Personal Reputation

I believe personal reputations play a major role in an individual’s decision-making and behavior. If we think about personal reputation by its dictionary definition, one’s reputation revolves around what other people think about the individual—both positively and negatively. Some may place greater value on how they are perceived while others are relatively indifferent. In the workplace, having a positive outside perception of yourself may be helpful in moving up in the company or organization. To clarify, having a reputation as a trustworthy, punctual and efficient employee may indicate to superiors in the hierarchy of the company that you are worthwhile to the firm.

First, I will discuss how this topic applies in my life and then I want to tie how personal reputations play a role in HBO’s show, Westworld. For the past two summers, I worked at a chemical plant on the south side of Chicago. I worked in the general office, but I was in and out of the plant every day. In terms of intensity, the plant was relatively clean and not as loud or dangerous as a steel mill for example. The work was not that demanding and relatively easy to accomplish. One of my friend’s Dad works at the plant and helped connect me with the right people to get the internship. So I felt an obligation to work well and efficiently so my friend’s Dad looked credible by bringing in a productive worker. Similarly, I wanted to build a good reputation with the individuals at the plant to make my day-to-day experience more enjoyable as well as gaining the trust of my supervisors. In order to build this reputation, I would complete the work given to me in a timely and efficient manner. I wanted to come across as productive and easy to work with so my superiors would trust me to get my work done and not have to check up on how I was progressing. In addition, I normally worked in a group with two other interns on a task. Our director would give us an objective for the day and once we finished, we were free to carry out the rest of the day with relative ease. In short, it was relatively straightforward for the other interns and myself to sell ourselves as productive workers. The full-time employees at the plant also noticed that our group of three worked diligently and were easy to talk to. Subsequently, they were more willing to interact with us and I began to develop positive relationships with several people there. In having the full-time employees trust us to do our work however, some conflict of interest can arise. If our supervisor was not checking on us, we would slack off and not get our work done. Since we were doing mostly busy work, we were not doing the company much harm by not finishing it. The motivation behind this was mostly laziness as we were paid by the hour.

As I mentioned previously, Westworld is based around the concept of creating an entirely new reputation in a syndicate world. The show is a sci-fi drama where modern-day human beings travel to a theme-park set in the 1800s wild west inhabited by artificial robots that look and act exactly as a human being would. I left a link to HBO’s summary of the show here to give a better sense of the plot.

http://www.hbo.com/westworld/about

           Humans experience no physical harm in the park but can inflict as much damage to the hosts (artificial humans) as they wish. Essentially, there are no rules and a decreased sense of consequences for one’s actions. Knowing that they are essentially gods to these robot humans, humans give little regard to their personal reputation. Further, the truest self of the visitors come out. They can be ruthless and cruel but only act in their own self-interest. In fact, this deviant behavior is encouraged as humans can build a reputation for how poor of a human they can really be. With little to no consequences, humans can stray from any reputation they have in the real world and participate in actions that would otherwise result in imprisonment.

Principle Agents Discussion

As we have discussed in class, the principal-agent problem involves one party working for another party in return for an incentive. The first party is the agent and the second is the principal in this case. As the agent makes decisions on behalf of the principal, certain costs or issues may arise. In particular, morally hazardous decisions as well as potential conflicts of interest can lead to problems between the two sides. Speaking to the prompt, the principal-agent problem often involves more than just two sides. I want to examine the example of a salesman in a car dealership and the moral hazards that are present.  

Car dealerships are a frustrating and difficult place to be more times than not, partially due to the different motives that many individuals have there. Let’s first examine who is the agent and principal in this case. For argument’s sake, there is a three tier system: first, the owner of car dealership is in control (principal#1), the car salesman (agent) is responsible for both the satisfaction of the owner as well as the customer (principal #2). The salesman is obligated to both. In terms of obligation to the owner, the salesman must sell a certain amount of cars in order to maintain his job. There may not be a minimum amount of cars he must sell, but if low performance is the salesman’s norm then he will more than likely be replaced.  Similarly, the salesman’s goal is to sell the car for as close to list price as possible. Not only will the dealership make more money, but the salesman will make higher commission as well.

In terms of serving the customer, the car dealer will go to extreme lengths to ensure the sale of the vehicle. However, the customer is seeking the lowest possible price so the salesman must tailor his sales pitch to that fact. So, in order to make commission, the salesman may be willing to sacrifice a higher sale price of the vehicle for a lower one. This may compromise the owner of the dealership’s desire to earn the highest revenue possible. In other words, the contracts between the owner, salesman, and customer are misaligned.

For example, if the list price of the vehicle is $30,000 but the salesman and the customer have negotiated the price down to $27,000 an interesting dilemma arises. Let’s also assume the commission rate is 10% for simplicity’s sake. Ultimately, the difference between commission ($300) is much less for the salesman than it is between the owner ($3000). Therefore, the salesman probably will not go to such extreme measures as to make sure that he reaches the firm’s set price. Similarly, the car salesman has the opportunity to make up the difference in commission by increasing the rate at which he sells cars.

In terms of resolving this dual obligation, I feel there are few solutions to offer. One that may be viable, however, is meeting halfway between the dealership’s and the customer’s price. As previously discussed, the incentive for the salesman to do so is not exceedingly high. More times than not, the agent will fail in fully satisfying the two principles but the main objective is achieved. To clarify, the salesman both sold a car (satisfying principal #1) and the customer received a car (principal #2). The difference in price is a smaller issue than if the salesman were not selling cars on a consistent basis. 

Conflict Analysis

The internal conflict that I want to discuss comes from a movie of which I am very fond of: The Departed. In short, the film revolves around the Boston Police Department's relentless quest to catch Irish mob boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) and hold him accountable for the crimes he has committed over the past several decades. In order to do so, the BPD must employ the use of a rat to infiltrate Costello's inner circle. The rat in this case is Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio). 

Now that there is some background on the principal issue of the film, I want to examine an ongoing conflict that takes place between Costigan and his superiors at the BPD. After originally gaining access to Costello’s group, Costigan is forced to partake in activities that are not only illegal but take a toll on him as a human being (arson, murder, assault, etc.). After multiple months of leading a completely different and brutal lifestyle, Costigan confronts his superiors Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Staff Sergeant Dignam (Mark Wahlberg). As Costigan explains: “I can’t be a new person every day! I’m going crazy!” Costigan and Dignam continue to exchange fierce words between each other and eventually come to blows. From Costigan’s perspective, if he is caught by Costello then he most likely will be murdered by the mob and quickly forgotten despite his sacrifices made to catch Costello. Similarly, as Dignam and Queenan explain, he is on no official record as actually being a cop (for Costigan’s own protection) meaning there will be no funeral with bagpipes and rifle salutations to commemorate him. Costigan’s workload and risk in this operation is extremely high in comparison to Queenan’s and Dignam’s. Costigan rightfully has reason to question a) if he can deliver the proper evidence the BPD b) is this operation truly worth the investment to become a fully recognized cop.

Essentially, the source of the problem is the divide between administration and employees. The administration (Dignam and Queenan) have a different opinion on which manner they should expose Costello. Costigan, having seen first-hand Costello’s cruelty and power, wants to arrest him on the crimes that he has partook in. On the other hand, Dignam and Queenan want to progressively build a case and capitalize on Costello when he is weakest. Unfortunately for Costigan, the operation requires him to give much more of himself in order to complete the mission. However, Dignam and Queenan need Costigan to keep his cover from being blown and carry on with the objective. Consequently, the administrators do not necessarily make the job easier for Costigan, but provide him with psychiatric help and are slightly more tolerant to his outbursts.

In a high-stress situation such as infiltrating a mob, conflict is bound to occur as many ideologies wrestle to discover the most optimal path to achieve success. Once the first conflict became apparent (in the film, it is Di Caprio’s outburst) the dynamic of the group is altered. In The Departed, Costigan’s character is viewed less as a soldier on the ground and his emotional state as a human being is taken into consideration finally. Conversely, the administration recognizes that their plan may not be as straightforward as originally planned. Similarly, overall group collaboration is improved because the three are willing to open up and describe what could be changed and altered to reach the goal of catching Costello. Throughout the film, more conflict ensues between Dignam/Queenan and Costigan as more obstacles arise. However, I feel this conflict did not hurt the group dynamic but rather improved it. There was mutual respect gained between the group in addition adapting their plan to catch Costello.