The anti-corporation protests that now sprung around the world lacks contemplation of one common concern: the undertow that ostensibly wafts in corporations exist in our society too. The tentacles of economic muddles that we are after has it’s root in our societal fabric and belief system as much as it is in the prevailing discernment of economic theorization- a paradoxical composition that is complex and have been the debate of our time. While being vocal against this predicament and demanding accountability are essential so do our introspection. It is in essence a clustered behavioral pathology that needs necessitate a behavioral change. This article presents an argument on the economic disparity predicament, challenges the current economic theorization and imparts a solution that has far lasting impact.

2. Wall Street to Main Street: Economic Disparity has One Common
Concern
Dhiman Deb Chowdhury, MBA
Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) Studies
Department of Management,
Aberdeen School of Business, The Robert Gordon University, UK.
&
Director of Technical Program & Project Management,
Allied Telesis, Inc, San Jose, CA, USA
Email: dhiman.chowdhury@yahoo.com
Blog: http://dhimanchowdhury.blogspot.com
Homepage: http://dhimanchowdhury.com
COPYRIGHT © 2011. DH I MAN CHOWDHURY. ALL RIGHTS RES ERVED.
T he continued anti-corporation protests that now sprung around the world lacks contemplation of
one common concern: the undertow that ostensibly wafts in corporations exist in our society too.
In fact, we are in part responsible. The muddles we encountering today are a derivative of our
often confusing world view. From Wall Street to Main Street we are in it together. So, if we think
“Occupying Wall Street” will somehow eradicate our economic woe or economic inequalities, we are
naïve. Problem is much complex; it is a debate of our time. A paradox that innately question continued
economic progress. Yet, unequivocally we need continued economic progress for a perceived better
world. Or is it? Theories abound including mine that economic progress can coincide with better world,
yet I defer from others on the notion that solution to this predicament is “behavioral” in nature. The
“Corporate Greed” as we connote today has it’s root in the very notion of economics and economic
models, which simply discount interconnectedness of the human systems and that of biosphere system.

3. High Entropy
Resource
Extraction
Wastes
Firms
En
er
gy
BIOSPHERE
Other Inputs
Labor &
Society
Low Entropy
Products &
Services
Households
Wastes
Environmental
Inputs
Figure 1. Interconnected economic and biosphere system (Chowdhury, 2011).
This assumption created an ordered set of values that defines our attitude and in turn behavior leading
to the obfuscation. Have we considered Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics” (Younkins, 2011) or
Chanakya’s (Kautilya) “virtuous cycle of economic growth” model (Sihag, 2007), antecedents of
economics or economic theorization would have been different. Nonetheless, in absence of the
dissented ancient wisdoms in ethical business and economics, we are left with a world view that
innately rejects “human value” proposition.
Bhutan, a tiny kingdom of the Himalayas created GNH (Gross National Happiness) in place of GDP to
measure it’s progress (Thinley, 2005), an interesting and pragmatic model of sustainable development
that has global ramification. GNH conjectures a holistic purview of human needs that both physical and
mental and the corollary of this that the model seeks to “promote a conscious, inner search for
happiness and requisite skills which must harmonize with beneficial management and development of
outer circumstances” (Thinley, 2005). Central to this formulation is that GNH emphasizes on “Human
Values” (Chowdhury, 2011) in economic progress including development and commerce.

4. We too want “Happiness” as the ultimate, yet our world view constraints us to believe that physical
wellbeing is in essence the pathways to the said. Rejection of this viewpoint has been a defacto
formulation in management science, “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” (Mathes, 1981). We are, however,
misconstruing this with self-centered view of physical wealth possession as the way to buy happiness.
Figure 2. Influence of behavioral norm in society and in Organizations (Corporations) (Chowdhury, 2011).
So, if we are witnessing this self-centered view of what we called “greed” in individuals like Bernie
Madoff (Creswell & Thomas, 2009; Lenzner, 2008) or in business magnets like Kenneth Lay (Healy &

5. Palepu, 2003; MSNBC, 2006; NYTIMES, 2011), we should not be surprised, after all it’s a byproduct of
our social state.
Hence, introspection is needed. What we are dealing here is a behavioral pathology that far reaching
than our common understandings. I contended that solution to our predicament thus needs a
behavioral change which brings together human values and institutions. As it is applicable to
organization so do in our societies. I call this formulation OCBS (Organizational Citizenship Behavior
towards Sustainability) (Chowdhury, 2011). It is a framework that innately finds common ground, if not
win-win paradigm, a mutually beneficial schema for the subjects. The OCBS posits a behavioral
augmentation that is pragmatic and judicious and deviates in few behavioral dimensions from those
defined in the “OCB (Organizational Citizenship Behavior) (Organ, 1988, 1990, 1997; Organ, Podsakoff &
MacKenzie, 2006; Organ & Ryan, 1995), a famous postulation of Prof Dennis W. Organ. In particular
OCBS disagree with “compliance” behavioral dimensions of OCB and put forward a normative
postulation of “controlled discord” to foster creativity and productivity. Many researches on OCB found
significant correlations between OCB and productivity (Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 2006) among many
other elements e.g. job satisfaction, customer service and quality etc. These findings draw my interest in
particulars sets of behavioral dimensions that, as per my meta-analyses, depict the potentiality of
effecting entailed behavioral change towards sustainable corporation and sustainable world – a
paradigm shift for good. This preliminary observation later espoused through a global survey
(Chowdhury, 2011) that measures the presence of different dimensions of OCBS and it’s impact to
corporations, found there is a significance correlation between OCBS and long term viability of
corporations through two moderators: Proactive Competence (.580; P <.000) and Creative Competence
(.599; p <.000).
More importantly, respondents who identified presence of OCBS in their workplace environment
indicated “proactive” and “creative” competence of 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. A quantitative analysis based
on the global survey result depicts Proactive and creative competence has significant correlation with
Profitability & Stakeholders’ Equity, Governance, Innovation, Market Leadership, Human Capital and CSR
and Environmental Performance. This finding depicts a very natural predisposition of human
productivity and creativity.

6. .515
P<.000 Environmental
Performance
.618
P<.000
.531
P<.000
.503
P<.000 Profitability
.749
P<.000
.453
P<.000
Market
Leadership
.638
.599 .676 P<.000
P<.000 Creative P<.000
Competence
Corporate
Citizenship
.7
P< 15 .694
OCBS . 00
P<.000
0 P<.000
.924
.6 .00
P<
15 0
.675
P<.000
Innovation
.526
.6 .00
P<
71 0
P<.000
.760
P<.000
.518
P<.000
.580 Proactive .725
P<.000 Competence P<.000 Human
.612
Capital
P<.000
.668
P<.000
.742
P<.000
Governance
Figure 3. The diagrammatical representation of OCBS and it's correlation with two moderators; creative & proactive
competence which in turn having stronger correlation with many independent variables (Chowdhury, 2011).
The “Hawthorne Study” (Franke & Kaul, 1978), an early (1927 - 1932) investigation on employee
behavior and productivity influence found certain environmental preconditions encourage the

7. productivity. This finding is the precursor of many researches that later followed. Moreover, human
factor is central to many management subjects including Organizational Behavior and Human Resources
Management etc.
Nonetheless, though productivity and services are influenced by human factors, economic
contemplations are oblivious of this fact. This in part contributes to obfuscation in our present-day social
state.
Imperative to this abstraction is, therefore, a behavioral change that purview the holistic aspect of
sustainability considering the harmonious whole: human and biosphere systems; a conjecture that
innately reduces entropy in societal, organizational, political and environmental system.
Reference
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