Nepotism in Organizations

1

Defining a Psychology of Nepotism

Robert G. Jones

Missouri State University

There is an irony to one of the ultimate scenes in the movie Good Night, and Good Luck (Clooney, 2005), in which Jeff Daniels, playing a character similar to CBS executive Frank Stanton, has a candid, private conversation with two members of the CBS news team. The two are a closeted couple who have been hiding their marital relationship in the interest of preserving their jobs in an organization (CBS) with an anti-nepotism policy. Stanton was an industrial–organizational (I–O) psychologist, and this scene was based on true events from the 1950s McCarthy era. Here’s the irony: Although I–O psychologists like Stanton have been dealing with the issue of nepotism in practice ...