Firms Have Ethical Obligations to Flexible Work Arrangement Employees, Says University of Richmond MBA Student Author

January 30, 2006

University of Richmond MBA candidate Will Robinson had an unusual accomplishment this past summer. He was the sole-author of an article on flexible work arrangements published in Business and Society Review, a peer-reviewed academic journal, a very rare occurrence for a graduate business student.

Even more unusual, his article, titled “Ethical Considerations in Flexible Work Arrangements” was reviewed in The Economist. Robinson’s article, which ran in the summer 2005 issue, was based on a project he had done in his MBA ethics class in 2004.

His full-time job is as a consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton. Since 2003 he has had a flexible work arrangement with the firm, and it is on that experience that he bases his article.

Robinson argues that firms have an ethical obligation to insure that employees under flexible work arrangements should be given the same level of support and the same opportunities for advancement that their traditional office-working colleagues enjoy.

While Robinson received that support at Booz Allen Hamilton, a firm he sees as being committed to values, problems can occur, he says, when FWA employees are not valued, supported and promoted.

“When employees do not receive adequate support,” Robinson says, “they often are perceived as less valuable on collaborative efforts by their peers and may not be considered candidates for promotion by their superiors.”