Taboo Scenarios. How To Think About The Unthinkable

Impact of Taboo on Business Organizations

Disucss about the Ethical Discourse On Managerial Figures Involved.

In the present article, the topic of taboo and its impact on the business organizations has been evaluated. The name of the article is, “Taboo Scenarios. How to Think About the Unthinkable”, and the researcher has explored the subject of taboo, its impact on the image of business organization and its overall impact on the profitability of the organization. The taboos are an essential part of the social system and the people exhibit negative response for the presence of a taboo (Friedrichs, 2009). The research article has taken the case examples of various organizations, which have dealt with the presence of taboo during their operations. Taboos are linked with the moral outrage; therefore, the organization leaders have to be careful while making the strategic choices.

The article has stated that no organization, irrespective of the size or status of the organization can be protected from the disastrous effects of taboo. There have been several examples such as the flak suffered by Vioxx and Avandia, refusal of Catholic Church to address the paedophilic priests and dictator and the sudden decline of Greece economy, which has resulted in enormous damage to the organizations in one or other form (Elsesser, 2015). The analysis of these issues is complex and is the result of significant number of reasons such as powerful players, conflicts, media hype and networking (Ailon, 2015).

However, the research article states, that in the analysis of the root cause, the companies or the investigators can always find the warning signs of these disasters. The leaders often ignore the signals, which they should have listened to and this results in the disastrous activities. Therefore, it can be stated that in the occurrence of taboo events, the root cause is not the lack of prediction or the forecasting; however, the unwillingness to confront these conflicting ideas (Gabriel, 2017).

The business organizations suffer in the same way as other entities, when they encounter a taboo. The organization taboos occur due to deeply rooted beliefs and values, which restrict the thinking for appropriate or moral activities. In the past, a large number of taboo events have occurred, which has promoted the organizations to become creative and conduct open-minded enquiry for the future events. It is important that the mangers explore different options to understand the impact of their decisions on the organization. In the business environment, the politics and the international conflicts often yields the taboo in the business environment (Michaelson et al., 2014). However, it is important for the business organizations to determine the subject of taboo so that they can maintain peace and harmony in the business organizations.

Case Examples of Taboo Scenarios

The term taboo refers to any event, through or approach, which is unacceptable by the moral norms and the rules of the society. The taboo plays a crucial role in maintaining group norms and meaningful order in the society.

While discussing about taboo, it is important to understand that there are certain values, which should not be violated in any case. The human life and the religious sentiments of the people are considered such subjects. It is important to analyse, which events evoke moral outrage among the people. Only a few sacred values can lead to the occurrence of deep cultural and ideological disagreements (Raufflet & Mills, 2017).  However, these sacred values varies for different groups of people, such as for Wahhabi fundamentalists, the deep value is Allah, for Scandinavian feminist, the prime importance value is gender equality, for the people in Silicon valley, the most important value is individual autonomy. However, these taboo subjects can be given exceptions in certain circumstances (Reason, 2016). For instance, taking human life is acceptable in self-defence or by the execution by the government.  Similarly, there are several taboos, the effect of which can be reduced by the technological innovation.

Most of the people and the organization believe that taboos are innate, deeply rooted in the subconscious and are almost impossible to change. The however, there are certain situations in which the taboos become acceptable. Here, it can be stated that moral outrage occurs when the sacred and secular values creates conflicts (Schoemaker & Tetlock, 2012). There are so many possibilities, which can result in violating taboos. It makes it extremely impossible for the policymakers and the business leaders to avoid instances which can violate the taboo.

While discussing about the moral outrage, the article has discussed that the amount of moral outrage depends upon the violation amount and how covertly and overtly the violation of taboo has occurred. The breach in the social norms results in outrageous reactions from the public (Tetlock, Mellers & Scoblic, 2017). The jury is concerned about whether they are giving just punishment or imposing correct penalty, which results in outrageous actions.

There are certain factors, which are needed to be considered so that the taboos can be avoided in the business world. Firstly, the business leaders should have a deep understanding of the actual sacred values and should not disturb it. There are some values, which are pseudo-sacred and their breach will not create a significant amount of harm to the organization (Liddle, 2017). Secondly, the leaders should have a capability to reframe the taboo breach issue as a tragic choice. However, it can only be achieved, if the leader has exceptional rhetoric and communication capabilities.  On the contrary, such strategies can backfire as the leader or the organization will be perceived as deceptive or lying. Other than that, the best option to avoid such instances is to make defensible choices (Stanislav & , Brunet-Thornto, 2017).

Factors to Consider in Avoiding Taboo Scenarios

With the analysis of the article, it can be stated that there was a research gap regarding the policies and strategies, which can be used to prevent these incidents. The current research should focus on designing of developing strategies, which can be used to prevent the occurrence of the taboo violation instances. It can be perceived from the research that the taboos can make or ruin an organization. Several organizations have suffered dire consequences as a result of violating the social norms (Mitchell, 2004). Therefore, it is important that in the strategy planning, the managers conduct scenario planning and evaluates the long-term impact of their decisions.

The researcher provided with several real-life scenarios to understand the impact of taboo violation on the business organizations. It is a literature review and case-study based research. The researchers have emphasized the importance of scenario planning and hypothesis testing in the strategic business decisions. It has been discussed that in most of the cases taboo violating was a result of unforeseen events or actions. Therefore, it is important to inculcate creative thinking in the organization. It will promote the organization creativity and scenario planning (Giroux, 2013). It is also important to plan for the taboo scenario with the deniability scripts. Further, the research findings stated that it is important to judge a circumstance both from a rational, pragmatic view along with the humane view.

The business managers should understand that the taboo can impact severely on their business. They should at all cost, avoid such circumstances, which can result onto the breach of the taboo. In order to prevent such situations, scenario planning is important. It is important to understand that creative thinking will lead to different situations, which can occur due to an action (Markham, 2015). Further, it is important to understand that there are some values, which can never be breached. The human life is of utmost importance and it should be given highest priority in the business activities (Brenkert, 2004). Ford car manufacturing ignored safety equipment, as part of safety analysis. It resulted in huge damage to the company’s reputation management . 

The overall evaluation of the credibility of the paper states that the researchers have used credible resources in the paper. They have used authentic and real-lie case studies. A past literature review is conducted and appropriate credibility is given to the authors of different literature sources.

In the present, a review has been conducted of a journal article. The researchers have explored the controversial subjects of taboo and its impact on the organization’s operations. It is a significant research area and can ruin the operations of the organization. The current research on taboo, its impact and prevention strategies has been limited. Therefore, it is important to understand the root cause, which leads to the breach of taboo so that such instances can be prevented in future. The research has quoted several real time scenarios and stated that the scenario planning is the best method to prevent these incidents.

References

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Brenkert, G.G. (2004). Corporate Integrity and Accountability. SAGE.

Elsesser, K. (2015). Sex and the Office: Women, Men, and the Sex Partition That’s Dividing the Workplace. Rowman & Littlefield.

Friedrichs, D.O. (2009). Trusted Criminals: White Collar Crime In Contemporary Society. Cengage Learning.

Gabriel, J. V. (Ed.). (2017). Case Studies in Sustainability management: The Oikos Collection (Vol. 3). Routledge.

Giroux, G. (2013). Business Scandals, Corruption, and Reform: An Encyclopedia [2 volumes]: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO.

Liddle, D. (2017). Managing Conflict: A Practical Guide to Resolution in the Workplace. Kogan Page Publishers.

Markham, J.W. (2015). A Financial History of Modern U.S. Corporate Scandals: From Enron to Reform. Routledge.

Michaelson, C., Pratt, M. G., Grant, A. M., & Dunn, C. P. (2014). Meaningful work: Connecting business ethics and organization studies. Journal of Business Ethics, 121(1), 77-90.

Mitchell, V. H. (2004). Emotional Terrors in the Workplace: Protecting Your Business’ Bottom Line: EMOTIONAL CONTINUITY management IN THE WORKPLACE. Rothstein Associates Inc.

Raufflet, E., & Mills, A. J. (Eds.). (2017). The dark side: Critical cases on the downside of business. Routledge.

Reason, J. (2016). Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents. London: Routledge.

Schoemaker, P. J., & Tetlock, P. E. (2012). Taboo scenarios: How to think about the unthinkable. California management review, 54(2), 5-24.

Stanislav, H., & , Brunet-Thornto, R. (2017). Impact of Organizational Trauma on Workplace Behavior and Performance. IGI Global.

Tetlock, P. E., Mellers, B. A., & Scoblic, J. P. (2017). Sacred versus Pseudo-Sacred Values: How People Cope with Taboo Trade-Offs. American Economic Review, 107(5), 96-99.