Double standards: Do we give unethical start-ups a free pass?

Mojca Svetek | 29 May 2024

As a society, we tend to believe that young and fast-growing companies (the so-called start-ups) are crucial to economic and societal prosperity. Start-ups are associated with technological and business model innovation; startups are cheered for taking risks that established companies wouldn’t in order to make way for innovation. But what happens when startups violate laws or break moral norms?

This episode explores how people react when startups break norms. Tune in to learn:

Whether people are more forgiving of startups than established companies;
How judgments of right and wrong are formed;
Under what conditions companies can escape condemnation for misbehavior;
How media coverage of startups changed since 2017.

Research articles:

Bandura, A. (2006). Toward a psychology of human agency. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1(2), 164-180.
Gamez-Djokic, M., Kouchaki, M., & Waytz, A. (2022). Virtuous startups: The credentialing power of the startup label. Academy of Management Discoveries, 8(3), 441-458.
Hannafey, F. T. (2003). Entrepreneurship and ethics: A literature review. Journal of Business Ethics, 46, 99-110.
Jensen, K., Byers, T., Dunham, L. & Fjeld, J. (2021, July-August). Entrepreneurs and the Truth. Harvard Business Review, pp.3-9.
Morris, M. W., Menon, T., & Ames, D. R. (2001). Culturally conferred conceptions of agency: A key to social perception of persons, groups, and other actors. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5(2), 169-182.
Weiss-Blatt, N. (2021). The Techlash and Tech Crisis Communication. Emerald Group Publishing.