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Friends & Family agree: Cronyism, Nepotism a Problem

On December 15, 2005 by Jamie Madigan

hr.blr.com recently posted the results of a survey that asked managers if they had been forced to hire someone they didn't want to, and what was the reason? To quote the article, the results were:

  • 34 percent said cronyism
  • 21 percent cited nepotism
  • 15 percent said race, ethnicity, or gender
  • 11 percent reported that the boss liked her for more than her job skills
  • Another 18 percent said other

Yeesh. The article doesn't say how many total people were hired for these reasons --this is just the breakout from a subset of hires where the manager was forced to hire someone he/she didn't want to. But still, interesting to see good old fashioned cronyism up there, along with its relative (har har) nepotism. I think many people can relate to experiences like this, especially in smaller businesses.

It also reminds me of a symposium at this year's Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology conference entitled "Genetic Density as a Predictor of Nepotism in the Family Firm." The researcher actually studied nepotism in family-owned business using some interesting evolutionary psychology methods. Her conclusion: nepotism exists, particularly in family-owned businesses, and it really annoys the people who aren't benefitting from it. Hardly an epiphany, but it's nice to see someone studying it.

The reason for nepotism and cronyism isn't that hard to figure out, though: Managers want to hire people they know --they'll go with the known over the unknown every time unless they know the person is some kind of moron. And even then, better the moron you know than the one you don't.


  Existing comments:

Posted by Bryan at December 16, 2005 10:22 AM:

Reminds me of an article I just read in Governing magazine where the author was essentially defending cronyism (in addition to insulting government workers):

http://www.governing.com/articles/12assess.htm

Posted by Jamie at December 16, 2005 2:21 PM:

Heh. In glacing at that URL I read it as "12asses" at first. Coincidence?


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all this copyright until the sun explodes, jamie madigan