Middle managers may use “wokeness” to climb the ladder at work and keep their jobs in tough times, according to a new paper.
“We suggest that waking up is an emerging strategy that is generally formed by middle managers,” wrote Nicolai Foss, professor of strategy at Copenhagen Business School, and Peter Klein, professor of entrepreneurship and corporate innovation at Baylor University. “Wokeness arises from middle managers and support personnel using their delegated responsibilities and specialist status to engage in awakened internal advocacy, which can increase impact and job security.”
The term “woke” was first used as an adjective in the 1940s by J. Saunders Redding in an article about labor unions and has re-emerged in the past decade as a slogan symbolizing awareness of social issues. The Oxford dictionary even expanded the definition of woke in 2017 to include an adjective form that means “to be alert to injustice in society, especially racism.”
But for conservatives, woke has become a loaded term at the center of America’s culture wars. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis even introduced a law in 2021 entitled Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (or “Stop WOKE”), hoping to combat what he calls “corporate wokeness” in his state. And Bernie Marcus, the billionaire founder of Home Depot, said in December that “wakemen have taken over the world.”
“No one is working. No one cares. ‘Give it to me. Send me the money. I don’t want to work—I’m too lazy, I’m too fat, I’m too stupid,’” she said Financial Times.
Foss and Klein argue that despite the existence of a wake-up ideology in companies, there is “little evidence of systematic support for the idea of wake-up” in the population or among top executives. They provide no data to support this view.
“And it will not appear to improve the company’s performance,” he wrote, adding that it “provides authority, job security, and career opportunities” for middle managers.
Businesses risk losing “diversity of viewpoints” by supporting left-wing ideologies, which can “reduce creativity and innovation in organizations,” according to economists, who used a 2014 paper discussing the benefits of having a variety of political viewpoints in society. The field of psychology is a testament to this point.
Foss and Klein also warned that the cost of labor and rent could increase due to the conflict between workers in the waking environment, noting that some top executives, including Brian Armstrong, CEO of the crypto exchange Coinbase, have decided to ban political discussions in the workplace because of the increase. conflict between workers.
“When companies wake up, they will increase the internal costs of the organization,” he wrote.
The study’s authors point to increased spending on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs as another example of rising costs associated with corporate attitudes. US companies will spend $9.3 billion on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in 2022, and by 2026, that amount is expected to rise to $15.4 billion to reflect rising costs, according to data from consulting firm StrategyR.
Still, supporters of the DEI program argue that economists and politicians have launched a “war on wokeness” despite evidence of the positive effects of diversity. A McKinsey 2020 study found diverse companies are 35% more likely to see stronger profit margins than their peers. “The most diverse companies are now more than ever outperforming their less diverse peers,” McKinsey researchers wrote.
But Foss and Klein argue that companies that use wake-up practices can become a “purity spiral,” where employees compete to be considered “the purest supporters of the group’s important values.”
“This leads to a frequently changing internal agenda as the internal lines of moral rectitude are constantly raised in a purer-than-thou game,” he wrote.
The study’s authors added that the emergence of wake culture “remains largely unknown,” and called for more researchers to investigate the phenomenon.
“Most of the discussions about awakening capitalism have taken place in the popular press, in social media, and in government offices. It is time for management research to inform the debate in a more systematic way,” he wrote.
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