The main economic tie to this prompt seems to be the idea of opportunism vs. some sort of moral decision. Humans behave opportunistically when there is something of high value to be gained. Other factors that are considered when acting opportunistically are risks, future possibilities, changes, etc. Opportunism is all over the place, but a lot of examples occur in the workplace. The article about Target and their idea to funnel pregnant women into Target stores during pregnancy is one way of taking advantage of managerial opportunism. Companies are provided with a wide variety of information about the customers, and it is up to the corporate workers to figure out a formula to get more customers in their stores. While it is a pretty smart strategy to target pregnant women, in hopes of gaining lifetime relations with the family, I think it is a little bit shady to be analyzing personal information like that. Privacy is a huge part of America, we have the right to our own private life, and no one should be able to access all of the information discussed in the Target article. This is where the "good citizen" side of the story comes into play.
How these corporations obtain all of this information about their customers is beyond me, but just the idea of targeting pregnant women for the benefit of making more money for your company sounds a bit out of line to me. A pregnant woman does not want to come out of labor and be bombarded with flyer after flyer about where she should shop, or who is giving the best specials to her, she wants to be with her new born child, and all of the outside pressure is not necessary. This is where a corporate worker who looks into these statistics and comes up with these plans to reel in customers has to weigh his/her options. Do I go through with pressuring the pregnant women of our country into shopping in our stores? Or do I be the good citizen, and miss out on a big bump in revenue for my company, and possibly a raise from my current position to something a bit more prestigious? Big businesses survive on making the opportunistic decision over and over again. Any advantage one company can get over its competition is something that will not only reward the company, but the individual as well.
An example where cooperation led to sharing in a personal academic experience usually has to do with some sort of a group situation. In classes where group projects or group presentations are required, there is often times cooperation amongst the group. There is usually a leader who offers up opinions and such, and once he/she begins feeding the group with information, the group begins to reciprocate and share information as well. An example that I can think of where there was opportunism involved with sharing in an academic setting was when I had missed a couple of classes, and therefore missed out on some notes, so I decided to ask someone in my group for their notes to copy. The opportunism comes into play because by obtaining these notes, I was bettering my chances of receiving a higher score on my test. The student that I asked knew 100% that the test was curved, and so by giving me the notes, she could have possibly hurt her overall grade had I done very good on the test and set a high curve. However, because we had been cooperating in a group, and sharing information with one another all semester, she decided to be a "good citizen," and she gave me her notes.
With opportunism comes risk and reward, and ultimately the decision that one comes to depends on which of the two weighs more in the end.
First, a word that gender matters here in how you see the situation. Until I was dating my not yet then wife, I never experienced shopping as entertainment, though growing up in New York City, window shopping in Manhattan was a well known tourist attraction. Twenty plus years later, we get a ton of catalogs in the mail. None are for me! I get no satisfaction from them, but my wife does. I don't think she sees it as the stores pressuring her.
ReplyDeleteMode also matters here. Catalogs are fine. Phone solicitations are not.
It is easy for the stores to know about your purchase history by correlating it with your credit card number. They also have address information and perhaps other bio data. If they use that to market in a non-intrusive way, some may not see it as opportunism, just a smart way to do business. But I agree there may be a line which if crossed does show opportunism.
By the way, I wouldn't say being friendly or decent to a person is the same as being moral. The example you gave with the girl giving you the notes didn't have a right or wrong, in a moral sense, at least as far as I could tell.
Your stance on habit analysis and privacy echoes the comment I made in ECON 490 ZS's post. Your cooperation and sharing example was also similar to my post, albeit yours mentioned more on potential inhibitors to sharing. The fact that she decided to share with you in the end based on your previous instances of cooperation seems like a case where direct and inadvertent communication helped the girl view you in a more positive light, which prompted a willingness to share.
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