Once a workplace turns toxic, you can't just fix it by updating the employee handbook.
The shift from fair competition to sabotage is a 'one-way door' that is easy to enter but hard to exit. Even if the original reason for the sabotage is removed, the environment remains stuck in a cycle of dirty play.
Tipping into Sabotage: Entry, Hysteresis, and Design Boundaries in Contests
SSRN · 6549918
Stable competition can collapse into sabotage almostovernight—and restoring cooperation takes far longer than destroying it.In promotion tournaments, political campaigns, and procurement contests,the transition from clean to dirty play is abrupt rather than gradual, andboth regimes can coexist in the same competitive environment. Sabotageis a corner choice: the decision to initiate destructive effort is binary, sothe onset is a regime switch. The model delivers a computable tippingpoint, pinned