By Lidiane Cunha

The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed public and private organizations to step up and respond to several challenges, from the most local communities to globalized systems. Government officials, organizational leaders, and other multiple stakeholders are acting quickly to bring society back to a “new normal.” But more than simply addressing these issues, “they should reflect deeply and ethically on the tough lessons that will be learned throughout this process,” explains Suhaib Riaz, Associate Professor at the Telfer School of Management.

Challenges

In a virtual special issue that he prepared for the Journal of Business Ethics, Professor Riaz emphasizes the need for in-depth reflection. Organizations are currently addressing the immediate problems and the underlying societal challenges that will endure beyond the current crisis. However, it may not be that easy to heal the scars left by the pandemic in our globally connected socioeconomic, ecological, and production systems. Some of the key challenges facing leaders across sectors include:

• Knowledge uncertainty: As we decide and act on how to return to the “old normal”, the situation can spiral out of control at any moment. There is a lot of uncertainty: what we know about the virus and a potential vaccine is constantly shifting, and how people may comply with imposed or voluntary norms cannot be fully predicted.
• Displacement of place-based communities: The dynamics of the workplace have transformed dramatically due to physical distancing measures imposed on employers and employees. So too have the support systems of the “old normal,” such as neighbourhoods, schools, etc.
• An increase in gender inequality: Women’s lives have been even more disrupted than before. The pandemic has forced them to face more professional and household responsibilities than their male counterparts do.
• Social injustice: The crisis has widened existing social and economic gaps and further marginalized the most vulnerable groups of our society.

Advice for government and organizational leaders

Professor Riaz explains that leaders should not pursue economics without ethics. He stresses the importance of putting the health and well-being of our communities first, and then building our institutions around these two fundamental pillars. Here are a few more recommendations for strong and ethical leadership.

Government and organizational leaders should:

• Build strong partnerships and involve multiple stakeholders as they address these challenges.
• Invite the most vulnerable so they can contribute to the debate and share their experience. The current crisis exacerbates problems for some more than others.
• Leverage their leadership to make decisions, but only after having a system in place to first check the ethics of those decisions.

“Leaders should start building national and global institutions for the long term so they can effectively address the full impact of the crisis and the underlying complex challenges it has exposed,” concludes Professor Riaz.

You can learn more by reading Professor Riaz’s commentary in this virtual special issue.

Suhaib Riaz is an Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management. His research focuses on “grand challenges” of current and future global significance, such as inequality, socioeconomic and political crises, and financialization. Learn more about his research.

By Rania Nasrallah-Massaad

Meet our new faculty member: Ahmed Khalil Ben Ayed

Ahmed Ben Ayed was hired as an Assistant Professor in Marketing at the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa. He completed his PhD at HEC Montreal. We interviewed him to learn more about his research interests in the customer-service provider interaction.

Why did you choose to study Marketing?

I have always wondered what drives people’s behaviors. Why somebody would choose a certain outfit, food, or drink? For example, why specific brands are preferred over others? In my first marketing course I discovered that marketing included concepts like consumer behavior which I found fascinating. 

How did your PhD training inform your current research?

As a junior research assistant, I was constantly challenged to resolve complex theoretical as well as methodological research problems. Through this experience I developed collaborations with established researchers in the fields of marketing, social psychology, and organizational behavior. This experience was invaluable in establishing my research program.

I am currently working on service failure, that is, failed customer-service provider interactions, and how this affects frontline employees. An important question is how do individual differences and situational variables underlying the customer-service agent interaction induce service failure? For example, coping with negative emotions, perceiving a threat to one’s well-being, and other responses that are naturally triggered during human interactions.

How can your research influence the business communities in Canada?

My research has both theoretical and practical contributions to the field of service marketing. On the one hand, integrating psychological and social concepts offers a better understanding of consumer behavior and customer-service provider interactions.  On the other hand, my work can provide innovative strategic and operational insights for managers to lower stress levels and improve frontline employee performance and psychological wellbeing. Ultimately, this will lead to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.

By Rania Nasrallah-Massaad

The need for improved scheduling in outpatient and community settings

Scheduling is a central part of health care services, whether it deals with initial or follow-up visits in an outpatient setting or scheduling regular nurse visits in community care settings. Many variables need to be considered in planning the most effective time-saving and cost-saving approach. Major scheduling challenges lead to long wait-times for millions of patients.  For example, the scheduling of outpatient visits can coincide with the arrival of new patients with competing priorities who need to be factored into the schedule, unavailability of the needed physician to meet medically recommended target times, and many others.

How can the optimal timing and frequency of these visits be ensured? Clearly current scheduling policies will need renewal to deal with issues of increased demand and limited capacity in health care services so that we can offer more patients access to care in a timely manner. Analytics can help health care organizations improve the policies and procedures currently in place that regulate scheduling.

What is the research about?

Professor Jonathan Patrick received a Discovery grant by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council to optimize analytic models for improved scheduling, planning, and decision-making challenges in various health care settings.

Project title: Shared Computing Facility for Optimization and Modeling

Who will gain from this research?

Professor Patrick’s work will help health care organizations improve policies and better manage time and cost allocations by solving complex scheduling and capacity planning problems. Altogether, this work will benefit: 1) the patient by ensuring required services are provided in a timely manner, and 2) the health care system by improving efficiency and reducing cost of services and resources.

Learn more about the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council Discovery Program.

By Rania Nasrallah-Massaad

Meet our new faculty member: Mariam Humayun

Mariam Humayun was hired as an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa. She completed her PhD at Schulich School of Business, York University. We interviewed her to learn more about her research interests in cryptocurrencies.

You recently completed your PhD research looking at the Bitcoin/Blockchain ecosystem in Canada and abroad. Any personal motivation behind your research interests in this area?

I have always been interested in the notion of privacy, consumer resistance, branding, and digital culture. With Bitcoin, what struck me is that it was rooted in notions of privacy (even though Bitcoin is not anonymous). One of the dreams with the early internet was the idea of digital cash and the ability to transact value across borders. Bitcoin’s key innovation, the blockchain, enabled it to become one of the first cryptocurrencies that spurred a devoted community around the globe. Despite initially having a terrible image in mainstream media, it seemed to survive its constant deaths. It has been fascinating to study how a brand like Bitcoin emerged and transformed itself through social and economic factors.

Could you tell us about your study “Satoshi is Dead. Long Live Satoshi: The Curious Case of Bitcoin’s Creator”.

This study focuses on the importance of anonymity in our digital age. Bitcoin’s anonymous founder Satoshi Nakamoto let Bitcoin grow and attract various audiences to its community by being absent as ‘an author’ or creator, allowing Bitcoin to remain decentralized (without any central authority). As such, people talk about feelings of ownership with Bitcoin, they create myths around who Satoshi may or may not be. There is a lot of debate about the notion of the 'death of the author' and this study underscores the idea that the absence of the author can at times help sustain the brand. The author's absence in Satoshi's case leaves a lot of room for mythmaking around Bitcoin.  

How can your research influence the public sector in Canada?

From a general public and policy perspective, it is important to understand how consumers alongside multiple stakeholders have become the main driving forces in helping cryptocurrency ecosystems survive. Currencies have typically been issued by central authorities through state or banks. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have created alternative economies for many, where the role of institutions is being fundamentally challenged. Therefore, it is critical to examine how these various communities emerge and evolve – and at times – fragment and dissolve as well, considering these alternative economies may dominate in the future.