This past week, I had the opportunity to read Jonah Lehrer’s Imagine – the book that’s part of the controversy about plagiarism and fabrication in Lehrer’s writing. Imagine has been pulled by its publisher as a result of that controversy, so pointing out additional problems with it may now be somewhat redundant. (The copy I read came from my public library.) Nevertheless, after reading it, I want to outline the problems I found with the referencing in the book – an area which other commentators have also raised concerns about. (more…)
research
Update: Twitter at Conferences
In a previous post, I mentioned the initiative by the Academy of Management at the 2012 Academy of Management (AoM) meeting to promote live Twittering during conference sessions. The listing for each session in the conference program included a hashtag for the session, assigned by the conference organizers, to encourage attendees to send Tweets about the session and the presentations.
The conference ended this past Tuesday (August 7), so I thought I’d look on Twitter to see whether or how the AoM hashtags were used. (more…)
Update: “Self-Plagiarising” Writer Admits to Fabricating Quotes
Jonah Lehrer, the New Yorker columnist I wrote about here in relation to the issue of “self-plagiarism” in writing, has resigned from his position at The New Yorker. According to this story, he was accused of, and has admitted to, fabricating quotes from Bob Dylan – ironically (or maybe not) in Imagine, his book on creativity. Here’s the story with the details of the fabricated quotes.
It will be very interesting to see how this plays out, and whether this discovery is just the tip of the iceberg as to what else might be unreliable in Lehrer’s work. As I discussed in my previous post, I have more of a problem with his inaccurate reporting than with his self-plagiarism. But there’s no question that making stuff up is wrong – and with Lehrer’s high profile and prodigious output, his past work will now be much more closely and critically scrutinized. It looks like Imagine has already been pulled from some sales outlets. I have a feeling that the story isn’t going to end here.
Do Business Schools Incubate Criminals? I Don’t Think So
As you might imagine, when I saw the headline Do Business Schools Incubate Criminals? floating around the Internet, I got more than a tad nervous. Given what I do for a living, I started to wonder if the RCMP would soon be dropping by to arrest me for aiding and abetting. However, once I started reading the articles in question, I relaxed a little bit. Both make very broad and questionable claims, and I found neither to be completely convincing. However, they both raise points that are worth considering for business degree programs, and, I would contend, for degree programs in general. (more…)
My Guest Post at MARC’s “Ask A Woman”
Following up on my earlier post about the new website MARC (Men Advocating Real Change), the MARC administrators were kind enough to ask me to participate in MARC’s “Ask A Woman” question-and-answer forum. The question I answered was about the impact of pregnancy or motherhood on a woman’s ability to succeed in an executive job. You can read my answer here.
Thanks to MARC for the invitation to join the discussion, and for paying attention to these important and timely issues.
Statistics Canada Cutbacks: The Death of More Evidence
A few weeks ago, Canadian scientists went to Parliament Hill to hold a protest rally that they dubbed “the Death of Evidence“. The speakers at the event outlined the effects of the federal government’s research funding cutbacks. They pointed out that research supported by government funding actually saves money, because it produces reliable evidence that helps government make sound decisions. They also emphasized the difficulty or impossibility of restarting their work if it ends.
My own research isn’t in the “hard” sciences, so the cutbacks protested at the Death of Evidence rally don’t directly harm my work. But my colleagues whose research will be affected are mad and very frustrated, because they know the value of the work they do.
And personally I’m angry about the disrespectful way that these researchers learned they were losing their funding. (more…)
Misreporting is Worse than ‘Self-Plagiarism’
In the last few weeks, science writer Jonah Lehrer has been under fire in media circles for “self-plagiarism”. A number of investigators have discovered close similarities or identical wording in the texts of articles and speeches he’s written or delivered. However, there’s another aspect of the Lehrer situation that I find more concerning than the allegations of “self-plagiarism” – and that’s the alleged errors in his reporting about scientific research. (more…)
Business School Research That Might Surprise You: Part 2
In this second installment, I’m going to talk about two research papers that were presented at the recent Administrative Sciences Association of Canada conference. Conference papers are often the first time that a researcher presents a particular piece of work in public, so a lot of ideas in conference papers are in an early formative stage – but it’s exciting to hear these ideas and to see how they might develop further. I like these two papers because they both investigate relevant and timely workplace issues, but do so from unconventional perspectives. (more…)
Business School Research that Might Surprise You: Part 1
I’ve been teaching in university business programs and doing research for more than 20 years, and obviously I enjoy my work or I wouldn’t still be doing it. But I’m always annoyed by misconceptions about the kind of research that goes on in business schools.
A lot of people think business school research is only trying to find better ways for managers to exploit their employees, and/or to reinforce the hierarchical capitalist system. There’s also a common misconception – one that’s often mindlessly spouted by academics in other disciplines – that researchers in business schools just have to ask and their corporate masters will hand over tons of money to support their work. I know I’m not the only person who wishes this were true so they didn’t have to spend so much time writing grant applications. In reality, business school researchers struggle just as much as researchers in any other discipline to get funding for their work.
In this post and its sequel, I’m going to highlight some research from business schools that goes against these misconceptions, either in the choice of research subjects or in the research questions that were investigated – and which, as far as I know, wasn’t funded by any corporation. (more…)
Award
I’m delighted to announce that Organizational Legitimacy and Identities in Canadian Post-Secondary Education: Investigating Students’ Perceptions, a research paper I co-authored with Dr. Kai Lamertz (Concordia University) and Dr. Alex Kondra (Athabasca University), has been named Best Paper in the Organization Theory division of the 2012 Administrative Sciences Association of Canada (ASAC) Conference. (more…)
All About Work 