Brain for Business

These days everyone seems to be searching for their passion, safe in the knowledge that ‘Find something you love to do, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life’. Yet how realistic is this? And how realistic is it for people to strive to find their ultimate life calling – if there even is such a thing?To explore the question of callings in greater depth I am delighted to be joined by Professor Kirsten Robertson of Fraser Valley University in Canada.About our guest…Dr. Kirsten Robertson is a Professor of Organizational Behaviour and Human Resources in the School of Business at Fraser Valley University.Kirsten’s research explores the lived experiences of individuals at work, with a particular focus on work meaningfulness, the interface between work and non-work, and workplace relationships with both people and animals. She has published her research in leading management journals, including the Academy of Management Review, Journal of Management Studies, and Journal of Organizational Behavior.The paper discussed in the interview - Living life ‘to the core’: Enacting a calling through configurations of multiple jobs – is open access and is available here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00187267241251956Kirsten’s Google Scholar page can be accessed here: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Piek-GcAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=aoKirsten’s profile page at the University of Fraser Valley is available here: https://www.ufv.ca/business/faculty-and-staff/robertson-kirsten.htm Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The question of diversity is one that we have discussed previously on the Brain for Business podcast. While the benefits of diversity are often taken for granted and assumed in the popular press and discourse, research examining the actual benefits of diversity in terms of team effectiveness and performance have – up until now – been sadly lacking. In a paper to be published shortly in the Journal of Business of Psychology, our guest today, Dr Lukas Wallrich and colleagues seek to address this gap in the literature.About our guest...Dr Lukas Wallrich is a Lecturer in Organisational Psychology at Birkbeck Business School , University of London, where he teaches on organisational psychology master programmes and primarily researches how workforce diversity can be harnessed to improve organisational performance. Other research interests include the effect of intergroup contact on pro-social behaviour, the development of stereotypes and implicit associations and the influence of traditional and new media on public attitudes.Prior to moving into academia, Lukas worked as a consultant with McKinsey and Co.Lukas’s personal website is as follows: https://www.lukaswallrich.coffee/A pre-print copy of the article discussed is available here: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/nscd4The interactive web app with the data from the article can be accessed here: https://lukaswallrich.shinyapps.io/diversity_meta/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over four decades ago the American author and futurist, John Naisbitt, captured the public imagination with his book Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives. Since that time, the concept has been widely adopted by researchers, consultants, private enterprises and governments to explore long-term futures across a diverse range of regions, industries and socioeconomic domains. Yet what are megatrends?  And how can we better understand their significance and impact?To explore this I am delighted to be joined on Brain for Business by Dr Claire Naughtin.Dr Claire Naughtin is a Principal Research Consultant at Data61 – part of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation or CSIRO, an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research. Claire leads Data61’s Digital Futures team and specialises in future-focused, strategic projects and has worked across a diverse range of policy and industry domains, including the future of trade, employment, healthcare and emerging technology and industry development opportunities. Among her most recent work, Claire co-led the delivery of CSIRO’s Our Future World report – a once-in-a-decade report that identified seven emerging megatrends that will shape the next 20 years for Australia. Claire is passionate about bridging the gap between research and the real world and equipping leaders with a data-informed narrative of the future to help guide long-term decision-making. As part of this, Claire delivers strategic foresight training and workshops to help organisations build resilience to uncertain futures and publishes her research in scientific and industry journals. You can find out more about Claire and her work on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-naughtin/The “Our Future World” report can be accessed online: https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/data/Our-Future-WorldFurther information about Data61 and the CSIRO is available here: https://www.csiro.au/en/about/people/business-units/data61 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A recent paper in the journal Leadership Quarterly explores the very nature of leadership styles and how they play out, ultimately asserting that: "the common finding that positive leadership styles lead to positive outcomes […] might be an artifact of conflation rather than a reflection of reality” (p. 1). Yet what are positive leadership styles and why have generations of leadership researchers so badly misinterpreted their impact?Joining me on the Brain for Business podcast to discuss the findings of the paper is one of its co-authors, Professor Thomas Fischer of the University of Geneva. About Thomas FischerThomas Fischer is an Associate Professor at the University of Geneva and is the Yearly Review Editor of The Leadership Quarterly, the premier journal fully dedicated to leadership research. Thomas Fischer’s work focuses on managing people in organizations, and in particular on two topics. First, the conceptualization and measurement of leadership styles. Second, how people talk about their own leadership and whether their practice lives up to what they preach. Details of the articles discussed in the podcast are as follows: Fischer, T., Dietz, J., & Antonakis, J. (2024). A fatal flaw: Positive leadership style research creates causal illusions. The Leadership Quarterly, 101771. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1048984323000978Fischer, T. (2023). Measuring behaviors counterfactually. The Leadership Quarterly, 34(6), 101750. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1048984323000760Fischer, T., & Sitkin, S. B. (2023). Leadership styles: A comprehensive assessment and way forward. Academy of Management Annals, 17(1), 331-372. https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/annals.2020.0340Alvesson, M., & Blom, M. (2022). The hegemonic ambiguity of big concepts in organization studies. Human Relations, 75(1), 58-86. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726720986847 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A recent article in the journal Organization Science argues that“Although prior research attributes news media coverage of firms to the alignment of firm behavior with societal expectations of appropriateness, the appropriateness of firm behavior is judged through an ideological lens. Therefore, the influence of a firm’s behavior on its news media coverage is likely to be contingent on news organizations’ ideology.” The veracity of this statement has seemingly never been more true than in recent years when the news media has become increasingly polarised along ideological grounds and there would at times appear to be a news outlet to support any view, however mainstream or obscure.To explore this further I am delighted be joined by one of the co-authors of the paper, Professor Georg Wernicke of HEC Paris.About our guest…Georg Wernicke is an Associate Professor of Strategy and Business Policy at HEC Paris. Georg’s research is on topics in, and at the intersection of, corporate governance and corporate social responsibility (CSR), broadly defined. More specifically, he is interested in the drivers of public disapproval of firms’ practices, for example the compensation firms pay to their CEOs, how firms’ prosocial activities affect disapproval, and, in turn, which subset of firms and CEOs reacts to being targeted. Georg also analyzes how the characteristics and values of CEOs affect firm level outcomes such as corporate misconduct or the adoption of prosocial practices, as well as how demographic minority status affects labor-market outcomes for directors after occurrences of financial fraud. Furthermore, Georg engages in projects that explore the antecedents of superior firm performance on CSR.The article referenced in the discussion is available here: https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/orsc.2022.17237You can find out more about Georg and his work at his personal page: https://www.georg-wernicke.com/Or on his faculty page at HEC Paris: https://www.hec.edu/en/faculty-research/faculty-directory/faculty-member/WERNICKE-Georg Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Innovation is an inherently risky business. When we push the boundaries of possibility and try to develop new products, processes or services, we are by definition moving into areas that are new and unexplored. A key consequence of this is that innovation sometimes – or even often – results in failure. But why is this? And are all innovation failures the same?To explore this further, I am delighted to be joined by Dr Elena Freisinger who, together with Professor Ian McCarthy of Simon Fraser University, has recently published on just this topic.About our guest…Elena Freisinger is an Assistant Professor of Innovation Management at Ilmenau University of Technology in Thuringia, Germany.Elena’s research focuses on the behavioral aspects of Innovation Management, and she investigates the behavior of innovation decision-makers with regard to technological and environmental change and how this affects innovation management and business models of organizations. The article discussed is open access and can be downloaded from here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166497224000452You can find out more about Elena and her research here:https://www.tu-ilmenau.de/en/universitaet/fakultaeten/fakultaet-wirtschaftswissenschaften-und-medien/profil/institute-und-fachgebiete/fachgebiet-innovationsmanagement/team/elena-freisingerhttps://scholar.google.com/citations?user=N1Qp6bcAAAAJ&hl=de Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over the last number of years, the internet has facilitated much greater connectivity and interaction between people – both on a personal and professional level. Intuitively we might expect that this would lead to an upsurge in innovation as people are exposed to new ideas and can easily collaborate with many more people. And, indeed, this would very much with the recombinant theory of innovation. Yet is that really the case? To explore this further I am delighted to be joined by Professor Lingfei Wu of the University of Pittsburgh.  Lingfei Wu is Assistant Professor of Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh. His research leverages big data, complexity sciences, and AI to understand how science and technology can advance through collaborative teamwork, known as the Science of Team Science and Innovation.His research has been published in prestigious academic journals like Nature and Proceedings of the National Academy of Science and featured in renowned media outlets. Lingfei Wu also advises organizations like Novo Nordisk Fonden and John Templeton Foundation on the use of data science to evaluate teamwork in science. He has received multiple awards for his research and teaching, including the NSF Career Award, Richard King Mellon Award, and Oxford Martin School Fellowship. Lingfei’s personal site is accessible here: http://lingfeiwu.github.io/The paper discussed in the interview is available here: https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2206/2206.01878.pdf Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In many areas of life – both personal and professional – the need to envision potential futures and establish how to get there is crucial. Indeed, some would argue that the ability to envision potential futures is part of what defines us as human beings.  And while there are well established approaches such as scenario planning and forecasting, a recent paper in journal Futures outlines a promising new approach, informed by literature and the great literary works. To discuss this, I am delighted to be joined on the Brain for Business podcast by Professor Rebecca Braun. Professor Rebecca Braun is the Executive Dean of College of Arts, Social Sciences & Celtic Studies at the University of Galway. Prior to joining the University of Galway in 2021, Rebecca was Professor of Modern Languages & Creative Futures at Lancaster University in the UK, where she was also Co-Director of the Institute for Social Futures from 2017-2020. Rebecca held further lectureships and research fellowships at the Universities of Liverpool, Manchester and Oxford in the UK and at the Freie Universität Berlin. The article discussed in the interview is available here –   https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328724000314More information on the Literary Futures approach is available here – https://thenextwavefutures.wordpress.com/2024/03/22/using-literary-futures-to-open-up-the-imagination-methods/Rebecca Braun’s University Page can be access here –   https://www.universityofgalway.ie/our-research/people/languages-literatures-and-cultures/rebeccabraun/The Futures journal can be accessed online – https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/futuresThe Next Wave Futures blog can be subscribed to online –  https://thenextwavefutures.wordpress.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In recent years, Diversity along with Equity and Inclusion have emerged as key elements of organisational and people strategy. It is now essentially a “taken for granted” assumption that DEI initiatives are a good thing and that they in turn play an important role in reducing bias and inequality in the workplace. But is this really the case?To explore this further I am delighted to be joined today by Professor Karin Hellerstedt and Professor Timur Uman, both of Jönköping International Business School in Sweden, who were co-authors with Karl Wennberg of Linkoping University of a recent paper published in Academy of Management Perspectives.About our guests...Karin Hellerstedt is a Senior Associate Professor at Jönköping International Business School.Karin has conducted research on entrepreneurship in knowledge intensive industries, and on how firms and teams are formed and develop over time.She has been involved in several research projects dealing with different aspects of entrepreneurship such as academic, rural and knowledge intensive entrepreneurship. Karin Hellerstedt has written and published several research reports and published in international peer review journals.Her current research centers around ownership transitions and the succession of privately held businesses. Timur Uman is a Professor in Accounting and Control at Jönköping International Business School.Timur’s research deals with corporate governance and management control in stock listed corporation, hybrid and public organizations and new ventures. His work has been published in premier journals in Business Administration such as Corporate Governance: An International Review, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Journal of World Business and Long-Range Planning among others. Prior to joining academia Timur worked in executive positions in Latvian and German companies dealing with financial management and planning.The paper discussed in the interview is available here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4308670 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A recent paper in the Journal of Possibility Studies argues that creativity is an essential skill for effective leadership and that creative leaders can motivate their teams more effectively and can handle novel challenges by being more flexible in going outside the typical routines. Key to this is the important role played by a leaders’ creative identity and the recognitions that leaders can deliberately enact their creative identities in their roles, based on two ways to understand their creativity: as a way of thinking or as a personality type.Just as importantly, however, leaders need to be adaptive in their approach – both to leadership and to the cultures they encourage in the workplace.To discuss this further I am delighted to be joined by Dr Oana Velcu-LaitinenAbout our guest…Dr Oana Velcu-Laitinen is a researcher and consultant who works in the areas of creativity, change, innovation and well-being.Her focus is challenging the habitual thinking of leaders, researchers and other knowledge workers to bring positive change and breakthroughs to their workplaces and domains of knowledge.Oana has a published a number of papers and books, including “How to develop your creative identity at work”, published in October 2022. You can find out more about Oana and her work here:·        https://www.linkedin.com/in/oana-velcu-laitinen-phd-6081084/·        https://www.velcu.fi/The article from the Journal of Possibility Studies discussed in the interview is available here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/27538699231226173 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When it comes to decision making, overconfidence is acknowledged as one of the most common managerial decision making biases. Nonetheless, much uncertainty remains about the implications of CEO overconfidence most particularly in terms of risk taking and ultimately organisational performance. To explore the impact of CEO overconfidence in more detail I am delighted to be joined by Dr Barbara Burkhard and Professor Charlotta Sirén of the Institute for Responsible Innovation at the University of St Gallen, Switzerland.Barbara Burkhard is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Responsible Innovation at the University of St.GallenBarbara’s research is centered on the psychology of top managers and employees. She specializes in researching how the cognition, emotions, and other individual factors influence top managers and employees’ decisions, behaviors, and, consequently, organizational outcomes.Charlotta Sirén is an Associate Professor of Management at the Institute of Responsible Innovation at the University of St.Gallen, SwitzerlandCharlotta’s research focuses on key elements of entrepreneurship including the psychological aspects of entrepreneurship, informal entrepreneurship, responsible innovation and new venture teams.You can find out more about the work of both Barbara and Charlotta on the website of the Institute of Responsible Innovation at the University of St Gallen: https://iri.unisg.ch/The paper discussed – Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained: A Meta-Analysis of CEO Overconfidence, Strategic Risk Taking, and Performance – is open access and is available here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01492063221110203 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Does your organisation get the feedback it needs? In particular, does it get the feedback it needs to improve and to better meet customer or stakeholder needs? Or instead does it just hope for the best and pray that any improvements, changes or innovations somehow meet those needs?To explore the role of feedback and the pivotal role it can play I am delighted to be joined by Professor Henning Piezunka of INSEAD.Key insights:Feedback is vital for organisations and it is vital that they seek it outNot all feedback is equal, organisations need to be clear who is sharing it and how relevant it isPeople giving feedback notice what the organisation responds to and adjust their responses accordinglyThe clearer an organisation’s positioning, the more relevant will be the ideas and feedback received – though this comes with the potential cost of missing out on more unusual ideas that might be importantOrganisations must manage the trade-off between narrowing the feedback criteria to get something that is very focused, versus looking for a broad range of responsesWhen organisations respond to feedback online they are not only responding directly to that person but also to other potential customers who will take note of how the organisation has respondedFeedback is not always objective, but rather reflects performance against expectations – and these expectations can be framed based on the feedback of others About HenningHenning Piezunka is an Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise at INSEAD and is currently a Visiting Professor at Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania. Henning is an award-winning researcher who studies how organisations can tap into the knowledge of their members to foster greater inclusion, innovation and diversity. He has also conducted research into the crowdsourcing of ideas and the wisdom of the crowds. In another stream of research, Henning studies collaboration and competition, such as the factors that escalate competition into dangerous conflict. He has further researched succession in family firms and how people can improve their ability to interact with others by leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI). Through his research, Henning has developed significant expertise across various domains, including start-ups, technology companies, family businesses and a range of sports. He has leveraged data from sports such as Formula One, soccer and chess to shed light on effective management practices. Henning’s work and expert opinions have been featured in leading business media including Time Magazine, The Economist and Harvard Business Review. You can follow Henning on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/henningpiezunka/The paper discussed is available here: https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/amj.2022.0710(Full reference: Park, S., Piezunka, H., & Dahlander, L. (2024). Coevolutionary lock-in in external search. Academy of Management Journal, 67(1), 262-288.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When people consider a new employer they might think about a number of key factors, including location, salary, opportunities for growth and advancement, pension and others.One factor which has emerged in recent years is consideration of a potential employers stance on social issues, most particularly relating to their values. More than this, however, research by our guest today – Professor Moritz Appels – highlights that potential hires also consider a CEO’s sociopolitical activism in evaluating how attractive a new, potential employer might be.About our guest…Moritz Appels is an Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour at the Department of Organisation and Personnel Management, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. He obtained his doctoral degree from the University of Mannheim in 2022.His research illuminates how the behaviour of corporate actors shapes and is shaped by organizational and societal change, with a particular focus on the relationship between strategic leadership, social evaluations, and the broader socio-political environment. A particular focus of his work is the impact of corporate and CEO activism—e.g., speaking out on gun ownership in the U.S.—on stakeholder behaviours. He is likewise involved in understanding the environmental and dispositional antecedents of top managers’ engagement in organisational and societal change.You can find out more about Moritz and his work at these links:https://www.linkedin.com/in/moritz-appels-a0b49a14a/https://www.rsm.nl/people/moritz-appels/https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=qEdUSREAAAAJ&hl=de Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sometimes the challenges facing humanity are beyond the scope or remit of just one person or indeed one organisation. Often termed “grand challenges”, these problems might be bigger, more impactful or simply require greater resources to resolve. Equally, their resolution might need more coordinated efforts and collaboration across a wider range of stakeholders to ensure that they are effectively addressed.  In more recent times, and perhaps fitting with the times we live in, the term “grand innovation challenges” has also been used. To explore this further I am delighted by joined on the Brain for Business podcast by Professor Vera Rocha of Copenhagen Business School. About our guest...Vera Rocha is Associate Professor in Economics and Management of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Copenhagen Business School. Vera’s research is at the intersection of entrepreneurship, strategic human capital, and labor market inequality.Among other questions, Vera has been studying the determinants of career transitions into entrepreneurship, the causes and implications of hiring strategies as firms emerge and mature, how entrepreneurial activity can affect both individual careers and society at large, and how organizations contribute to expand or reduce labor market inequalities. In addition, Vera is Co-Editor-in-Chief at Industry & Innovation and serves in the Editorial Review Board of Strategic Management Journal, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Journal of Business Venturing, and Small Business Economics.You can find out more about Vera’s research here:https://www.cbs.dk/en/research/departments-and-centres/department-of-strategy-and-innovation/staff/vrsi https://www.linkedin.com/in/vera-rocha-24a396136/The special issue of the journal Industry and Innovation which focuses on Grand Innovation Challenges can be accessed here: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ciai20/31/1?nav=tocList Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The psychology of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship is a fascinating area. Let’s face it – it can sometimes seem completely bizarre that someone might leave a possibly well-paid and secure job in order to follow their entrepreneurial dream. Yet this is exactly what some people do, despite all the risks and challenges involved.So what is the “psychology of entrepreneurship”? And what is it that makes entrepreneurs so unique?About our guest…Ute Stephan is Professor of Entrepreneurship at King’s Business School, King’s College London, a Fellow of the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP) and a 21st Century Entrepreneurship Fellow. She serves as Associate Editor at the Journal of Management and at Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. From 2015-2019 she was Editor-in-Chief of Applied Psychology: An International Review and from 2019-2022 Consulting Editor at the Journal of International Business Studies.As an expert on the Psychology of Entrepreneurship, Ute explores how individuals and societies can thrive through entrepreneurship. Ute’s research builds evidence on how contexts (culture and institutions) shape entrepreneurship and well-being, and how entrepreneurship, in turn, can help to build more inclusive societies.You can find out more about Ute’s research here: https://sites.google.com/site/stephanute/home Some relevant articles co-authored by Ute on the psychology of entrepreneurship are as follows:Gorgievski, M. J., & Stephan, U. (2016). Advancing the psychology of entrepreneurship: A review of the psychological literature and an introduction. Applied Psychology, 65(3), 437-468.-      https://publications.aston.ac.uk/id/eprint/28176/1/Advancing_the_psychology_of_entrepreneurship.pdf Gorgievski, M. J., Stephan, U., Laguna, M., & Moriano, J. A. (2018). Predicting entrepreneurial career intentions: Values and the theory of planned behavior. Journal of career assessment, 26(3), 457-475.-      https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1069072717714541 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

While we have previously explored the question of narcissism and the dark triad of personality traits on the Brain for Business podcast, the question of how narcissistic leaders impact on overall organisational performance is something we are yet to consider in great detail. Yet this is exactly what our guests today, Professor Thanos Verousis of Vlerick Business School and Professor Pietro Perotti of the University of Bath, examine in a recent paper co-authored with Shee-Yee Khoo of Bangor Business School and Richard Watermeyer of the University of Bristol. To do this they  examine the narcissism of university vice chancellors in the context of the overall performance of their universities. While this might perhaps seem a little obscure to those outside academia, Vice Chancellors are ultimately the CEOs of large and complex organisations and the transferrable insights are many.Key findings include:The appointment of a highly narcissistic VC leads to an overall deterioration in research and teaching performance and concomitantly league table performanceKey potential mechanisms explaining this include excessive financial risk taking and empire-buildingThe findings are consistent with the view that narcissism is one of the most prominent traits of destructive leadershipThere are practical implications for leadership recruitment and the monitoring of leadership practices in the higher education sector The article discussed - Vice-chancellor narcissism and university performance – can be accessed here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048733323001853 About our guests…Thanos Verousis is a Professor in Sustainable Finance at Vlerick Business School, Associate Editor at the Journal of Futures Markets and the European Journal of Finance. In his research he is particularly interested in understanding behavioural biases and decision-making in finance, especially with respect to departures from the classical rational expectations theory. Thanos also works on Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications in finance, especially in applications involving machine learning and robo-advising.  You can find out more about Thanos’s research here: https://sites.google.com/site/thanosverousis/Pietro Perotti is a Senior Lecturer, or Associate Professor, at the University of Bath. Pietro researches the capital market consequences of accounting information, financial reporting quality and market microstructure. Pietro’s research has been published in a range of leading journals including Journal of Business Finance and Accounting. Research Policy, Journal of Accounting Literature, Journal of Empirical Finance and Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting.You can find out more about Pietro’s research here: https://researchportal.bath.ac.uk/en/persons/pietro-perotti Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Big 5 Model of Personality is perhaps the most consistently reliable model of personality used in research around the world. Focusing on the key elements of conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to experience and extraversion, the Big 5 model has been applied to evaluate personality traits in my contexts including not least leadership. A recent paper – co-authored by our guest today on Brain for Business – Dr Fabian Braesemann – considered the Big 5 traits most commonly found in entrepreneurs and founders, assessing amongst other things what are the personality characteristics of typical of founders and how they contribute to start-up success.About our guest…Dr Fabian Braesemann is a Departmental Research Lecturer in AI & Work at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford.Fabian’s research focuses on the Science of Success. He uses data science methods to quantify the determinants of success in different fields:1. The Science of Success in Business2. Success and the Future of Work, and 3. Quantifying success online and offlineBefore Fabian started to work as a Departmental Research Lecturer at the OII, he worked as a Research Fellow & Data Scientist in the Future of Real Estate Initiative at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and as a Data Scientist at the OII on projects that applied data science to understand human development and labour markets The article co-authored by Fabian is available here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-41980-yThe 2019 Nature article discussed in the podcast (“Quantifying the dynamics of failure across science, startups and security” by Yin et al.) is available here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1903.07562.pdfYou can find out more about Fabian via his Linkedin page (https://www.linkedin.com/in/fabian-braesemann-210645138/_ or else via the OII website (https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/profiles/fabian-braesemann/) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In times of great turmoil and uncertainty radicalisation can emerge as a real challenge. Yet what is it that really drives radicalisation and how can we better support de-radicalisation?Given the events of recent months around the world, we felt it timely to re-issue of Brain for Business Episode 22 of Series 1 which was an interview with internationally recognised expert in radicalisation and de-radicalisation, Robert Örell.Based in Stockholm, Robert Örell is an internationally sought-after trainer, speaker, workshop facilitator and expert in the field of radicalisation, disengagement, and intervention.Robert Örell has two decades of experience in the field of disengagement and exit work and has led Exit programs in Sweden and in the USA.Since 2011, Robert has been a member of the Steering Committee of the European Commission’s Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) and he currently works as an independent expert, consultant, and trainer in the Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism field. His recent work focuses on setting up exit programs, online counseling in exit work, and advising on policy guidelines and recommendations. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In recent years it has become commonplace for organisations of all types to loudly proclaim their values and purpose, and encourage their employees to align and identify with them. Yet what does it mean for people to identify with their employer or organisation? And why does it really matter? Surely it is enough for people to turn up for work, do their job diligently and then get on with their lives?To explore the concept of Organisational Identification further it is an absolute pleasure to be joined on the Brain for Business podcast by Professor Chia-Huei Wu.About Chia-Huei...Chia-Huei Wu is a Professor in Management at King's Business School, London. Chia-Huei’s research in organizational behaviour concerns the person–environment dynamics and has two research streams: Employee Proactivity (i.e., why, when, and how employees can use their proactivity to change and improve the work environment) and Work and Personality Development (i.e., whether and how work experiences shape one’s personality development). Building on these two research streams, he has investigated topics in innovation and voice, leadership, work design, career development, workplace wellbeing, job change, and overqualification.Chia-Huei has published over 100 journal articles and book chapters and his work has appeared in top-tier journals, including the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Personnel Psychology, Human Resource Management, and Human Resource Management Journal, among others.Chia-Huei is the author of the book, Employee proactivity in organizations, a co-author of the book, Work and Personality Change, and the co-editor of the book, Emotion and Proactivity at Work. He has also contributed chapters to a range of other books on these topics. The article discussed in the interview is available here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01492063221140049More information about Chia-Huei's research is available through either of these sites:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chia-huei-wu-b7b3b21b/Google: https://sites.google.com/view/cwu-proactivepsy/c-wu Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The question of psychopathy and psychopaths in the workplace is something that we have discussed before on the Brain for Business podcast. Yet it remains a fascinating and worthwhile topic, most particularly when considered in terms of power and leadership outcomes.To explore this further I am delighted to be joined by Dr Iris Kranefeld where we discuss a recent paper published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.Key highlights include:Position power acts as a trait-relevant cue for psychopathy in leaders.When power is high, psychopathic meanness negatively relates to team performance.Under high power, team performance mediates the relation of meanness and effectiveness.The article discussed in the podcast is available here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886922004214About IrisIris is a graduate of University of Bonn from where she has a PhD in work and organisational psychology. Since July 2023, Iris has been a senior consultant with the Cologne Institute for Management Consulting / Kölner Institut für Managementberatung in Germany. A key focus of Iris’ research is the “dark triad” of personality traits, most particularly psychopathy and how it plays out in the workplace.You can find out more about Iris’ work at these sites:Researchgate - https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Iris-Kranefeld-2LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/iris-kranefeld/?locale=en_USCologne Institute of Management Consulting - https://www.ki-management.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.