Opportunism Soars in Management Lacking Companies

By definition, opportunism is taking advantage of opportunities when they arise without considering the consequences or morality of the action. Some people choose not to act opportunistically since they have a set of morals and values that guide them throughout their decision-making process. In class, we discussed what it meant to be a “good citizen” and what motivates them to remain level headed in enticing situations. By an enticing situation, I mean one in which they can benefit themselves (increase their utility) by taking advantage of a situation. Furthermore, some people choose not to act opportunistically since they believe that, “good things come to those who wait.” In other words, patience is often rewarded. One concept we did not discuss that could be a reason for not acting opportunistically is whether people believe in karma or not. Karma is the concept of what goes around, come around. So if I steal someone’s bike, in the future something ill-mannered will happen to me. An individual may not take advantage of a situation not because of their morals/values, but because they don’t want that coming back and nipping them in the back.

There have been a few situations that come to mind in which myself or my friends/family chose not to act opportunistically. However, the one that stands out the most is when I was working for a storage company on campus last fall. The overall business model of the company was that students pay a flat rate for us to come and pick up their belongings from their dorm or apartment. We then would load the items into box trucks and then carefully store them in a giant warehouse. This service was mainly used for foreign students who didn’t have the option to take everything home with them when class was not in session (summer/winter break). This is largely due to the steep cost of international shipping along with the luggage limit that comes with flying. However, some domestic students would hire us to store larger items such as fridges, electric wheelchairs, televisions, etc. The structure of management was quite lackadaisical, with two students in charge of scheduling/assigning workers to trucks to complete deliveries or pick-ups. The other role you could receive would be working to organize and store the items in the warehouse. Since I worked the fall season and the bulk of students were just getting back on campus, I mainly was dropping off their items that had been stored over the summer.

To get paid, you had to go onto your phone and clock in through the company application. There was nobody in charge of enforcing/overseeing exactly how long or hard you worked while you were “on the clock”. In fact, there were often coworkers of mine who would clock in and not actually do any work for substantial amounts of time. I never took advantage of the system as I knew it created a large inefficiency from an operational standpoint. It was also my own morals and values that prevented me from taking advantage of the given situation. Furthermore, it directly contradicted the laws of the contract I had signed after getting hired. Looking back this situation from an organizational/economic standpoint, I believe people often chose to disengage in working due to their laziness and inability to connect with the company mission statement which was to provide a top tier service to fellow Illini’s. Also, nobody was overseeing us while we actually dropped the student’s belongings off. Some people I worked with would show little care as to how they treated other people’s things often dropping boxes that were fragile or packing the box trucks too tight that would result in broken items. There was absolutely no empathy or consideration as to what happened to the customer’s items since they personally would not be held responsible. Rather, in the company policy, we pledge to replace any lost or damaged items. This led workers to take on a negligent mindset in how they carried out their duties at work since they were neither under supervision or held liable. I never carried out these acts of opportunism due to the negative externalities that would arise from such behaviors. Not only did it harm the business, but it disregarded the customers who happened to be my fellow peers. Not everyone has the desire to see the bigger picture and ignore acting in their own self-interest. However, just as Professor Arvan mentioned in class, I am also a firm believer in the golden rule and to always put other people’s needs before mine.