On Virtue-Positive Operations

As usual, a disclaimer: there is probably plenty of research in this area that I am completely ignorant of. This is literally a random idea I had 2.5 hours ago while walking along the river. Yes, the .5 is there for pedantic purposes. 

As I write this blog, Lyft has already gone public, and Uber is looking to file its IPO in the near future. Uber (and to some extent Lyft) has been criticized for a variety of its actions towards workers and riders over the last five years. Some of those include overly high surge pricing, lack of clarity for riders on who is/is not a driver and their qualifications, lack of consistent wage for drivers (or rapid revisions downward), lack of benefits, lack of unions, lack of background checks and/or clearances, and poor tip options. Note that not all of these are ongoing problems, and some I don’t consider to be problems, but wanted to provide comprehensive list. I’ll refer to these as “virtue-negative” aspects of their operations.

Now suppose that in an Operations Management classroom, I suggest that their operations should be more “virtue-positive.” In other words, Uber and/or Lyft should spend more money in order to add more virtue to their operations. Or, if the amount of value is great enough in potential virtue, another competitor should be able to step in and add market share by providing the virtue-positive aspects that Uber and/or Lyft lack. If I suggest, for example, that data analytics that avoid using potentially biased demographic details (or proxies such as zip codes) are more virtuous, I should also be able to somewhat state the cost of said virtue, or the change to outcome quality. And finally, human resources that more consistently (less consistently) hire a more diverse segment of employees would be another example of virtue positive (virtue negative) operations.

Note that virtue-positive operations could incorporate a wide range of behaviors considered virtuous to somewhat major groups with well-defined value systems (e.g., sustainable, cruelty-free, diverse, kosher, Sharia-approved, Christian, etc.). I’m intentionally being generic. 

Here’s the difficulty for me. It would be great to point to research in the following three areas:

1. What is the added value of virtue-added operations? Is it financial, non-financial, or both?
2. What additional cost has to be paid to deal with structural factors that oppose virtue-added operations? (E.g., an entrepreneur who hires all the talented, underemployed women in Silicon Valley still might not create a world-beating company due to issues in obtaining venture capital from traditional sources, etc.).
3. If virtue-added operations cannot pay for themselves (e.g., Uber/Lyft might be absolutely justified in opposing unions from profit perspective), what additional price would the public be willing to pay for virtue-added operations?

If you’re aware of either great case studies that look at more than one of these questions at a time (Interfaces, perhaps?), please do let me know. What I’d find particularly interesting is a book dedicated to Virtue-Positive Operations incorporating a wide range of sources and virtues.