The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't is a book by Stanford professor Robert I. Sutton.

Famous bosses who Sutton cites as having weakened their position by bad behavior include Al Dunlap and Michael Eisner.

Sutton relays even minor things such as treating someone as invisible and giving nasty stares can accumulate and adversely affect someone's mental health.

He cites the example of the Indiana Hoosiers coach Bob Knight who despite all his achievements was fired for repeatedly losing his temper.

While it is impossible to calculate the exact TCA for an organization, Sutton believes it is instructive for companies to estimate how much assholes are costing them.

Researchers Charlotte Rayner and Loraleigh Keashly have used data based on studies in the UK to calculate a company's TCA.

A senior executive from Silicon Valley has previously calculated the cost of an employee Sutton calls Ethan.

[8] Companies who are listed as having appropriate recruitment policies include Barclays Capital, Google, JetBlue, Men's Wearhouse, and IDEO.

[8][7][10] IDEO offers jobs to candidates who have interned with the company before and have "demonstrated under real working conditions that they aren’t assholes".

A group of Sutton's students did a case study on a security company who said they value "respect for the individual, teamwork, and integrity".

These analysts were top students from prestigious universities and were working at the company for a few years until they returned to school to get their MBAs.

[8] Sutton discusses how to enforce the no asshole rule and gives the Men's Wearhouse and a Fortune 500 company as examples of businesses that have done this successfully.

[8] The Men's Warehouse fired a selfish and difficult employee even though he was one of the company's most successful salespeople, and as a result, the total sale volume in the store increased.

A host of other studies show that psychological abuse and bullying are common in other countries, including Austria, Australia, Canada, Germany, Finland, France, Ireland, and South Africa.

[14] A follow-up book was released in 2017 called The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt.