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Business
商业版块
Bartleby
巴托比专栏
Bearing polarisation
承受两极对立
How to manage political controversies and partisanship in the workplace.
如何处理职场中的政治争论和党派之争。
However much you might want to keep politics out of business, politics has other plans for you.
无论你多么希望将政治排除在商业之外，政治都另有打算。
Events have a habit of sucking organisations into controversy.
政治事件习惯性地将组织卷入争论之中。
In 2022 Disney was caught up in a very public row with the state of Florida over a bill about teaching sexuality and gender identity in public schools.
2022年，迪士尼卷入了一场与佛罗里达州的公开争吵，争论的问题是一项关于在公立学校教授性取向和性别认同的法案。
Earlier this year Google fired some employees who had taken part in a sit-in to protest against the tech firm’s cloud-computing contract with Israel.
今年早些时候，谷歌解雇了一些员工，因为这些员工参加了静坐抗议，反对谷歌与以色列的云计算合同。
University administrators have conspicuously struggled to manage the passions aroused by the war in Gaza.
大学行政人员也一直引人注目地且艰难地处理着加沙战争引发的群情激奋。
Some firms try to make it part of their culture to remain out of the political fray.
一些公司试图将置身于政治纷争之外作为其企业文化的一部分。
One software company, 37signals, is explicit that it “does not weigh in on politics publicly, outside of topics directly related to our business”.
一家名为37信号的软件公司明确表示，“除了与业务直接相关的话题外，不会对政治问题公开发表意见”。
Google’s boss, Sundar Pichai, told employees after the protest that “This is a business, and not a place to…attempt to use the company as a personal platform, or to fight over disruptive issues or debate politics.”
谷歌的老板桑达尔·皮查伊在抗议活动后告诉员工：“这是一家企业，不是……试图将公司用作个人平台的地方，也不是就破坏性问题或政治辩论进行斗争的地方。”
But avoiding political and social controversy is very difficult, as “The Age of Outrage”, a thoughtful new book by Karthik Ramanna, a professor at Oxford University, makes clear.
但是要避免政治和社会争议是非常困难的，正如牛津大学教授卡西克·拉曼纳的一本思想深刻的新书《愤怒的时代》所表明的那样。
Polarisation is increasing in many countries; grievances are quickly amplified by social media.
在许多国家，两极分化正在加剧，社交媒体迅速放大了怨愤情绪。
What is more, politics can infect organisations, their leaders included, in deeply insidious ways.
此外，政治会以极其隐蔽的方式侵蚀组织，包括其领导者。
In America, now just days away from another divisive presidential election, partisanship is becoming a feature of the boardroom.
在美国，距离又一场极具分裂性的总统大选只有几天时间，党派之争正成为董事会的一个特征。
A study by Vyacheslav Fos of Boston College and his co-authors found that between 2008 and 2020 the executive teams at S&P 1500 firms grew more likely to be dominated by people affiliated to a single party.
波士顿学院的维亚切斯拉夫·福斯及其合著者的一项研究发现，在2008年至2020年间，标准普尔1500指数公司的高管团队越来越有可能由隶属于同一个政党的人主导。
This echo-chamber effect is caused primarily by a tendency for bosses to team up with people who share their political views.
这种回声室效应主要是因为老板倾向于与政治观点和其相同的人合作。（注：回声室效应指在封闭空间，相同的意见不断重复，使其中的人误以为这种意见就是正确的或全部的意见。）
Partisanship feeds through into management decisions.
党派之争会影响管理决策。
A recent study by Anthony Rice of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, which infers bosses’ political preferences from their campaign contributions, finds that managers in America increase investment when their preferred party gains control of the White House.
香港中文大学的安东尼·赖斯最近进行的一项研究发现，在美国，当管理者们支持的政党控制白宫时，他们会增加投资（该研究从竞选捐款中推断出老板们的政治偏好）。
Splurging based on partisanship tends not to work out that well: it is associated with lower valuations and operating profits.
基于党派之争的慷慨投资往往效果不佳：这种投资与较低的估值和营业利润相关。
Another study, by Ran Duchin of Boston College and his co-authors, finds that politically divergent firms in America, as measured by the affiliations of employees who are registered party supporters, have become less likely to merge over time.
另一项研究由波士顿学院的兰·杜钦及其合著者进行，研究发现，根据注册为政党支持者的员工的党派隶属关系衡量，美国政治分歧较大的公司之间合并的可能性随时间推移而逐渐降低。
Between 1980 and 2010, mergers between extremely divergent firms—those in the top deciles for leaning Republican and Democrat—made up 11% of all deals; by 2019 that figure had fallen to 3%.
在1980年至2010年期间，分歧极大的公司之间的合并——倾向于共和党和倾向于民主党的公司中处于前十分位数的公司——占所有合并交易的11%，到2019年，这一数字已降至3%。
When firms with different political leanings do merge, there is likely to be higher subsequent turnover among employees.
当具有不同政治倾向的公司真的合并时，员工的后续离职率可能会更高。
Political polarisation is not restricted to America.
政治两极化并不局限于美国。
Another study, by Emanuele Colonnelli of the University of Chicago and his co-authors, looks at the political affiliations of private-sector business owners and employees in Brazil.
另一项研究由芝加哥大学的埃马努埃莱·科隆内利及其合著者进行，研究了巴西私营企业主和员工的政治派别。
They find that owners are substantially more likely to employ workers who belong to the same party.
他们发现，企业主极有可能雇佣和其属于同一政党的员工。
As you might expect if decisions are being influenced by something other than merit, this seems not to be great for business: firms with a higher share of workers who have the same political views as their owners grow slower compared with those that have more politically diverse workforces.
正如你可能预料的那样，如果决策受到优点以外的其他因素影响，这对企业不利：与员工政治立场多元化的公司相比，与老板的政治观点相同的员工更多的公司发展更慢。
This picture implies three things.
这种情况暗示了三件事。
The first is that political polarisation is not something that can easily be suppressed; it might erupt in specific firestorms or it might take hold more insidiously.
首先，政治两极化不是轻易就能被压制的，它可能会在特定的风暴中爆发，也可能会更隐蔽地扎根。
The second is that the benefits of diversity can extend to political views: partisanship can limit your market, narrow your employee base and hurt your business.
第二，多样性有益可以延伸到政治观点/政治观点的多样性也有益：党派偏见可能会限制你的市场，缩小你的员工基础，并损害你的业务。
The third lesson, and the argument of Mr Ramanna’s book, is that bosses who want to act in a non-partisan way need to develop a process for dealing with polarisation, rather than responding on an ad hoc basis.
第三个经验教训也是拉曼纳书中的论点，即希望以无党派方式行事的老板需要制定一个应对两极分化的流程，而不是临时做出反应。
Among the recommendations he makes is that organisations should appoint a group of people to debate and adjudicate on controversial issues as they emerge.
他提出的建议之一是组织应该任命一组人，在有争议的问题出现时进行辩论和裁决。
Meta’s independent oversight board, which hears appeals about the tech firm’s content-moderation decisions, is one model.
Meta的独立监督委员会是一个模式，该委员会负责审理关于Meta内容审核决定的上诉。
Rabobank, a Dutch lender, has a long-standing ethics committee to consider dilemmas, from whether its staff can trade cryptocurrencies to the use of client data.
荷兰合作银行有一个长期存在的道德委员会来考量各种两难问题，从员工是否可以交易加密货币到客户数据的使用。
Politicians have parliaments.
政客们有议会。
Firms may need an equivalent.
公司可能也需要一个议会等同物。
