热衷婚外情的员工更具创造力

The hacking last year of the Ashley Madison adultery site caused embarrassment to millions.

婚外情网站“阿什利•麦迪逊”(Ashley Madison)去年遭黑客攻击，让数百万用户陷入难堪境地。

But for business school academics at Tulane and Michigan State universities, the hacked data presented a research opportunity: how many of the site’s customers used their work email addresses and what did this say about the companies that employed them? 

但对杜兰大学(Tulane University)和密歇根州立大学(Michigan State University)商学院的研究人员而言，泄露的数据给他们提供了一个研究机会：该网站的注册用户中有多少使用了自己的工作电子邮箱，而这对聘用他们的公司来说意味着什么？

The researchers looked beyond the people who had inactive Ashley Madison accounts. Someone else could have registered them as a joke.

研究人员并未在意那些不活跃的阿什利•麦迪逊账户。有些人可能抱着闹着玩的心理注册了这些账户。

Instead, they examined those who had actively used their accounts between 2002 and 2014 — buying credits to send messages, start chat sessions or send virtual gifts.

他们研究了那些2002至2014年期间表现活跃的账户——购买点数以发送信息、发起聊天会话或者赠送虚拟礼物。

They found 47,000 people who had used their work email addresses on the site. The practice was not widespread. At those companies where people had used a work address, the number who had done so averaged only 5.4.

他们发现有4.7万人使用自己的工作邮箱在该网站注册。这种做法并不普遍。在那些工作邮箱被用于注册该网站的公司，平均只有5.4名员工有此类行为。

But, the researchers said, “our hypothesis is that these accounts are the tip of the proverbial iceberg . . . They provide a (potentially noisy) signal of cultures that are ‘lax’.” These are companies, they said, that did not “emphasise integrity”. 

但研究人员表示：“我们的假设是，这些账户只是冰山一角……它们提供了一个关于（可能有些杂乱）‘松懈的’企业文化的信号。它们表明，这些公司并不“强调诚实正直的品质”。

In their paper “Fifty Shades of Corporate Culture”, the researchers looked at some characteristics of the companies where these risk-takers worked. The results were startling. 

在他们题为《企业文化五十度灰》(Fifty Shades of Corporate Culture)的论文中，研究人员归纳了这些冒险者所在公司的一些特征。结果令人震惊。

The companies with would-be adulterers were more likely to have been disciplined by the US Securities and Exchange Commission for accounting irregularities.

有婚外情倾向的员工所在的公司，更有可能因会计违规行为遭受过美国证券交易委员会(Securities and Exchange Commission)的处罚。

They had a higher record of being involved in bribery and fraud scandals, tax disputes, human rights violations and product quality problems.

他们在涉及贿赂和欺诈丑闻、税务纠纷、侵犯人权及产品质量问题方面的不良记录更多。

Except this wasn’t the only set of findings. The companies employing Ashley Madison members also appeared to be more inventive and creative. They had made more successful patent applications, and those patents had covered a wider range of technologies. The companies tended to be in high-growth sectors. 

只是这并非唯一的结论。员工在阿什利•麦迪逊注册会员的公司似乎也更善于创新、更富创造力。它们成功申请的专利数量更多，而且这些专利涵盖更加广泛的技术领域。这些公司往往处于高增长行业。

The researchers suggested that the two sets of findings were perfectly compatible. Rule-breaking and creativity often went together.

研究人员认为，这两组结论一点都不违和。打破成规与创造力通常相伴相随。

“Creative thinkers are able to find creative, but potentially unethical loopholes to solve difficult problems, and they are able to invent creative rationalisations for dishonest behaviour,” they wrote.

“有创造思维的人能够找到有创意、但可能不道德的漏洞来解决难题，他们能为不诚实的行为找出有创意的合理解释，”他们写道。

The researchers accepted that there were creative and inventive people who were scrupulously ethical. But theirs was not the only study showing a link between creativity and dishonest behaviour. Other researchers had found the same.

研究人员承认，很多有创意、善于创新的人士都恪守道德准则。但不只是他们的研究发现了创造力与不诚实行为之间的关联。其他研究人员也发现了这种关联。

“Our results suggest that there is a trade-off between an ethical, rules-driven, process-oriented culture and a culture that encourages innovation and risk-taking,” they wrote.

“我们的研究结果表明，合乎道德、规则驱动、流程导向的文化与鼓励创新与冒险的文化之间存在消长关系，”他们写道。

At a time when companies’ ethical behaviour is under particular scrutiny, these are uncomfortable conclusions. Do companies have to accept that, if they want to employ creative people, some of them are going to cheat, and not only on their spouses?

在公司的道德行为受到特别审视的时代，这些结论会令人不适。如果企业希望聘用有创造力的员工，难道就不得不接受其中一些人将来会做出不诚实之事（不只是对自己配偶）吗？

The problem with this acceptance of rule-breaking is that we have seen where it leads. It is not just about creativity. Unethical staff can damage companies.

接受违规行为带来的问题在于我们已经看到其会带来什么后果。这不仅仅关乎创造力。员工不道德的行为会让公司蒙受损失。

Look at Volkswagen, where a reputation for probity has been shredded by employees who were creative with diesel emission tests.

看看大众汽车(Volkswagen)，其诚信的名声已被那些在柴油车排放测试方面有创造力的员工撕得粉碎。

Look at the banks that have been laid low by traders manipulating interest rate benchmarks. And look at Enron, a company apparently entirely devoted to risk-taking that was destroyed by it.

看看那些被操纵利率基准的交易员拖累的银行。看看安然公司(Enron)，这家明显完全致力于冒险的公司最终毁于此道。

Some may be bristling at these examples. These were not instances of creativity but of criminality. There are plenty of creative companies where people manage to come up with bright ideas without breaking the law or offending anyone’s moral code. 

有人可能会对这些例子感到不满。这些不是关乎创造力，而是关于犯罪的事例。有许多富有创造力的公司，它们的员工既有奇思妙想，又没有违法或者触犯任何道德准则。

This is true, but the Michigan State/Tulane research shows that cheaters often prosper. If you run a company of cheaters, you may succeed, but your luck will not last for ever, as the examples above show.

这是事实，但上述研究表明，弄虚作假的人往往容易发达。如果你的公司里都是不诚实的员工，你或许能成功，但运气不会永远陪伴着你——正如上文的事例所示。

Honest corporate leaders who employ creative people but don’t want to destroy the company need to be alert to how far their rule-breakers are likely to go and when they need to rein them back.

聘请有创造力的员工、但又不想掉公司的诚实的企业领导者需要保持警惕，注意他们那些喜欢打破规则的员工可能做出什么事，以及何时需要让他们悬崖勒马。

As with all effective management, that means learning and relearning every corner of the business. Constantly repeating the rules is not enough. Risk takers — and adulterers — pay no attention to that.

同所有有效的管理一样，这意味着要了解、不断地了解企业的每一名员工。不停地复述规则是不够的。冒险者——以及热衷偷情的员工——才不管。