The Management Lab

Employee voice refers to the ways in which employees communicate their opinions and suggestions to their managers on how to improve their organization.

Conversely, employee silence occurs when employees withhold their views due to fear of negative consequences or a belief that their opinions are not valued.

Understanding these dynamics is critical for managers because encouraging employee voice can lead to better organizational outcomes, such as higher performance, innovation, and employee retention. On the other hand, addressing the reasons behind employee silence can prevent potential issues from escalating and improve the overall workplace environment.

In this episode, we delve into the research on employee voice and silence and address some of its main questions:

What are the primary drivers of voice and silence?

What are the effects of voice and silence behavior on individual employees and organizations?

What can organizational leaders do to encourage voice and decrease silence behavior?

How can we design organizational structures and processes to encourage voice and decrease silence behavior?

Do men and women differ in their propensity for voice/silence behavior?

In our rapidly-evolving, digitally-dominated world, many of us seek meaning, purpose, and a deeper connection to our inner self. This quest is not confined to our personal lives; it extends to our professional environments as well.

Spirituality, therefore, is emerging as a vital component for organizational success and employee well-being.

In this episode, Sean and Uri discuss spirituality in the workplace and unpack why spiritual practices and principles are no longer just personal pursuits but essential organizational strategies.

Some of the topics covered include:

What is spirituality and how it relates to religious beliefs.

The difference between personal and organizational spirituality.

How spirituality in the workplace can positively affect employees’ cognition, emotion, and behavior, ultimately driving organizational performance.

The potential of promoting mindful practices to enhance employee empathy, leadership skills, and resilience.

In our discussion, we draw on the following research:

Anderson & Burchell (2021) The effects of spirituality and moral intensity on ethical business decisions: A Cross-Sectional Study. Journal of Business Ethics.

Good et al (2016) Contemplating Mindfulness at Work: An Integrative Review. Journal of Management

Harris (2014) Waking up: A guide to spirituality without religion.

Kolodinsky et al (2008) Workplace Values and Outcomes - Exploring Personal, Organizational, and Interactive Workplace Spirituality. Journal of Business Ethics.

Pourmola et al (2019) Investigating the impact of organizational spirituality on human resources productivity. Management Science Letters.

The explosion of generative AI in the past year has engendered plenty of emotional responses across the globe. Not surprisingly, the interaction of emotions and AI is a critical facet of our adaptation to this technology.

In this episode, we discuss the intersection between AI and human emotions, how AI can recognize and respond to emotion in users, and how human emotions can be leveraged to increase the use of AI.

Specific question we tackle include:

What makes emotional artificial intelligence distinctive from other emerging AI technologies?

To what degree can cultural and contextual factors be accounted for by emotional artificial intelligence?

What do people perceive to be the benefits and challenges of emotional artificial intelligence?

What issues does the use of EAI pose for personal privacy and autonomy?

Can AI devices function as a viable replacement for human companionship?

Over the past decade, businesses have made a concerted effort to improve their monitoring, analysis, and reporting of a wide range of non-monetary societal impacts collectively grouped under the label of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors.

Driven largely by the investment community, the ESG framework seeks to capture diverse, traditionally-overlooked aspects of organizational performance. In this episode of The Management Lab, we explore this emergent concept with key insights from some of the latest research on the topic. Specific topics discussed include:

What organizational activities fall under the ESG rubric?

How does ESG differ from the earlier movement of corporate social responsibilities (CSR)?

What does the evidence suggest regarding ESG efforts’ impacts on a firm’s overall performance?

How much do investors really care about the ESG activities of a firm?

Do current measures of ESG performance really get at meaningful impacts on society?

Give it a listen and see what you make of the ESG phenomenon. Are you a true believer, a persistent skeptic, or somewhere in between?

Along with most other aspects of our business environment, the domain of human resource management is being fundamentally reshaped through the application of advanced data analytics. People analytics is a class of technology tools aimed at promoting evidence-based practices in organizations and allowing managers to make objective and rational decisions about their workforce. In this episode of The Management Lab, we explore the promise and perils of people analytics, and discuss these topics:

The assumptions that underlie the vision of people analytics.

What is people analytics good for and what applications may reflect an overreach of the technology?

The key drivers and impediments for effective implementation and use of people analytics in organizations.

The interaction of organizational culture and people analytics effectiveness.

The potential for the reinforcement of biases in the use of people analytics

Have a listen and see what you make of this emergent class of technology resources.

We're diving into the transformative role of generative AI in the workplace and examine if and how it impacts business productivity.

Some of the questions we explore are: Should managers be unleashing the power of generative AI on everything in sight, or should they take a more measured approach? Does ChatGPT merely augment human capabilities or is destined to replace us? Is there still a role for human intuition in the AI era? And, can Sean do mental math?

 

In our discussion, we draw on the following studies:

Brynjolfsson, E., Li, D., & Raymond, L.R. (2023). Generative AI at work (Working Paper 31161). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Damioli, G., Van Roy, V., & Vertesy, D. (2021). The impact of artificial intelligence on labor productivity. Eurasian Business Review, 11, 1–25.

Deranty, J.-P., & Corbin, T. (2022). Artificial Intelligence and work: A critical review of recent research from the social sciences. AI & SOCIETY, 1–17.

Enholm, I.M., Papagiannidis, E., Mikalef, P., & Krogstie, J. (2022). Artificial intelligence and business value: A literature review. Information Systems Frontiers, 24(5), 1709–1734.

Fügener, A., Grahl, J., Gupta, A., & Ketter, W. (2022). Cognitive challenges in Human–Artificial Intelligence Collaboration: Investigating the path toward productive delegation. Information Systems Research, 33(2), 678–696.

Jarrahi, M.H. (2018). Artificial intelligence and the future of work: Human-AI symbiosis in organizational decision making. Business Horizons, 61(4), 577–586.

Noy, S., & Zhang, W. (2023). Experimental evidence on the productivity effects of generative artificial intelligence. SSRN. https://ssrn.com/abstract=4375283

Ransbotham, S., Khodabandeh, S., Kiron, D., Candelon, F., Chu, M., & LaFountain, B. (2020). Expanding AI’s impact with organizational learning. MIS Sloan Management Review – Research Report.

We finally break the seal on a discussion of generative artificial intelligence (AI). Since the launch of ChatGPT at the end of 2022, the potential of generative AI for good and for ill has dominated technology speculation across the globe. In this episode, we explore several of the ethical dimensions of generative AI (while conceding that such dimensions are almost unlimited).

Specific topics discussed include:

The evidence of political bias in generative AI systems

The inconsistent moral argumentation of generative AI systems

Can generative AI take the place of human actors in cognitive science research (and would we want it to)?

Is the potential for personalized persuasion via generative AI a boon for the field of marketing or a dangerous path toward societal thought control?

Is there such a thing as a non-Irish Limerick?

 

Research discussed includes the following studies:

Dillion, D., Tandon, N., Gu, Y., & Gray, K. (2023). Can AI language models replace human participants? Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

Krügel, S., Ostermaier, A., & Uhl, M. (2023). ChatGPT’s inconsistent moral advice influences users’ judgment. Scientific Reports, 13(1), 1–5.

Matz, S., Teeny, J., Vaid, S. S., Harari, G. M., & Cerf, M. (2023). The Potential of Generative AI for Personalized Persuasion at Scale. PsyArXiv; PsyArXiv.

McGee, R. W. (2023). Is ChatGPT biased against conservatives? An empirical study. SSRN.

Rozado, D. (2023). The Political Biases of ChatGPT. Social Sciences, 12(3), 148.

CEOs are central figures in organizations, standing at the helm of large corporations and wielding the power to create substantial wealth. Their influence is imprinted not just on their employees and shareholders, but also on society at large. They create jobs, foster innovation, and drive the engine of our economy.

On the other hand, some CEOs prioritize short-term financial gains over long-term corporate health, employee welfare, and societal benefits. CEOs’ power can lead to unchecked decision-making, risking not only company assets but also affecting the lives of employees and stakeholders.

In this episode, we explore the degree to which CEOs actually influence the performance of the organizations that they lead.

We draw on recent research to answer some of the most pressing questions in this area, including:

What CEO leadership styles most strongly contribute to firm performance?

Does delegating tasks to subordinates contribute to firm performance? In which countries are senior leaders most likely to delegate tasks?

Does a transformational leadership style improve firm performance?

How is prior CEO experience associated with firm performance?

What type of CEO is most likely to take time off when popular sporting events are being broadcast?

Research discussed in this episode include the following:

Ashford, S. J., Wellman, N., Sully de Luque, M., De Stobbeleir, K. E., & Wollan, M. (2018). Two roads to effectiveness: CEO feedback seeking, vision articulation, and firm performance. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 39(1), 82–95.

Hamori, M., & Koyuncu, B. (2015). Experience matters? The impact of prior CEO experience on firm performance. Human Resource Management, 54(1), 23–44.

Jensen, M., Potočnik, K., & Chaudhry, S. (2020). A mixed-methods study of CEO transformational leadership and firm performance. European Management Journal, 38(6), 836–845.

Mackey, A. (2008). The effect of CEOs on firm performance. Strategic Management Journal, 29(12), 1357–1367.

Sadun, R. (2023). CEOs and Firm Performance. e, 1, Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.

Recent decades provide ample evidence of the potential for unethical behavior in organizational leadership. From Enron to Volkswagen and Wells Fargo to Purdue Pharma, we see that ethical failings in managerial ranks can have devastating effects on organizations and society at large.

In this episode, we explore some research on the dynamics of leadership personality and its implications for ethical behavior (or lack thereof). We preface our discussion with an overview of the five-factor model of personality (the so-called Big Five), which looms large over this research domain. From there, we probe multiple dimensions of the phenomenon:

Personality traits that are most associated with ethical leadership behavior

Differences in ethicality across distinct leadership styles 

Red flags for the potential of ethical failings in leaders

The damage that can be done by narcissistic leaders

As always, we glean actionable insights for managers and those charged with identifying potential leaders in organizations.

Studies discussed in this episode include the following:

De Vries, R. E. (2012). Personality predictors of leadership styles and the self–other agreement problem. The Leadership Quarterly, 23(5), 809–821.

Kalshoven, K., Den Hartog, D. N., & De Hoogh, A. H. (2011). Ethical leader behavior and big five factors of personality. Journal of Business Ethics, 100, 349–366.

O’Reilly III, C. A., Chatman, J. A., & Doerr, B. (2021). When “me” trumps “we”: Narcissistic leaders and the cultures they create. Academy of Management Discoveries, 7(3), 419–450.

Sosik, J. J., Gentry, W. A., & Chun, J. U. (2012). The value of virtue in the upper echelons: A multisource examination of executive character strengths and performance. The Leadership Quarterly, 23(3), 367–382.

Van Scotter, J. R., & Roglio, K. D. D. (2020). CEO bright and dark personality: Effects on ethical misconduct. Journal of Business Ethics, 164, 451–475.

How can managers harness behavioral science to help their employees make better decisions? The principle of nudging says that, by tapping into innate psychological tendencies, we can design choice scenarios to increase the likelihood of individuals choosing well.

In this episode we delve into the world of nudging techniques, examining how they can influence decision-making in various organizational scenarios, with a special focus on the ethical dimensions of the practice.

Some of the topics we cover are:

Does nudging actually work [spoiler: yes]?

Can nudging be taken too far? If so, what are the limiting conditions for effective (and ethical) nudging?

What is the difference between a “nudge” and a “boost”?

Are data visualization and marketing just elaborate forms of nudging?

What on earth are “choice architectures” and “libertarian paternalism” anyway?

Research discussed in this episode include the following studies:

Beshears, J., & Kosowsky, H. (2020). Nudging: Progress to date and future directions. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 161, 3–19.

Hertwig, R., & Grüne-Yanoff, T. (2017). Nudging and boosting: Steering or empowering good decisions. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 12(6), 973–986.

Reeck, C., Posner, N. A., Mrkva, K., & Johnson, E. J. (2023). Nudging App Adoption: Choice Architecture Facilitates Consumer Uptake of Mobile Apps. Journal of Marketing, 1–18.

Rozeboom, G. J. (2021). How to Evaluate Managerial Nudges. Journal of Business Ethics, 182, 1073–1086.

Schmidt, A. T., & Engelen, B. (2020). The Ethics of Nudging: An Overview. Philosophy Compass, 15(4), e12658.