other industries. 

“the risk management failures at so many leading global financial institutions were not merely isolated events—a rogue trader here and a deviant employer there—but rather reflections of systematic breakdowns in corporate culture.”
— Anjan Thakor (2016) 

Other major events such as the financial crisis did bring culture to the forefront of important topics for bank executives and regulators, it doesn’t seem to have made a lasting impact. How a company explicitly outlines their culture, versus how it is embodied in the day-to-day can often be two very different things. It is a driving force behind how an organization operates, and needs to be distributed top down, rather than just a statement in the employee handbook to become pervasive. 

A successful culture supports how a business executes its growth strategy, and positively influences all aspects of decision-making. Additionally, when an employee feels engaged with, and a part of the business in a positive way, there is less of a need to rely on incentives, or job security, to bring about a desired behavior or outcome.

So even though the intention behind selling more products to clients may have started out as an innocent way to increase revenue, it certainly didn’t remain so. And while Canada’s banks haven’t reached the level of scandal that Wells Fargo did, they appear to have been on their way. Enabling employees and consumers to hold institutions accountable to their promises and policies of an ethical way of doing business can go a long way towards achieving long-term success.


Author

Viewpoint Research Team


Sources used for this post:

Bradshaw, J. (2017). Federal watchdog to review banks’ sales tacticsThe Globe and Mail. Retrieved 17 April 2017, from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/canadian-watchdog-to-review-banks-sales-tactics/article34309072/

Burne, K. (2016). Bankers, Regulators Find No Easy Answers at Bank Culture WorkshopWSJ. Retrieved 22 April 2017, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/bankers-regulators-find-no-easy-answers-at-bank-culture-workshop-1476998844

Edwards, B., & Lazaro, C. (2017). Investors Pay If Wall Street Wins a Fiduciary-Rule DelayBloomberg View. Retrieved 20 April 2017, from https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-03-28/investors-pay-if-wall-street-wins-a-fiduciary-rule-delay

Ernst & Young. (2014). Shifting Focus: Risk Culture at the Forefront of Banking. Ernst & Young. Retrieved from https://webforms.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/ey-shifting-focus-risk-culture-at-the-forefront-of-banking/$File/ey-shifting-focus-risk-culture-at-the-forefront-of-banking.pdf

Johnson, E. (2017). Bank call centre staff reveal pressure to turn customer inquiries into salesCBC News. Retrieved 11 April 2017, from http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/banks-sales-tactics-call-centres-go-public-1.4030981

Ligaya, A. (2017). Watchdog reports surge in bank complaints in wake of high-pressure sales tactics allegationsFinancial Post. Retrieved 10 April 2017, from http://business.financialpost.com/news/watchdog-reports-surge-in-bank-complaints-in-wake-of-high-pressure-sales-tactics-allegations

Linnane, C. (2017). Are Canadian banks headed toward a Wells Fargo–style scandal over sales tactics?MarketWatch. Retrieved 27 March 2017, from http://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-there-a-wells-fargo-like-bank-selling-scandal-breaking-in-canada-2017-03-15

McGee, S. (2016). Wells Fargo's toxic culture reveals big banks' eight deadly sinsthe Guardian. Retrieved 13 April 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/business/us-money-blog/2016/sep/22/wells-fargo-scandal-john-stumpf-elizabeth-warren-senate

Salinger, T. (2017). Fiduciary rule to spawn thousands of low-fee mutual fund shares: Morningstar. Financial Planning. Retrieved 21 April 2017, from https://www.financial-planning.com/news/morningstar-fiduciary-rule-boosts-offerings-of-low-fee-mutual-funds

Thakor, A. (2016). Corporate Culture in Banking: Why It MattersOxford Law Faculty. Retrieved 15 April 2017, from https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/business-law-blog/blog/2016/10/corporate-culture-banking-why-it-matters

Trump delay of the ‘fiduciary rule’ will cost retirement savers $3.7 billion. (2017). Economic Policy Institute. Retrieved 27 March 2017, from http://www.epi.org/press/trump-delay-of-the-fiduciary-rule-will-cost-retirement-savers-3-7-billion/

Wursthorn, M. (2017). Billions Gush Into Merrill’s Fee Accounts as Obama-Era Rule LoomsWSJ. Retrieved 20 April 2017, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/billions-gush-into-merrills-fee-accounts-as-obama-era-rule-looms-1492531169?tesla=y

Decision rights: Who has the authority?

Our previous blog post discussed the pros and cons that are associated with distributed leadership. One of the facets of distributed leadership promotes, initiative and leadership responsibilities at all levels of a firm. In order to do this, everyone from front-line workers to upper management must have a clear understanding of what decisions they do, and do not have authority over.

This post delves more deeply into understanding why this concept of so called “decision rights” is important, and examines the methods and practices behind successfully establishing, and implementing the authority behind a person’s decision rights.

Job titles and the ladder of corporate hierarchy have been traditionally linked with decision rights, with the assumption being that the higher the pay grade, the more empowered a person is to make decisions. However, even if your organization does not subscribe to the idea of distributed leadership, there are still going to be instances in which your employees will need to make decisions.

They need to have a clear understanding of which decisions and actions to take the lead on themselves, and which to bring to the attention of their superiors. 

Decision rights is a difficult practice to get right. Michael C. Jensen and William H. Meckling (1992) state,“allocating decision rights in ways that maximize organizational performance is an extraordinarily difficult and controversial management task.” Often leaders either do not want to relinquish decision-making power because they see it as theirs. Or, it is their own cognitive bias that distorts their judgments and knowledge as being superior to others. However, it is important to overcome these barriers, because the benefits of doing so have been linked to profound improvements in employee satisfaction, the everyday operations of the business, and the bottom line.

One of the most important benefits of decision rights is encountered in its absence and a decision is moved away from the frontlines of an organization, resulting in the unnecessary time that is added to how long it takes to execute the answer. Because of this, in order to be effective and efficient in executing business strategies, accomplishing goals, and mitigating risks, decision authority needs to be put in the hands of the person who possesses the most relevant information.

When this is not implemented correctly, and upper-management or executive level leaders are involved in decisions that are not aligned with their knowledge base, a huge amount of wasted time, money and resources are incurred. Not every problem or judgment is appropriate to bring to the attention of the CEO.

“Decision rights are closely related to governance… [but] go beyond the standard approach to governance, cataloguing critical decisions that must be made, identifying who is closest to the relevant information that will help them make these decisions, and documenting who will ultimately be accountable for the decisions that are made.” 

-Deloitte (2011)

Another benefit to distributed leadership is that an employee’s satisfaction increases when they have higher levels of purpose through understanding what is expected of them, these expectations can then be worked towards and delivered on a regular basis.

CREATING A FRAMEWORK FOR DECISION RIGHTS ALLOCATION

  • Have a comprehensive inventory of the key decisions that are made most commonly by your firm

  • Clearly define the weight of the cost that each decision carries

  • Plainly establish the procedures of the decision-making process (e.g. problem and tracking tools, escalation processes etc.)

  • State explicitly the ownership of each decision

  • Outline the hierarchy of decision makers or decision-making groups

  • Have a set review schedule and update the distribution of decision authority accordingly should there be any changes

  • Don’t mix up the outcome with the decision process (if the decisions authority has been well allocated then changing it based on a less favourable outcome will make the problem worse next time)

Decision rights are important in companies of all sizes, but even more so as the size and complexity of an organization increases. Peter Jacobs (2005) argues that “how effective an organization is at making high-quality decisions consistent with its mission and objectives… is a prime determinant of its ability to compete in the marketplace.” Finding the right balance between standardization and agility is critical.

Decision making authority is a constantly changing aspect of a firm. Below are examples of when a company should examine and potentially change their framework and policies.

TRIGGERS SIGNALLING THE NEED FOR CHANGE

  • Growth strategies

    • New markets, products, and organizational structures

    • When companies go global, communication lines are stretched and leaders are removed even further from the action


  • New executive team

    • New leaders may have different ideas about decision making

    • Making sure all employees are on the same page regarding decision making authority is crucial


  • Mergers and acquisitions

    • Each company has their own culture and way of doing business

    • If decision making authority does not match once the firms have combined then there will be redundancies, inefficiencies and mistakes


  • Strategy or operating model changes

    • When any aspect of the business changes, decision rights need to be reassessed


  • Quality focus and regulatory changes

    • Global regulations impose new decision making criteria

    • Managing these new requirements and confirming compliance necessitates new processes, procedures, and means of oversight


  • Need for increased speed to market

    • The key is finding quality data, which often requires working across hierarchies and locations to achieve a broader view of opportunities and risks

    • Decision rights can help overcome the tendency towards risk avoidance and subsequent delays in decision making by enabling business leaders to quickly identify and analyze the required information acquired by those on the frontline

In almost any enterprise, in order to achieve effective and fast execution, collaboration and collective decision-making is essential.

Having decision rights that are clearly defined will help drive an organization’s efficiency, accountability, and empower employees at all levels of the firm to make the best decisions possible when necessary.  

When executed correctly, there seems to be no end to the benefits of properly allocated decision rights. A company’s human capital is arguably one of its most valuable assets, and utilizing this competitive advantage to its fullest extent helps enable companies to thrive in the marketplace.


Author

Viewpoint Research Team


Sources used for this post:​​​​

Athey, S., & Roberts, J. (2001). Organizational design: Decision rights and incentive contracts. The American Economic Review91(2), 200-205.

Deloitte, (2011). It's Your Decision. Deloitte.

Jacobs, P. (2005). Decision Rights: Who Gives the Green Light? [online] HBS Working Knowledge. Available at: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/decision-rights-who-gives-

the-green-light [Accessed 7 Apr. 2016].

Jensen, M. C., & Meckling, W. H. (1992). Specific and general knowledge and organizational structure