I’m pretty cynical about “Leadership”. A such, I enjoyed Jeffrey Pfeffer’s attack on the Leadership industry. He suggests that the leadership industry is built on un-researched platitudes. What is more every retired leader who writes a book doesn’t necessarily tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So is the leadership industry just nonsense? Testing…
What Metrics Do Managers Use?
Mintz and Currim examined what metrics do managers use? What drives metric use? And how does this tracks to performance? These are fascinating questions. The paper has two aims I’d say. Firstly, academics will be interested in the model that the authors use to try and tease out the “why” behind the metrics. Secondly, managers might…
What Are Marketing Doctoral Programs Like?
A key question for marketing academics concerns the nature of doctoral programs. As such I highly value academic service papers like Elbeck and Vander Schee (2013). They undertook an in-depth look at what is happening in marketing PhD programs. So what are marketing doctoral programs like? Consumer Behavior Is On Top Firstly, they confirmed the dominance of consumer…
Improving Forecasting
Philip Tetlock’s book on expert political judgment was a classic. That said, he clearly thinks that the message taken from that book was too strong. Previously he suggested that experts just aren’t that good at forecasting. He still retains that theme in his new work — but now he is more interested in improving forecasting. Improving Forecasting…
What American Football Can Tell Us About Management
One problem in studying managerial behavior is that firms aren’t very open about their failures. Still, a scholar trying to show that managers make mistakes won’t have many volunteers to serve as examples. This can, therefore, leave the perception that most organizations run smoothly. This has always seemed improbable to me. I’ve worked in several fields. I’ve encountered numerous committed, hardworking people…
When Is Too Much Success A Bad Thing?
Social Psychology, and the related field of Consumer Behaviour, relies on laboratory experiments. This has great benefits. Lab experiments give the flexibility to investigate causation and test interesting ideas. They have been very successful. When is too much success a bad thing? Lab Experimentation Given the benefits of lab experiments Consumer Behavior scholars doing experimental work have come to dominate marketing. I’d…
Explaining Omitted Variable Bias
Charles Whelan’s Naked Statistics is an enjoyable and informative read. He does a very good job of simplifying statistics. He explains what statistical methods can do but also the problems that people get into using statistics. Here I’ll focus on him explaining Omitted Variable Bias. Whelan tackles this problem very clearly. Explaining Omitted Variable Bias Omitted variable bias sounds like…
Who Doesn’t Want Nudges And Competent Government?
The idea of nudging, structuring decisions to encourage people to make good choices, is surprisingly controversial. An example of a nudge might be to encourage those who are qualified to take up a social benefit or to get a tax break to do so. The nudge might be as simple as creating an easy to use application…
Canadian Voting Behavior
Canada votes in a general election on Monday. It seems a good time to consider what drives voter choice. What do we know of Canadian Voting Behavior? What Drives Canadian Voting Behavior? There are multiple explanations and most have at least some support. One popular theory is that people vote for the leaders of parties….
What Use Is An Evolutionary Definition of Rationality?
Eyal Winter’s book, Feeling Smart, is interesting but frustrating. There is much good content. Indeed, some of the stories are great. My biggest problem was the casual use of concepts. This was exemplified by the central idea of his book. He said that feelings/emotions can help you make smart decisions. I totally agree but the big problem was…
