热衷婚外情的员工更具创造力？

热衷婚外情的员工更具创造力？

研究表明，这类员工所在的公司更善于创新.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？

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

adultery 外遇；通奸[ə'dʌlt(ə)rɪ]

spouses 配偶['spaʊsɪz]

widespread 普遍的，广泛的[ˈwʌɪdsprɛd]

hypothesis 假设[haɪ'pɒθɪsɪs]

integrity 正直；诚实；廉正[ɪn'tegrɪtɪ]

startling 令人吃惊的['stɑːtlɪŋ]

bribery [法]受贿；行贿['braɪbərɪ]

loophole 漏洞；枪眼['luːphəʊl]

ethical 伦理的；道德的；处方药['eθɪk(ə)l]

benchmark 基准['ben(t)ʃmɑːk]

interest rate benchmark 利率基准

阅读马上开始，建议您计算一下阅读整篇文章所用的时间，对照下方的参考值就可以评估出您的英文阅读水平。

如果您读完全文用时为： 那么，您的阅读速度相当于 每分钟阅读的英文单词数

4分50秒 母语为英语者的朗读速度 140

2分23秒 母语为英语的中学生的阅读速度 250

1分8秒 母语为英语的大学生的阅读速度 350

0分5秒 母语为英语的速读高手 1000

Adultery, rule-breaking and creativity often go together（659words）

By Michael Skapinker

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

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

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.

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.

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”.

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.

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

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

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.

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

“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.

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.

“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.

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?

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.

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

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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1. What is the Ashley Madison in the first paragraph?

A. an adultery site

B. a business school

C. an old research

D. a famous hacker

2. What kind of Ashley Madison accounts are for the research?

A. loyal

B. quiet

C. inactive

D. original

3. What are more likely to appear for Ashley Madison members?

A. product quality problems

B. more inventive

C. have patent applications

D. all of them

4. Which company has suffered scandals about emission tests?

A. Ford

B. Volkswagen

C. Honda

D. Enron

[1] 答案 A. an adultery site

解释：Ashley Madison是去年遭黑客攻击的婚外情网站。

[2] 答案 C. inactive

解释：研究人员研究了那些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。

[3] 答案 D. all of them

解释：有婚外情倾向的员工所在的公司，更有可能存在会计违规行为，但是同时似乎也更善于创新、更富创造力。打破成规与创造力通常相伴相随。

[4] 答案 B. Volkswagen

解释：文章提到大众汽车(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。