In the wake of misconduct scandals or gross failures of risk governance, firms are regularly ordered to conduct rigorous post-event investigations with a view to identifying and correcting the root causes of mishap. Post-mortem inquiries tend to focus on gaps in risk management policies or processes. But to develop a real understanding of root causes we must look deeper. The real foundation often lies upstream — amidst the cultural dynamics that shape behavior long before infractions occur or become evident.
In remarks contributed here from The Academy, Harvard Professor Roy Baumeister and Oxford’s Harvey Whitehouse offer essential insight into the drivers of human behavior, drawn from evolutionary psychology and cognitive anthropology. Culture is not incidental to human behavior, they explain, but is its primary organizing force.
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