Although employees do not necessarily make connections for the company’s benefit, we find that companies’ centrality in the employee network positively predicts company value. This effect is largely driven by mid-level employees. Furthermore, company centrality in the employee network predicts company innovation inputs (R&D spending), and controlling for these inputs, predicts the quantity, scientific impact, and economic value of companies’ patented innovation outcomes.
Professor Michael Roberto's Blog
Musings about Leadership, Decision Making, and Competitive Strategy
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
When We Hire, Should We Consider How Well-Connected Candidates Are?
Thursday, April 04, 2024
Be a Loud Listener
I'm looking forward to hearing David Brooks speak at my daughter's graduation from Vanderbilt University next month. Brooks, a writer for the New York Times, has written a new book titled, " How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen. I'm reading the book now, and it has some terrific insights on how we can connect, empathize, and communicate with others more effectively. Brooks appeared recently on Matt Abraham's podcast from Stanford. Brooks introduces a very interesting concept. He describes the value of being a "loud listener" when communicating with others:
Friday, March 29, 2024
Three Voices Every Leader Needs
Fortune's Michal Lev-Ram and Alan Murray recently interviewed Otis Elevator CEO Judy Marks at Deloitte University. Marks offered some great insights to the assembled group of leaders from a variety of companies. In the interview, Marks offered a great comment about the types of voices that a leader needs to hear now and again. She specifically mentioned three voices:
Saturday, March 23, 2024
Eliminate the Bosses? Organizational Transformation or Corporate Fad?
Source: https://www.organimi.com/ |
The Wall Street Journal's Chip Cutter has written about the transformation underway at Bayer, led by its new CEO, Bill Anderson. The article is titled, "One CEO’s Radical Fix for Corporate Troubles: Purge the Bosses." The 160-year-old company has struggled mightily in recent years, particularly after a problematic acquisition of Monsanto. Anderson's transformation plan calls for the establishment of 5,000 to 6,000 self-directed teams, as well as the elimination of many middle management roles. He has taken aim at the pile of rules and regulations that govern employee conduct and decision making, hoping to streamline many processes.
Friday, March 22, 2024
Action vs. State Orientation: Who is More Vulnerable to the Sunk Cost Trap?
Source: The MSLs' Liaison Newsletter |
"Individuals with a strong action orientation are able to devote their cognitive resources to the task at hand, thus enabling them to expediently move from a present goal state to some desired future goal state. These individuals flexibly allocate their attention for the purpose of task execution and goal attainment. Persons who are more action oriented are characterized by enhanced performance efficiency and the ability to complete tasks after minor failures or setbacks."
On the other hand, Diefendorff and his colleagues describe a state orientation as follows:
Alternatively, individuals with more of a state orientation tend to have persistent, ruminative thoughts about alternative goals or affective states, which reduces the cognitive resources available for goal-striving. This reduction of available resources impairs state-oriented individuals' ability to initiate activities and to follow tasks through to completion, especially when the activities are difficult, nonroutine, or both.
How do these contrasting orientations affect our decision making? Are individuals with one of these orientations more vulnerable to certain cognitive biases when making critical choices? Marijke van Putten and his co-authors examined this question with specific focus on the sunk cost trap. In other words, they asked the question: Are individuals with a strong state orientation more susceptible to throwing good money after bad than individuals with a strong action orientation? They posited that state-oriented people would ruminate about past events and dwell on past failure. Consequently, they might try to recoup past losses and escalate commitment to failing courses of action. Action-oriented people would, according to their hypothesis, focus on the future. That forward focus would enable them to cut their losses and de-escalate commitment to an ineffective course of action.
The findings from an experiment confirmed their hypothesis. The sample size was rather small, and more work certainly needs to be done in this area. However, the initial exploratory results are quite intriguing to me. It speaks to a broader set of psychological research suggesting that people's well-being and decision-making abilities may suffer if we them to dwell or ruminate on their emotional state. Encouraging people to shift toward an action orientation may be beneficial.
Monday, March 04, 2024
What are Your REAL Values?
In this article, Maclellan cites Ann Skeet, senior director at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. Skeet says, “When people bring things to your attention, it’s an opportunity to reset expectations and to clarify culture. But if the leadership says that we can continue even when people are surfacing things they feel are inconsistent with the organization’s espoused values, it suggests there is another set of values that are actually being applied.”
Skeet makes an important distinction here between an organization's espoused values and its values-in-use (a concept first articulated by Chris Argyris). The espoused values are those that we find on the placard posted on the wall, or articulated by senior leaders when addressing employees and other stakeholders. The values-in-use are the REAL values as identified by the ACTIONS of the leaders in the organization. When employees perceive a serious disconnect between the espoused values and the values-in-use, then disenchantment and disengagement rise. Some people stay silent in the face of serious problems. Others simply exit the organization. Leaders at all levels need to constantly ask themselves: Are we walking the talk? Are we living up to our espoused values? Or, are employees perceiving us as disingenuous? If so, why has that perception arisen?
Tuesday, February 27, 2024
Does Money Serve as an Effective Motivator for Certain Types of Work, But Not Others?
(Shutterstock.com/retrorocket) |
Does money serve as a more effective motivator for certain types of work, but not others? That is the fundamental question explored by scholars in a recent working paper. Pamela Osborn Popp, Ben Newell, Daniel Bartels, and Todd Gureckis have written a paper titled, "Can Cognitive Discovery Be Incentivized With Money?" They conducted six experiments. In the first five experiments, they asked research subjects to examine a set of items. The participants had to determine how the items might be categorized sensibly into groups and then assign them appropriately. The scholars describe this task as "rule discovery" work. In the sixth experiment, the subjects engaged in "rule implementation" work. In that study, the scholars told the subjects what the categorization process should be, and the participants simply had to apply that criteria.