Kyla Scanlon has a book explaining the economy. There are some nice parts, and some things I wasn’t too sure about. (At least one graph seemed really odd as did a couple of comments but, being a popular book, the references were a bit too limited to check properly). Mostly she does a good job…
Author: neilbendle
Neil is an Associate Professor Marketing at the Terry College of Business, University of Georgia. He investigates the measurement of marketing performance, the accounting/marketing interface, and the impact of non-standard decision making in commercial and political markets.
Neil is the Chair of the Marketing Accountability Standards Board advisors. He is co-author of Marketing Metrics: The Manager’s Guide to Measuring Marketing Performance (3rd edition) Wharton School Press and is co-author of a cartoon book: Behavioural Economics for Kids.
Do Computers Distract Us? Of Course They Do
One of the challenges with university teaching in the 21st century is that the students all have laptops and phones. Laptops, especially, can be invaluable tools for study. Yet, they can also be major distractions. Try and have a discussion when students have their laptops up. It often is pretty disheartening. Occasionally students will tell…
Improving Management In Politics
In a democracy every few years a new bunch of people get to run the country. The advantages in bringing fresh ideas, fighting corruption, and truly representing the diverse views of people are clear and compelling. (Those of us who live in democracies should be grateful). That said, a challenge occurs that people who weren’t…
Considering Stakeholder Psychology
An important book in the world of sustainable business is Leveraging Corporate Responsibility by CB Bhattacharya, Sankar Sen, and Daniel Korschun. It was published in 2011, so things have moved on, not least the terminology. In 2025 they might well have decided to use the term sustainable business rather than corporate responsibility. Still, their basic…
Is Devolving Or Centralizing Power Better?
Is devolving or centralizing power better? This is a central question at the heart of Marc Dunkelman’s book, Why Nothing Works. Dunkelman worries that those people in the US who believe in the power of government to make the world better, basically the center and left, have set the rules to prevent themselves from achieving…
Academics Can Be Biased Too
Academics are human beings. Pick a human flaw and they have it. Of course, human beings are better at seeing the flaws in arguments that they don’t approve of than those they nod along to. This holds for academics. After all academics can be biased too. Allen Mendenhall and Daniel Stutter, two senior scholars one…
Do Americans Believe In Climate Change?
Today I’ll look at some data from the Pew Research Center. Pew is a wonderful resource for understanding public attitudes. They even make a lot of their data available for additional research. It is a center I admire. One of the things they do investigate is the US public’s views of science, including what they…
Greenhushing Is A Big Problem
The Economist recently highlighted the phenomenon of greenhushing. This is when firms keep quiet about their genuine sustainability achievements. This is the opposite of greenwashing — which is when firms trumpet dubious claims to sustainability. At first glance greenhushing doesn’t really seem to be a big problem. After all the firm is doing the good…
Polarization And Brand Preference
For pretty understandable reasons people worry about political polarization in the world. The US seems to be a classic example of this. It is easy to see strong tensions between people with radically different views. Given this, it makes sense that marketing researchers have studied the topic of political polarization and brand preference. How does…
Can Virtuous Capitalism Be Sustained?
Can virtuous capitalism be sustained? That is one of the questions that motivated James O’Toole and David Vogel in their discussion of the conscious capitalism. They are mostly positive — but being academics they have to have some reservations. New Lanark And The Challenge of Sustaining Virtuous Capitalism The authors discuss Robert Owen. Two hundred…
