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Networking, Corruption, and Subversion

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Abstract

This paper explores the ethics of networking as a means of competition, specifically networking to improve one’s prospects of prevailing in formal competitive processes for jobs or university placements. There are broadly two ways that networking might be used to influence the outcome of some such process: through the “exchange of affect” between networker and selector, and through the demonstration of merit by networker to selector. Both raise ethical problems that have been overlooked but need to be addressed.

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Notes

  1. So many, in fact, that there are now competing lists picking out the best of the bunch. See for instance http://theundercoverrecruiter.com/top-10-networking-books-your-career-success/.

  2. Some such course is currently on offer at the Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies at Rice University, http://gscs.rice.edu/The_Art_of_Networking.aspx.

  3. www.schmooze.net.au/site/about.php.

  4. This is not to say that Schonsheck’s analysis is purely Kantian. He also applies Aristotle’s virtue ethics to networking.

  5. Since this paper investigates networking from a particular motive, it obviously raises the problem of how to handle cases where there are mixed motives. This is a difficult issue, but it is a more general problem for moral philosophy—one that I cannot hope to overcome here. Military ethicists, for instance, condemn attacks that are motivated by a desire to harm civilians, while allowing some attacks that harm civilians as “collateral damage”. Where motives are mixed, there are no clear answers. Similar problems arise in bioethics, with respect to the active/passive euthanasia distinction, for example. Indeed this is a problem for any ethical argument that hinges on the motive behind the act or practice under scrutiny, so it is not unique to this paper.

  6. This is very much the dominant view of what justice in the awarding of jobs requires. See Miller (1999) and Sher (1988).

  7. Kershnar (2003), Mason (2001), and Segall (2012) consider this argument for meritocratic hiring, though all three find it faulty or limited in its real-world application.

  8. For a slightly different path to the same conclusion, see Kershnar (2003).

  9. Admittedly this may not always be true of networking. In some cases, a networking event might be built in to the official selection process, and all candidates invited to attend. Here networking is not “extramural”, but I will set these cases aside.

  10. The intuitive pull of this argument is stronger in some cases than in others. Where a formal selection process is currently underway, and a candidate attempts to arrange a private dinner with someone from the hiring committee to demonstrate his interpersonal skills, I take it most readers will feel that there is something morally problematic about this. On the other hand, if a networker attempts to ingratiate himself to prospective employers in anticipation of selection processes that he might face in the future, intuitively this may seem less troubling. Having said this, the subversion objection has purchase on both cases, so I acknowledge the intuitive difference but set this aside for present purposes.

  11. The table of rules is available online at http://courts.ms.gov/rules/msrulesofcourt/urccc.pdf. Last accessed 27/11/2014.

  12. Rules of the WSDC, last accessed 27/11/2014 http://www.schoolsdebate.com/docs/rules.asp.

  13. A study by Levashina and Campion (2007) finds that the percentage of interviewees who engage in this kind of “extensive image creation” during interview ranges from 28 to 75 %.

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Funding

This research project was not funded or sponsored by any institution.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of HASS, The University of New South Wales, PO Box 7916, Canberra, 2610, BC, Australia

    Ned Dobos

  2. The Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Canberra, Australia

    Ned Dobos

  3. The MacMillan Centre for International and Area Studies, Yale, USA

    Ned Dobos

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  1. Ned Dobos
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Correspondence to Ned Dobos.

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An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Charles Sturt University, and at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. Thanks to all who attended and provided helpful comments and suggestions. I am especially grateful to Peter Balint and Adam Henschke for their critique of earlier drafts, and to three anonymous reviewers for the Journal of Business Ethics.

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Dobos, N. Networking, Corruption, and Subversion. J Bus Ethics 144, 467–478 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2853-4

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