Self-interest

During prolonged heat waves which can cause blackouts and brownouts, electric utilities always request that customers limit energy consumption by raising thermostats and turning off the air conditioning when not home. It is uncertain if these requests are heeded, and if they arc, it is uncertain whether conformity is out of altruism (help the utilities) or self-interest (save money). 

Markets decide what energy resources shall be produced, how they shall be produced, and who will receive the benefits of the production processes. With millions of different activity options, and millions of individuals making individual and collective decisions, it is an ovenvhelniingly complex process. At the same time, it is usually very efficient because self-interested market players communicate through the price system. A self-interested rational individual will make decisions based on true preferences, and follow those preferences in a way that will provide the greatest satisfaction. Choices will be made under certain... 

Lisa Lloyd The scientists you are talking about, it s against their own self-interest. 

The insurance industry as a whole has a substantial self interest in analyzing accidents, sponsoring research and issuing publications in the methods tc prevent accidents or mitigate their effects. Hence their data is the... 

The inconsistent or conflicting regulation of new chemicals probably represents the most obvious manner in which the PMN laws can create barriers to trade. Given the fundamental differences between the U.S. and European PMN programs, as well as the inherent self-interests involved because the EEC and the U.S. are... 

The employees, particularly the workers at the plants that would be exposed to the hazards to safety and health created by the raw material, the intermediates, and the finished products and by-products. A plant that is unsafe to workers would not be able to recruit the most capable staff, would not be able to manufacture the best products, and would encourage the formation of militant labor unions and punitive regulations. It is in the self interest of the manufacturers to make sure that the workplace is safe and to adopt the best practice. There is also a recent tendency for manufacturing to move to regions and nations where plant safety rules are less rigorously posted and enforced. 

Self-interest was also what motivated one drug-using sibling directly to expose his sister to drugs. As he could not go safely to the particular area where the drug dealer lived, he had used her to buy them for him. Unbeknown to him, she started to sample his heroin and developed a drug problem herself. 

Full disclosure of financial liaisons and relationships of investigators. An important aspect is to exclude any conflict of interest between the study participants and the investigator s self-interest (financial, scientific, carrier, etc.)- Only voluntary participation in a study is acceptable, and patients (participants) must have the right to withdraw from a study at any time. 

Enlightened self-interest is at the heart of Peter Block s (1987) vision of how stifling and unproductive bureaucratic mentalities and structures may be overcome. Block castigates the unenlightened pursuit of self-interest ... 

When we define self-interest as the pursuit of safety, control, advancement, approval, and territory for its own sake, the bureaucratic way of operating Is almost inevitable. Negative politics is created when I feel the orgsmlzatlon in some way owns me. . . offers little autonomy. . . ... 

Block has delineated five principles, set out in Box 6.3, by which a manager may pursue positive organizational politics. They all involve in some way balancing personal values and interest with those of the organization or wider community, a re-ordering of the way we view our self-interest ... 

It is necessary to give second priority to the personal, career-advancing self-interest that we typically have and to develop the mind-set that our primary self-interest is inevitably linked and interdependent with the self-interest of the business md the other people around us. The major purpose of our work is to build an organization of our own choosing and one that we believe in. 

The road to positive poiitics five dimensions of enlightened self-interest for managers... 

Our self-interest is best served when we re focused on contributing the things that are of unique value to the business. .. No more make work projects, no more committees studying committees on oversight. .. We treat this business as it were our own. 

Performing a function simply for its own sake always serves your best self-interest. To perform a function because it s dirty work that has to be done and somebody has to do it, is a sign that what you re doing may not be worth the effort. This final element of enlightened self-interest involves doing those things that would allow you to be the best and let that be its own reward. 

So far we have looked at political behaviour from a somewhat rational perspective. You make a choice about the kind of stance you wish to adopt clever-wise, binary or ternary, enlightened self-interest, read or remain innocent. 

I am not making the cynical point that a person may often be able to justify his behaviour to others by invoking norms on an ad hoc basis, exploiting the almost endless repertoire of norms to disguise the fact that he is moved by self-interest. My point is that a person must be able to live with his decisions - so he has to justify them to himself. There are constraints on the acceptable justifications. In particular, the need for consistency between the norms that are invoked in different situations may be as important as the consistency between the norm and the self-interest. Yet within these constraints a good deal of redefinition of norms is possible. My suggestion is that in addition to the head-on conflict between self-interest and social norms there is an insidious struggle that is more similar to self-deception and thus more closely related to the multiple self. 

---