研究：一个坏员工如何影响了整个团队
来源：HBR，本文由HRTechChina翻译，转载请注明。
俗话说，一颗老鼠屎坏了一锅粥，员工也是一样。
我们关于“员工之间欺骗带来的传染力”实验表明，即使是你最诚实的员工，在与不诚实的员工一起工作时，也会更有可能做出一些不端的行为。虽然我们可以认为诚实的员工会带动不诚实的员工做出更正面的选择，但是这只是很少数的例子。
在工作同事中，似乎不良行为的带动会比良好行为的带动更容易。
对于管理者，意识到这些有问题的员工所带来的代价，远超这些员工不良行为带来的直接影响。在同群效应中，一个员工的不良行为会渗透到另一位员工的行为中。如果低估这种溢出效应，一些有害员工就会感染到健康的企业文化。
历史和当代大事件间都充斥着员工的不当行为，例如抵押承销商引发了金融危机，电影《股票分析师》（boiler rooms）里的股票分析师Stratton Oakmont，和富国银行进行交叉销售的销售人员。
在我们的研究中，我们希望了解传染性的坏行为是如何运作的。为了研究这一点，我们审查了金融顾问不当行为的同群效应，并关注那些有数个分公司的金融顾问企业的并购情况。在这些并购案例中，金融顾问结识了其他企业分公司之一的同事们，让他们接触到新的想法和行为。
我们收集了来自财务顾问详细监管文件的大量数据。我们将不当行为定义为客户投诉，为此财务顾问支付了至少10,000美元的和解金或为此失去了仲裁决定。我们观察了每位财务顾问以及顾问的同事的投诉。
我们发现，如果财务顾问遇到有不当行为史的新员工，他们犯错的可能性就高出37％。这一结果意味着不当行为的社会乘数为1.59，这意味着平均而言，每一次不当行为都会通过同群效应导致另外0.59宗不当行为的发生。
但是，观察同事之间的相似行为并不能解释为什么会出现这种相似性。同事可能因为同群效应而行为相同，在这种效应中，工作者会彼此学习行为或社会规范，但相似的行为也可能因为同事面对着相同的激励，或者因为这些倾向于做出类似选择的人自然而然选择在一起工作而产生。
在我们的研究中，我们想了解同群效应如何导致不当行为的传播。我们比较了同一家公司不同分支机构的财务顾问，因为这使我们能够控制公司所有顾问会面临的对于激励结构的影响。我们还关注并购造成的同事变化，这让我们能够消除顾问自主选择同事所造成的影响。最终，使我们能够分离出同群效应所造成的影响。
我们还进行了测试，只包含了在合并期间没有改变主管的顾问，这让我们能够将所有行为变化归因于同群效应。在这个受限制的样本中，我们发现了证明与主要样本类似的同群效应的强有力证据。这些结果表明，在不受管理人员的任何影响下，员工行为会受到同群效应的影响。
之前的研究表明，那些相同种族的个体之间同群效应更强。因此，我们控制顾问种族，并表明同一种族顾问之间不良行为的同群效应更强，如果一位顾问遇到一位有不当行为史的新同事并且与顾问分享种族信息，传染效果几乎是其两倍。因此，相互作用更多的相似个体，可能对彼此的行为有更强的影响。
了解为什么同事在是否犯下不端行为上做出相似选择，可以指导管理人员防止不当行为的发生。鉴于其性质，与不当行为有关的知识和社会规范必须通过非正式渠道（如社交互动）进行传播。一般来说，了解为什么同事以类似的方式行事，对理解企业文化如何产生，以及管理者如何塑造企业文化具有重要意义。
Research: How One Bad Employee Can Corrupt a Whole Team
One bad apple, the saying goes, can ruin the bunch. So, too, with employees.
Our research on the contagiousness of employee fraud tells us that even your most honest employees become more likely to commit misconduct if they work alongside a dishonest individual. And while it would be nice to think that the honest employees would prompt the dishonest employees to better choices, that’s rarely the case.
Among co-workers, it appears easier to learn bad behavior than good.
For managers, it is important to realize that the costs of a problematic employee go beyond the direct effects of that employee’s actions – bad behaviors of one employee spill over into the behaviors of other employees through peer effects. By under-appreciating these spillover effects, a few malignant employees can infect an otherwise healthy corporate culture.
History—and current events—are littered with outbreaks of misconduct among co-workers: mortgage underwriters leading up to the financial crisis, stock brokers at boiler rooms such as Stratton Oakmont, and cross-selling by salespeople at Wells Fargo.
In our research, we wanted to understand just how contagious bad behavior is. To do so, we examined peer effects in misconduct by financial advisors, focusing on mergers between financial advisory firms that each have multiple branches. In these mergers, financial advisors meet new co-workers from one of the branches of the other firm, exposing them to new ideas and behaviors.
We collected an extensive data set using the detailed regulatory filings available for financial advisors. We defined misconduct as customer complaints for which the financial advisor either paid a settlement of at least $10,000 or lost an arbitration decision. We observed when complaints occurred for each financial advisor, as well as for the advisor’s co-workers.
We found that financial advisors are 37% more likely to commit misconduct if they encounter a new co-worker with a history of misconduct. This result implies that misconduct has a social multiplier of 1.59 – meaning that, on average, each case of misconduct results in an additional 0.59 cases of misconduct through peer effects.
However, observing similar behavior among co-workers does not explain why this similarity occurs. Co-workers could behave similarly because of peer effects – in which workers learn behaviors or social norms from each other – but similar behavior could arise because co-workers face the same incentives or because individuals prone to making similar choices naturally choose to work together.
In our research, we wanted to understand how peer effects contribute to the spread of misconduct. We compared financial advisors across different branches of the same firm, because this allowed us to control for the effect of the incentive structure faced by all advisors in the firm. We also focused on changes in co-workers caused by mergers, because this allowed us to remove the effect of advisors choosing their co-workers. As a result, we were able to isolate peer effects.
We also ran tests that included only advisors who did not change supervisors during the merger, allowing us to attribute all changes in behavior to peer effects from co-workers with the same rank. Within this restricted sample, we found strong evidence of peer effects just like in the main sample. These results show that, independent of any effects from managers, employee behavior is affected by the actions of peer co-workers.
Prior studies document that peer effects are stronger among individuals who share the same ethnicity. Accordingly, we use advisor ethnicity and show that peer effects in misconduct are stronger between advisors who share the same ethnicity; the contagion effect is nearly twice as large if an advisor meets a new co-worker with a history of misconduct and who shares the advisor’s ethnicity. Thus, similar individuals, who likely interact more, have stronger effects on each other’s behaviors.
Understanding why co-workers make similar choices about whether to commit misconduct can guide managers in preventing misconduct. Given its nature, knowledge and social norms related to misconduct must be transmitted through informal channels such as social interactions. More generally, understanding why co-workers behave in similar ways has important implications for understanding how corporate culture arises and how managers can shape it.
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