While the power of collaboration and teamwork is well-documented, the potential dark side of collaboration — for example, the same people in an organization being over-burdened by requests from others because they’ve acquired a reputation as collaborators — is ignored. A team of researchers warn of the dangers of ‘collaborative overload.’
A new study shows that adding gaming elements to the performance feedback process can increase employee effort, especially when extrinsic motivation is low and internal task motivation is high.
A recent study confirms that consumers’ desire for control over their lives can act as a psychological barrier to the acceptance of new or innovative products. However, framing a new product as increasing consumer control can eliminate this barrier.
Can leaders be too smart? A recent study offers a surprising answer: up to a certain point, the smarter you are, the more effective you are as a leader. But being too smart can actually reduce how effective you are perceived— in large part because you lose touch with your subordinates.
New research reveals that buyers of hedonistic, luxurious products often feel guilty about their indulgent purchase — but that bundling even a small utilitarian feature with the product can assuage this guilt and make consumers more likely to buy and increase willingness to pay.
Our brains prefer to think in straight lines: if one bag of oranges costs $5, then two bags cost $10 and three cost $15. However, this bias toward linear thinking often traps unwary business decision-makers who fail to recognize the non-linear relationships they are dealing with (e.g. increasing retention rates from 10% to 30% or from 60% to 80% does not have an equal 20% impact on customer lifetime value).
Organizations find that knowledge often gets ‘stuck’ within the different professional cliques. In a health care setting, for example, nurses talk to nurses and doctors talk to doctors, and knowledge has difficulty passing between these two professions. However, all organizations have individuals who can act information ‘brokers’, bridging the gap between the professions.
Friendships in the workplace lay the foundation for collaboration and learning. Friendship cliques, however, can also produce fissures that only people with personalities of the diplomats in the organization can span.
Leadership success is built not only on the competencies of the leader but also the perceptions of followers. Conceptualizing perceptions as attitudes unveils a more nuanced and complete explanation of leadership success (and failure).
Research shows that the existence of a generation of ‘digital natives’ and the ability of this generation to multi-task are in fact two harmful myths — myths that lead to erroneous assumptions about learning and work efficiency.
A new study shows that the appearance of self-confidence resulting from high performance gives men greater influence in their organizations. The same is not true for women, who in addition to appearing self-confident must also demonstrate active concern and support for others.
Despite its negative connotation, office politics is a fact of workplace life. Successful people are politically savvy but also driven by integrity and authenticity. Vlerick Business School offers a guidebook for navigating the landscape of office politics without losing that authenticity.
Controlled laboratory experiments yield evidence that air quality in conventional offices will impact our cognitive abilities, compared to the quality in ‘green’ offices and buildings.
In addition to confirming that the quality of relationships between leader and subordinates impacts performance, a new meta-analysis of the research also identifies why these relationships have such an impact: because they affect the role clarity, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, motivation, empowerment and most importantly, trust.
For businesses frustrated by algorithm aversion — the tendency of people to reject forecasts based on algorithms and statistical models in favour of less dependable human judgement — there is hope: a new study shows that people will choose to use algorithms if they can modify them, even slightly.
Cell phones are distracting, pulling our attention away from our current tasks and activities. New research reveals that the mere presence of the phones, even when they are turned off and we are consciously focusing our attention on another task, is enough to reduce our thinking capacity.
Recalling a past experience of power does not always have the intended effect of making people feel more powerful. A new study indicates that the effort required to recall the power episode may be the reason this technique can fail.
A new quantitative study proves the advantage that employers give to candidates from a higher social class. For high-class women, however, this advantage is negated by employers’ perception that they are less committed to a career.
Flat information structures — in which information is not separated out into categories — is more conducive to creativity because they encourage combining information from different categories.
Transformational leaders can pick up on cues from a group that convey its emotions — a skill that is beyond the individual-based emotional intelligence.656
Psychological bricolage enables people to combine knowledge from their different social identities to enhance their creativity and find innovative solutions.
Recognizing the limits of positional power, the best leaders master the four branches of emotional intelligence — perceiving, using, understanding and managing emotions — to inspire and engage their followers.
People are more open to messages that fit their motivational impulses, such as the tendency to avoid risk or the desire to achieve stretch goals. New research reveals that this rule of thumb does not apply to times of crises, when, no matter your usual motivational tendencies, positive goal-oriented messages prevail.
Three generations of young professionals and emerging workers — Gen X reaching the higher levels, Gen Y bringing their focus on purpose and cause, and Gen Z just breaking in — create both challenges and opportunities for the 21st century workplace.
The current epidemic of lack of sleep in today’s society is not only unhealthy and unproductive for the individual, but has a real economic impact at national levels.
Corporate psychopaths destroy morale, cause the best employees to flee and even commit whole-scale fraud, yet often use blatant lies and cheating to fool their bosses into believing they are valuable assets.
In order to maintain their poise, interactive service employees often have to squelch their impulses when dealing with emotionally filled interactions. The stress created by the need to ‘surface act’ can be significantly mitigated through the practice of mindfulness.
Media multitasking hurts productivity, but it is also a self-reinforcing habit that makes people feel better: students find studying with the TV on more fun and emotionally satisfying, for example. These habitual and emotional gratifications explain why media multitasking is an ongoing problem making its way into the workplace.
Does variety in activities make us happy? New research shows that time makes the difference. Variety is welcomed over the course of a day or for longer periods, when we’re trying to stay stimulated; however, it’s unwelcomed within short periods such as an hour, when multiple activities feel unproductive.
To avoid stress and anxiety, people who have multiple social identities (e.g. lawyer, father, environmentalist, southerner, etc.) must manage conflicting behaviour, norms and values that arise from their disparate identities.
