The Find: Would it help the current financial crisis if all those who acted irresponsibly simply announced they were sorry, or would that just mean more lawsuits, ask Wharton School professors.- The Source: An article in Knowledge@Wharton.
The Takeaway: In a recent op-ed Stuart Shapiro, head of the Pennsylvania Health Care Association, urged the state legislature to pass a law permitting medical professionals to “acknowledge, express empathy for, and take ownership of unforeseen outcomes,” without worrying they would face lawsuits based on their apology. Shapiro grounds his thinking on studies that show many malpractice suits are not motivated by greed but by anger. Would public and full-throated apologies from CEOs guilty of massive miscalculations (if not outright ethical violations) have any effect on the course of the current financial crisis?
Wharton professor Maurice Schweitzer, for one, thinks apologies from some individuals might be effective “depending on the nature of the apology and the failure that occurred,” though he notes that apologies for incompetence usually meet with more acceptance than those for unethical behavior. So why haven’t we seen more credible apologies from those who fouled up? “Possibly because by apologizing they would be ‘admitting culpability and setting themselves up as a target,’” argues Schweitzer. However, according to earlier research, admitting mistakes does not necessarily mean more lawsuits:
In many cases, however, it appears that apologies could actually make litigation less likely and/or cheaper… It was astonishing how often the issue of apologies came up, particularly in the context of employment litigation law. It was almost as important to the plaintiff to feel that an apology was tendered as it was to recover money or even regain a job.
With apologies likely to produce less, rather than more, litigation, there are few excuses for those culpable in the current crisis not to be begging forgiveness. For those looking to say sorry, here’s more Wharton research on crafting effective apologies.
The Question: Have we gotten sufficient apologies from those who contributed to the widespread failures that underlie the crisis?
