RESPONSE - Insead

Findings: Developing Social Consciousness and SRB in Managers (Objective 4)
Another way to test for changes in the way managers make decisions during their normal work
routines used a series of bipolar contrasts, forcing respondents to prioritize along a trade­off
dimension. Here are the results of the statistical analysis of the pre­post training variation for each
item:
• “Social welfare vs. economic profit”, a statistically significant shift towards social welfare as a
decision­making criterion (93% confidence level)
• “Internal vs. external audiences”, a significant shift towards external audiences (90%)
• “Productivity vs. protection of natural environment”, a trend towards protection of the natural
environment (83%)
• Other trade­offs, such as “Stakeholders vs. Shareholders”, “Long­term vs. short­term” and
“economic profits vs. ethics” did not show any significant shift
9.3.2 Impact on Emotions
According to the model of social consciousness proposed in Chapter 7 (Schneider et al. 2005), in
addition to decision­making (cognitive) capacities, a specific set of emotions ­ such as expressions of
care, sympathy, positive effect and ‘moral emotions’ such as guilt and shame – should be enhanced,
in frequency and strength, through mental silence­based meditation coaching programmes. To this
end, participants score a list of 28 emotions (listed in the PANAS standardised scale) on the basis of
the extent to which each emotion has been experienced during the previous 3 weeks.
The key results of T tests for statistical significance of the difference from zero of the pre­post average
variation for the group of managers who went through the meditation­based coaching intervention are
the following:
– Sadness: decreased in a strongly significant, way (99.9%)
– Fatigue (feeling tired): decreased in a strongly significant, way (99.9%)
– Feeling upset: decreased in a strongly significant, way (99.7%)
– Inspiration (feeling inspired): increased significantly (90%)
– Feeling nervous: decreased in a strongly significant, way (99.1%)
– Happiness: increased in a strongly significant way (99.2%)
– Anger: decreased in a strongly significant, way (99.7%)
– Fearlessness (courage): increased in a strongly significant way (98.4%)
– Lack of Authenticity (feeling disguised): decreased significantly (91%)
– Dissatisfaction with self: decreased significantly (90%)
Finally, the overall index for Stress and Anxiety levels (STAI) registered a strongly significant
reduction (97% confidence level), which supports the hypothesized effect of the introspection and
meditation program.
9.3.3 Impact on Personal Values
Finally, we wanted to test for potential shifts caused by the training intervention in the personal values
of managers, despite the fact that both the time horizon (six weeks) and the impact of the intervention
(total 9 contact hours) were very limited for these types of deep personal change processes to occur.
The managers were asked to assess the degree to which a series of 32 statements, such as
gratification of desires, personal wealth, social justice, meaning in life and so on, were considered as
‘guiding principles in my life’.
The key results from this analysis are the following:
RESPONSE: understanding and responding to societal demands on corporate responsibility
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