NEWS AND INSIGHT
THE VALUES WESTERN ECONOMIES CAN LEARN FROM MĀORI PERSPECTIVES
REEVALUATING RESEARCH ON THE RICH COUNTRY: Netherlands SCHOOL: Amsterdam Business School, University of Amsterdam “All people are equally evil, irrespective of the type of car they drive,” says University of Amsterdam economist and professor Paul Smeets in upending a popular study from 2012 which concluded that those with more expensive cars display more antisocial behaviour in traffic. In a new study, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General , Smeets and his co‑authors demonstrate an inability to replicate the original study’s findings that expensive cars cut off other drivers more frequently and give way to pedestrians less often. This is despite recreating the study in the same city in which the original study had been conducted, Berkeley, California and using a group that was 2.5 times the size of the original research population. “In contrast with the original findings, we found no difference between the percentage of expensive cars that gave way to pedestrians and the percentage of cheaper cars,” Smeets explains. The new study also found no significant difference in a further replication of the original study investigating whether expensive cars cut off other drivers more frequently. For its ‘rich behaving badly’ theme, the original study was widely covered by publications that include the BBC, The Economist and the New York Times and has achieved more than 1,200 academic citations. As such, Smeets is glad to have shone a new light on the topic. “Academic research forms the basis for key social decisions. The media’s tendency to cut and paste information can lead to a distorted view of reality before you realise that it’s happening. If there’s a lesson to be learnt from this, it’s that we should be transparent about our data and methods,” he says. However, Smeets is aware of the complications inherent in addressing research’s replication crisis: “Your career in academia might suffer as a result, because the people whose work you assess may at some point be called on to assess your own work in turn. Although we’ve made progress, we must continue to make the argument for working as transparently and openly as possible.” TBD
COUNTRY: New Zealand SCHOOL: Graduate School of Management, University of Auckland Business School New research suggests that Māori views of wealth creation could provide an interesting comparison to Western views of capitalism. Manahau , an emerging te ao Māori theory of value, combines the concept of mana (power, authority and dignity) and hau (people, place and objects). While Māori people and Māori businesses can’t be categorised and shouldn’t be stereotyped, the research does show a pattern between them. Māori beliefs surrounding wealth creation go beyond financial value, with Māori value creation being intergenerational and focusing on the environment, as well as future and past generations. Māori values, meanwhile, have spiritual and material elements and centre on collective wellbeing as opposed to self-interest. These findings have been published in a chapter entitled, Māori perspectives on conscious capitalism in The spirit of conscious capitalism: Ethical economy , volume 63 by University of Auckland Business School academics Kiri Dell, Carla Houkamau and Jamie Newth, together with Jason Mika of the University of Waikato. The authors comment: “ Manahau expands our profitß and capital- focused interpretation of economy where only what can be measured financially is considered of value. It sees human activity, including survival and wealth creation, as inextricably linked with community- based values and benefits rather than individualised productivity or benefits alone. “We need environmental and economic policies and practices that enable Māori to do business in ways that align with Māori values that have resonance for both Māori and non-Māori enterprises.” The authors believe that to understand Māori values and how they relate to Western notions of capitalism would require enquiries on multiple fronts and they question how much these concepts can be applied to an economy that is dominated by Western beliefs. However, they do think that Māori values could help the Western world develop a more sustainable, inclusive and equitable approach to business. EB
Ambition | MARCH 2023 | 11
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