Research & Science

Re-creating Organizational Reputation Using Social Media: Not quite outdated ideas

January 14, 2011

Tweet As much as I love academic writing, conducting studies and developing theories, all of this work shares one acute problem — it takes forever to get from first draft to print. My just-published journal article with Adelaide King took about 8 years from idea to print, while the germinal paper on Organizational Identity & […]

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Measuring Meaningful Differences: College Rankings and Identity

September 16, 2010

Tweet Here’s a mini-exam for you. College ranking systems are: A. A great way to sell magazines and get your publication’s name in the news B. A scam that preys on the social and economic insecurities of educational organizations C. A somewhat-helpful guide to prospective students D. A process that is entirely gamed by the […]

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Are Online Surveys Making Us Stupid?

September 14, 2010

Tweet All over the web I see stupid “surveys” collecting what is almost always meaningless data. The “results” of these “surveys” are then used to influence readers’ perceptions and to steer people towards (or away from) companies and services. What I find frustrating, almost to the point of infuriating, is how most of these surveys […]

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Cognitive Bias Video Song: Why should it be a YouTube Sensation?

April 29, 2010

Tweet I have decided that this Cognitive Bias Video Song video is a YouTube sensation, despite its having only 1,046 hits as of this writing and the subsequent (and temporary) absence of social affirmation of its sensation-ism. This song about Cognitive Bias was made salient to me by Mediation Channel, an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) […]

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Misleading Image for Army: New York Times, PowerPoint and Complexity Fail

April 27, 2010

Tweet Was anyone else annoyed by the use of this image, below, on the front page of today’s New York Times? The image is being used to illustrate an article on “death by Powerpoint“, or the overuse of linear, bullet-pointed presentation methods in today’s information-drenched warfare. I have no quarrel with the reporting in the […]

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Corporate Logo Tattoos: The wrong way to wear the brand

March 31, 2010

Tweet In the domain of “things I just don’t understand about people’s relationship(s) to organizations” is this nagging question: Why would anyone want to brand themselves with a corporate logo? Way back when I began studying organizational identification and employee branding (branding in the metaphorical sense), I heard about an April Fool’s Joke on NPR […]

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Active Lurkers: How Idea Lovecats Demonstrate Engagement

March 18, 2010

Tweet Many of us bloggers look at the disparity between the number of visitors to our blogs and the number of comments on our blogs, and weep shake our heads. Why is the ratio of unique visitors to commenters 683 to 1? Or 389 to 5? Or 200 to 0? What are those other 682, […]

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Organic Discount or Competency Penalty? The real reason organic wines sell for less

March 9, 2010

Tweet Stereotypes about non-profit and for-profit firms explain why organic wine can’t command higher prices. Today’s Freakonomics column picks up on UCLA research reported earlier this week by Matt McDermot at Treehugger.com. The researchers, Magali Delmas and Laura E. Grant, demonstrated that organic wine cannot command as high a price as conventional (non-organic) wine. This […]

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That Special Starbucks: Does the place help the people be authentic?

March 4, 2010

Tweet First it was the Siren. Then it was the Christmas cards. For a while, it’s been the original artwork by their very own baristas displayed on the walls.. And now, my favorite Starbucks is getting bouquets of flowers. On a recent visit, there were two big vases of flowers on the counter by the […]

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Useful research, if you are a gang member

March 1, 2010

Tweet Oh how I love empirical research– the chance to answer burning questions, with real data, so that you can act more effectively. Consider this new tidbit of info that I picked up over the weekend: Full beer bottles break with less force than empty ones, so if you are going to hit someone in […]

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