Opportunity versus Opportunism

(Abstract: The Opportunist practice raises question of Ethics? It is often exercised within the veil of Opportunity.
What if a person, who is opportunist at heart, defends himself saying that he acted so and so to realise the opportunity at hand? This again revolves around differentiating Opportunity to Opportunism. The present report is an earnest attempt to bring light to the differences.)

The Oxfords Concise Dictionary defines Opportunity as a time or set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something, that is a positive connotation

towards advancement towards growth and achievement

In contrast, Opportunism has been defined as the taking of opportunities as and when they arise, regardless of planning or principle a negative connotation Opportunity: The Preamble to The Constitution of India aims to provide EQUALITY of status and of opportunity it entails the basic Human right that individuals can seize opportunity in a world of equals. The Constitution is to safeguards the interests of its citizen in light of equality and unbiased behaviour by advocating Equality of justice to meet selfish ends with a short term horizon

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We are well aware of its various types; here we shall have a look at following two:

Business Opportunity: Great entrepreneurial pursuits have been achieved via people who just did right at the right moment. Look at the Dot. Com Boom of the previous decade. Individuals like Narayan M. and Azim Premji have achieved exemplary feats.

Political Opportunity: A typical case where individuals/parties tries to voice in an attempt to air grievances of suppressed groups of peoples. Typical cases being of Martin L. King fighting for the oppressed Blacks of US under Apartheid.

Opportunism: In the context of human behaviour, Opportunist behaviour is usually frowned upon or derided. Opportunism often viewed as a character deficiency as it often involves disregard for the needs, wishes and interests of others.

There are eight main contexts for Opportunist behaviour: Success: Individuals with a strong desire to succeed say by any means are found more likely to engage in opportunist behaviour. Advantages: Here individual exercises opportunist behaviour as the pay-off in engaging in an act exceeds the gains at not engaging. Power: If a person or group has great power in some context, it is often found that the group exercises it without being challenged, criticized or checked. A fine example is that of US exercising its hegemony at most of the UN decisions.

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Competition: In situations of intense conflict, competition or war, individuals never mind giving way to beliefs, principles and ideals in order to survive, win, retain support, or defend them. A perfect analogy could be a cricketer who doesnt respond to call by his companion for fear of losing wicket as he nears century.

Predicaments: If an individual position is sustainable to bear losses, he is mostly likely to indulge in Opportunistic behaviour.

Resources: Opportunist behaviour may be facilitated if resource distribution is inadequate and suffers from common fallacy. Usually it results in exploitation of assets as proper sanctions are missing.

CASE
Land Reforms in Namibia: Namibia won her Independence in the year 1990. With it the practice of Apartheid came to an end. The country saw a new light towards a new beginning- much of it was to do away with skewed distribution of lands on the basis of races. The resettlement and re-distribution of commercially viable agricultural land was clouded with ethical issues. Adams and Werner 1900:1 speculate that the Land Reforms could develop political ideology. They hint that it opens door to opportunists to exploit the Land reform activities to meet their own self interested means.

Palmer (2000:286) suggests that there are no final solutions to the land reforms in Africa. But it doesnt rule out the possibility of Opportunism.

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Information: Opportunism gets facilitated if there is inadequate information as it paves way for nonmonitoring of actions subsequent in pursuing an opportunity.

Awareness: Opportunism get facilitated when there is low awareness among individuals. Say shopkeeper charging excess amount over and above MRP for products at his/her discretion from individuals who dont know that it is illegal on the part of shopkeeper to do so.

The intentions /motive for which the act has been done should be referred -to understand if it was an opportunistic move, if it failed to align with accepted norms. These accepted norms vary from one culture to other - what may be acceptable in one culture maynt be accepted in the other culture. Opportunism in Context of Professionalism: Professionals like doctors, engineers, chartered accountant can at their discretion charge varying amount from individuals who take their service. The discretion goes further into how the service will be provided which throws question on personal integrity. A measure to keep a tab on such behaviour is to provide guiding norms of acceptable practice.

Intellectual opportunism: Very often we come across cases where a boss has floated on an idea submitted by his/her subordinates in an attempt to get promoted or gain material benefits all of which comes under the purview of Intellectual Opportunism. It is more viewed as a lack of integrity.

Biological Opportunism: An ability of an organism to adjust to varied environmental conditions. Examples: Species that invade host organism and derive nourishment from the host like protozoa.

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Sexual Opportunism: In contrast to sexual activity, wherein a sexual opportunity is merely the means to achieve a quite different purpose, for example to advance one's career, boost status or gain money, Sexual Opportunism entails selfish behaviour that individual undertakes to satisfy sexual desires. It is often viewed as lack of sexual integrity. In an attempt for sexual gratification one seems to override the feelings, interests and norms of others and it appears as if the move was made to make use of or exploit others-a deliberate attempt to exploit sexual innocence. It is often a propensity to engage in casual sex to varied degree, whatever the motive.

Political Opportunism: BJP politicising the Hindutva Ideology in an attempt to capitalise on the emotive reactions of Hindu Public to vote them into power, befits the moment. The party was successful in its bid and has acquired majority and seat at the Centre in the general elections 19981999.

Economic Opportunism: Much of which coincides with entrepreneurial pursuits wherein individuals often get involved at meeting selfish interest to gain economically, without moral restraint.

CASE (Indian Perspective) A look at Indian Context would be highly appreciated. Bombay Dyeing started Go Air, specific business portfolio that was highly contrasting to their main business. It didnt go well.

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The same goes with the Sahara Group, who tried to provide airline services to the higher socioeconomic class. Both the Business Giants took it as an opportunistic move to capitalise the Indian sphere in its initial stages itself.

Here it could be an issue of no proper synergy between the core business and the diversified portfolio.

But it is not important. A brilliant example is ITC who relied on its distribution channel/network long established via paanwaala and achieved turnover of around Rs. 22 billion, a real opportunity to diversify portfolio.

Spiritual Opportunism: Exploitation of peoples belief for personal gains. This is quite prevalent in India, where people are God fearing and this aspect of them get capitalised by Baba who proclaim to hold some spiritual powers. Typical cases being that of Aasaram Bapu and Swami Nityananda who exploits common mens faith and amass wealth.

Legal Opportunism: Manipulating Legal arrangements with self-interested motives to benefit a particular group or individual come under this purview.

THE FALSE CLAIMS ACT- Opportunity permeated with Opportunism During the American Civil War, there came an interesting situation famously known as the False Claims Act. The Act came in view of massive reporting of cases relating to fraud, price gouging and deliveries of defective weapons. Under the False Claims Act, a private citizen acting on behalf of the United States can bring suit against someone who has allegedly defrauded the government, earning a portion of the recovery if
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the suit was successful. The Act offered opportunity to recover losses that deterred unlawful activity in business transactions with the US government but it also acted as a means to be exploited by opportunistic plaintiffs to make money if the suit filed turned out to be successful. The net effect was that it interfered with the federal governments efforts to keep a tab on fraudulent means. We have now realised that there is a thin line that separates Opportunity with Opportunism, in many cases the boundary are permeated.

In a nutshell, more as an analogy it is as if opportunist enters an arena saying : Why cant I too makemoney here? while the opportunity-seeker asks, What makes it right for me to enter this space?

References:
Western England Law Review (VOL 1717 Article 2),1995

The False Claims Act Finding middle Ground Between Opportunity and Opportunism USC Sec3730

Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung ,Namibia Institute for Democracy Who Should Own the Land -Analyses and Views on land reforms and the land question in Namibia and Southern Africa

www.blogpost.com www.taf.org/whyfca.htm

Charles W. L. Hill(1990) "Cooperation, Opportunism and the Invisible Hand: Implications for transaction cost theory", in: Academy of Management Review, Vol. 15 No. 3, 1990, p. 500-513)

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www.oxforddictionaries.com www.indiacode.nic.in Michael Ruse (2008), The Oxford handbook of philosophy of biology. Oxford University Press, p. 199.

www.euthopianreview.com

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