Sociologists Martha Crowley and Randy Hodson conducted a study of the organisational dysfunction at General Motors. In a climate where people feared job cuts, every layer of management was afraid to report problems upwards, as there were many examples of people who had been fired after raising issues.
Continue reading “Toxic Management”
Women “mentor” and look after their colleagues at work, while men have “sponsors” who help their careers. A 2010 survey by New York think tank the Centre for Talent Innovation found that men are 46% more likely to have sponsors than women.
Continue reading “Women Need Sponsors at Work”
Your Social Science Snack for the week is about using social science to become more aware about mental wellbeing.
Continue reading “How to Improve Your Focus”
This week’s Social Science Quote comes from Sociology Professor Martin Ruef. Ruef has studied why some small businesses succeed while others fail. Looking at historical data, he finds that two variables matter most to business success: social support and diversity. Diversity … Continue reading Social Science Quote of the Week: Diversity
Child psychologist, Tim Murphy, tells USA Today:
Continue reading ““Mental Health is a Separate but Unequal System””“The federal government has set so many barriers to getting care, which they have done with no other type of illness, and it is wrong. There is no other area of medicine where the government is the source of the stigma.”
French researcher Jacqueline Fendt argues that academic research on businesses is not practical enough in its focus. She argues that management education would be improved with a stronger focus on the everyday realities of Executives.
She also advocates using more qualitative research methods and case studies, rather than statistical surveys. This would improve in-depth understanding of how management is actually carried out in the real world. So how do social scientists carry out this type of work? One method we use is called ethnography.
Continue reading “How Social Science Can Improve Executive Relationships”
Continue reading “Learn to Fail, Teach Trust”“In a fear-based, failure-averse culture, people will consciously or unconsciously avoid risk. They will seek instead to repeat something safe that’s been good enough in the past. Their work will be derivative, not innovative. But if you can foster a positive understanding of failure, the opposite will happen…. We must think of the cost of failure as an investment in the future.”
– Ed Catmull, Pixar Co-founder.
Employers are increasingly using social media to screen potential applicants. Sociologist Heather Williams has put together a thoughtful article on the ethics and problems associated.
Continue reading “Ethical Social Media Policies During Recruitment”
Social science studies find that male bosses are more likely to judge the competence of women managers using a skewed view on gender. In practice, this means organisations are missing out on a proactive approach to leadership.
Continue reading “Why Women’s Leadership is a Business Asset”M. Laura Moazedi has written a great summary about a study on diversity and creativity. Laura writes: According to research findings, heterogeneous teams perform more creatively than homogeneous teams. This seems to be particularly true when they engage in perspective taking. … Continue reading Creative Diversity
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