Paper available here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4285680
The conclusion of the paper is that middle managers are using wokeness as a weapon to amass power within the corporate structure:
We suggest that middle managers have played a critical role in promoting corporate wokeness because they have been particularly likely to possess the ability, opportunity, and motivation to do so. First, executives may delegate initiative related to woke causes to middle managers, not only because executives usually lack expertise, but also as a form of “insurance” against claims they are insufficiently committed to wokeness. Second, middle-managers may push woke agendas that increase their authority or span of control (Pfeffer & Fong, 2005), for example by positioning DEI initiatives as natural HR functions that are essential to managing a division or a function. Third, middle managers may also call out “woke-washing” (i.e., claims that the firm is supporting progressive causes externally but not taking them seriously internally), thus contributing to the creation of a woke internal culture, which again may be beneficial for instrumental as well as normative reasons, but also bolsters the internal power of these managers.
Underlying this are factors that create an environment for it: (1) some owners, executives, managers, and workers are true believers who push the woke agenda within the corporation, (2) managers want to "get ahead of" where they see the winds blowing so they can boost their status, (3) external pressure, even if objectively weak, can be exaggerated and used as an excuse to act by these managers.
Why do top managers support the introduction of woke practices and behaviors by middle managers? We highlight the roles of middle manager delegation, network position, and motivation.13 We argue that these three factors have complementary effects on internal advocacy: delegation confers control (Aghion & Tirole, 1997) over information channels between internal and external networks (Soda et al., 2018), and such control allows middle managers to become entrenched. In the context of woke policies, middle managers have specialized knowledge, may control critical aspects of the firm’s internal and external communications, and are often shielded from effective internal review due to the lack of metrics for woke performance. Embracing wokeness can thus provide authority, job security, and career opportunities.
I would add that once wokeness gets entrenched, you end up with a cult-like race to the bottom, where managers fear not being woke enough will expose them to attack, whereas it is impossible to be "too" woke, thus there is a race to maximally signal woke virtue and prove that you have the strongest woke bonafides. Since woke ideology preaches that women, LGBTs, and nonwhites have privileged status, these people have an extra incentive to push woke ideology, AND they have been dominating middle management thanks to decades of affirmative action.
3 prongs
The middle management as stated by this paper - also that all universities across multiple disciplines churn out activists so if a CEO gets a manager saying something crazy, "getting a second opinion" wont help if that consultant is also an activist.
Top layer is ESG scores and SDG compliance being tied to funding etc.
The bottom layer is the increased brainwashing of the general pop who are being conditioned to see anything that isn't sustainable or woke as bad.
You have to realise none of this is in isolation, the underlying ideology wants to fundamentally change society and reality itself to fir the utopian dream. marxism is a cult religion that is trying to create utopia on earth no matter the blood that requires.
Could you write an essay on this in a separate post?
I might but it'd just be a less accurate retelling of everything James Lindsey says essentially.
There's that. And also ESG as well.
Immediate thought. Getting paid to fail with consumers.
The ESG/BlackRock funding is why these companies can afford to lose money from the public consumers, they are paid to enforce quotas and agendas.
Great study and post. About time this was looked into.
The "it's a conspiracy" just doesn't do much for me.
What I haven't heard talked about is the physical location of corporate HQs. They tend to be in cities, blue-culture cities. Their employees commute--usually from no more than 45min-1 hour away. Therefore their white-collar labor pool tends to be very liberal. People who start off not-liberal and move to within one of these bubbles tend to conform over time. Then, over time, through either purging/screening and converting people, the HQ culture becomes 100% pozzed. Then policy and HR supervision rolls out from HQ and germinates the tributary locations.
The corporate world has a fake socialism as well. Everything is provided by the company, and socialism sounds like that.
Wokeness will destroy any organization. Just look at Boeing’s neverending collapse
It's only a symptom. The actual cause is that the government forces companies to hire people they wouldn't ordinarily hire because "protected classes". From there it's in-group preferences from everyone except White people.
Yes. Everyone's got a racialist viewpoint but the naïve white people.
I always felt this was the case. By having someone else take the gamble they can always say "I wanted more" or "I wanted less" afterwards and be able to pawn off the pissed off mob, whichever mob it is.
And the useless fat of the middle executives would take that gamble no questions asked, because it gets them in the spotlight regardless of outcome.
Its the shareholders and higher ups that force it. If the company fails then the Fed will just bail them out.
Shareholders 100% do not. ESG type mutual funds underperform the market.
Shareholders give ZERO fucks and just want money, ruthlessly so.
You severely underestimate the pozzing of stakeholders.
Correct! Glad there's someone left in academia who isn't completely braindead.
ESG paying them to lose money in the name of wokeness because of the long play and long term plan. Basically they will keep hammering us and brainwashing the next gen and next gen. They hope all their gay shit and anti-white-ness will become standard. Ultimately.. i think its pedo and bestiality. Muslim/church/religious figures and global elites all love to be pedos..
Did I write this? Because I've been saying all of this for years. I've been calling it the Social Justice Racket.
The only difference here is the missing initial monetary incentive in the first place. Raz0rfist is correct: It's not "Get Woke, Go Broke" it's "Go Broke, Get Woke, Ultimately Croak". The entire purpose of a corporation being parasitized into the racket in the first place is because it's already struggling with money, and the racketeers are promising a PROTECTION RACKET to shore up the worsening funds.
This isn't the first time. The is actually the entire point around GamerGate. Gaming Journalism was already dying, and when YouTubers had the ability to make 30 minute or hour long videos with good screen recording equipment; they suddenly posed a potential death-knell to game journalism as it was. Already the classic gaming magazines which had been industry staples for decades were dying, including Nintendo Power (the strongest of all of them) kicking the bucket eventually. The writing was on the wall, so the fist thing the jornos did was push the idea that recording video games was theft, and the industry started pursuing legal action against anyone doing walk-throughs. With the industry literally falling apart around them, and their cushy Access Journalism jobs already in severe jeopardy, and considering many of them were already ideological Leftists; balkanizing the remaining audience into party loyalists looks like the best option. In the end, the market shifted away from them anyway, and a few have gone under, with the rest now being propped up by finance. They can hold onto their careers only as long as they can keep being propped up by the state and by corporate finance (which is propped up by the state).
In the end, this whole Fabian Order is a Cathedral made out of decks of cards. When the music stops, the dominoes will start to fall, and everybody is going to see the largest "cascade failure" politically since the fall of the Soviet Union.