Brain for Business
Business & Finance
About
The Brain for Business podcast takes the lessons from evidence-based academic research in the brain, behavioural and organisational sciences - neuroscience, psychology, behavioural economics and more - and brings them to life for a business and organisational audience. Over the series we will speak to a range of neuroscientists, psychologists, behavioural economists, researchers and organisational practitioners, and look at some of the key aspects of human behaviour relevant to business and management practice. In so doing, we will seek to understand not just the what but also the how and the why – and how it can be done differently Our overall goal? To build a bridge from research into the brain and behavioural sciences to practical, everyday insights and to help leaders at all levels within organisations enhance their effectiveness. Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.co
Episodes
- Series 3, Episode 29: Why governance matters, with Professor Tanusree Jain, Copenhagen Business School
Professor Tanusree Jain from Copenhagen Business School discusses the shifting landscape of corporate governance, moving away from maximizing shareholder value toward a focus on sustainability, ESG, and broader social accountability.
- Series 3, Episode 28: How can academics better communicate their ideas? With Professor Michael Haenlein, ESCP Business School
Professor Michael Haenlein joins Brain for Business to discuss how academics can better communicate their research and findings, moving beyond the "ivory tower" perception. Haenlein shares his expertise in marketing and the impact of new t…
- Series 3, Episode 27: Better understanding social entrepreneurship, with Professor Sheila Cannon, Trinity Business School
Professor Sheila Cannon joins the Brain for Business podcast to explain social entrepreneurship, exploring its definition and the concept of social enterprises. Her research focuses on organizations influencing socio-cultural change, with…
- Series 3, Episode 26: How organisations select ideas, and how they might do it better, with Professor Dmitry Sharapov, Imperial College London
This episode features Professor Dmitry Sharapov from Imperial College London discussing how organizations select ideas for innovation. The conversation explores current selection processes, potential improvements, and the critical impact o…
- Series 3, Episode 25: How social class influences entrepreneurial performance with Professor Kristie Neff, Ivy College of Business at Iowa State University
Professor Kristie Neff joins Brain for Business to discuss her research on the influence of social class origin on entrepreneurial performance, individual risk-taking, and social network conditions. The discussion includes insights into in…
- Series 3, Episode 24: Why attitudes toward scientific consensus can be disastrous, with Professor Nick Light, University of Oregon
In a 2022 paper published in Science Advances, our guest today along with co-authors argued that “Public attitudes that are in opposition to scientific consensus can be disastrous and include rejection of vaccines and opposition to climate…
- Series 3, Episode 23: How can we establish optimal distinctiveness? With Professor Daphne Demetry, Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University
When people set up their own business or go it alone, it makes sense for to want to establish their own identity, yet sometimes that might come at a cost… what if your identity is so distinctive that potential customers or clients don’t un…
- Series 3, Episode 22: Why would anyone be a micromanager? with Professor Catherine Deen, University of New South Wales Canberra
A 2020 article by the polling firm, Gallup, argued that: “The micromanager has become a bit of a boogeyman in the business world. Nobody wants to work for one. Few managers want to be one. Everyone has a horror story about one.” To e…
- Series 3, Episode 21: Developing a theory of collective stupidity, with Professor Sir Geoff Mulgan, University College London
“Collective stupidity is fairly common in organisations. Firms full of very smart individuals who act in reckless ways that destroy them. Governments and nations that engage in acts of self-harm, descending into economic decline or civil w…
- Season 3, Episode 20: Why we need to rethink stardom, with Professor Ernest O’Boyle, Indiana University, and Dr Martin Götz, University of Zurich
A forthcoming article by our guests today – appropriately titled “Rethinking Stardom" - argues that: Star performers are increasingly capturing the attention of both researchers and practitioners alike. However, studies on these uber-perfo…
- Series 3, Episode 19: Why leadership development is failing us, with Professor Moran Anisman-Razin, University of Limerick
According to Forbes magazine, in 2020 alone global spend on corporate training programmes, often focused on leadership development, exceeded $350 billion. Yet how effective, if at all, are these programmes? And are they perhaps just a…
- Series 3, Episode 18: Does the “beauty bias” impact leader emergence?, with Professor Stephen Courtright, Texas A&M University
In a forthcoming article now available, our guest today, Professor Stephen Courtright, along with co-authors tackle the question of the “beauty bias and leader emergence”. Or to put that into plain English: how important is phys…
- Series 3, Episode 17: Is it ok to be nosy, or should I just mind my own business? with Professor Richard Currie, Boston University
Research has consistently found that maintaining a healthy balance between work and other areas of life often requires people to establish and maintain boundaries those various areas. Yet as humans we might also be curious or indeed nosy a…
- Series 3, Episode 16: How can teams become more resilient? with Professor Daniel Gucciardi, Curtin University
Adversity is inherent within most – if not all – occupational contexts in which the performance of individuals and teams is crucial for organisational effectiveness. With its central focus on what enables people to resist, bounce back, or…
- Series 3, Episode 15: The one where we talk about humor, with Matt Nadel, St John’s University
Humor is a phenomenon experienced by most, if not all, human beings. Throughout human history humor has played a role in communication and interactions between people, yet how often do we actually take the time to consider what is hum…
- Series 3, Episode 14: Exploring Dark Creativity, with Dr Hansika Kapoor, Monk Prayogshala
Creativity is – for a very good reason – often seen as something positive and even joyful. Yet like many things in life there is also a flipside to creativity – a dark side, if you will. To explore the concept of dark creativity…
- Series 3, Episode 13: Why we need to ensure academic legitimacy, with Dr Raffaele Ciriello, University of Sydney
As regular listeners will know, the Brain for Business podcast focuses primarily on research by academics and others into the brain, behavioural and organisational sciences. Key to what we do is an underlying assumption that the peopl…
- Series 3, Episode 12: Are female experts more credible than male experts? With Professor Hans Sievertsen, University of Bristol
A recent open access article in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization reported on results from research comparing the effect of (the same) opinions expressed by visibly senior, female versus male experts. Common wisdom might hold…
- Series 3, Episode 11: Why CEO curiosity matters, with Professor Patricia Klarner, Vienna University of Economics and Business
Despite the old saying that “curiosity killed the cat”… the importance of curiosity for information seeking and gathering in organisations is well established. Yet little is known about the role that CEO curiosity plays in strate…
- Series 3, Episode 10: Why beliefs about success are prone to cognitive fallacies, with Professor Brooke Macnamara, Purdue University
A 2023 opinion piece in the journal Nature Psychology challenged the prevailing perspective on success and achievement, essentially arguing that we have it all wrong! So, where does the truth about success and achievement really lie??? To…
- Series 3, Episode 9: How should firms balance exploration and exploitation? with Dr Axel Zeijen, ETH Zurich
Balancing exploration and exploitation is a fundamental strategic challenge for organizations operating in dynamic environments. Managers must decide how often and when to search for new technologies and products, weighing the costs of exp…
- Season 3 Episode 8: Why and how does founder age perception influence funding outcomes? With Dr Michael Matthews, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
A recent article in the Journal of Business Venturing sought to address the question of: Why and how does founder age perception influence funding outcomes ? To discuss the importance of this question and the key findings of the paper I am…
- Series 3, Episode 7: The importance of Learning to See with Professor Keith Sawyer, University of North Carolina
In a new book – Learning to See: Inside the world's leading art and design schools , published by MIT Press – our guest today, Professor Keith Sawyer explores the way that people see and learn to see, offering an engaging and profound acco…
- Series 3, Episode 6: The Creativity Choice, with Dr Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, Yale University
Creative work in itself is stressful and riddled with anxiety-provoking uncertainties. It takes resilience to persist through these challenges. It takes willingness to endure and overcome obstacles, from the internal voices of doubt and se…
- Series 3, Episode 5: Are generations a useful concept? With Professor David Costanza, University of Virginia
If all the noise in the popular media and online is anything to go by, differences between various generations including Gen Z, Gen X, Boomers and so on are not just real but are something that leaders and organisations need to take seriou…
- Series 3, Episode 4: What drives the adoption of innovation? With Professor Radu Dimitriu, Trinity College Dublin
It is one thing to develop an innovation and put it out into the world, but that will only get you so far. Just as important is the adoption of innovations by customers, users or stakeholders. Yet what drives the adoption of inno…
- Series 3, Episode 3: Why Individuals Commit Professional Misconduct, with Professor Will Harvey, Melbourne Business School
In any organization sometimes things will go wrong or just not work out. While in many cases this might be due to mistakes or errors, at other times it is due to professional misconduct – often leading to significant consequences for…
- Series 3, Episode 2: Towards a Human Rights-Based Approach to Ethical AI Governance, with Professor Linda Hogan (Trinity College Dublin) and Dr Marta Lasek-Markey (ADAPT)
In recent years, whether we like it or not, AI or artificial intelligence, has become omnipresent, pervading online systems of all types. In a recent paper our guests today argue that a “human rights frameworks can be regarded as the…
- Series 3, Episode 1: Understanding how memory really works, with Professor Gillian Murphy, University College Cork
We tend to think of our memories as impressions of the past that remain fully intact, preserved somewhere inside our brains. In fact, we construct and reconstruct our memories every time we attempt to recall them. …
- Series 2, Episode 49: The reality of pursuing a calling, with Professor Kirsten Robertson, Fraser Valley University
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 peo…
- Series 2, Episode 48: How does diversity impact team performance? With Dr Lukas Wallrich, Birkbeck Business School, University of London
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 a…
- Series 2, Episode 47: How will megatrends impact our future? With Dr Claire Naughtin, Data61 and the CSIRO
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 resea…
- Series 2, Episode 46: Why authentic, ethical, and servant leadership, are not true representations of leadership behaviors, with Professor Thomas Fischer, University of Geneva
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 a…
- Series 2, Episode 45: How ideology intersects with media coverage, with Professor Georg Wernicke, HEC Paris
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…
- Series 2, Episode 44: Are all innovation failures the same? With Professor Elena Freisinger, Ilmenau Technical University, Germany
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…
- Series 2, Episode 43: Why has the Internet not led to an upsurge in innovation? with Professor Lingfei Wu, University of Pittsburgh
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…
- Series 2, Episode 42: How "Literary Futures" can change the way we think about opportunities, with Professor Rebecca Braun, University of Galway
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…
- Series 2, Episode 41: When do diversity initiatives exacerbate rather than mitigate bias and inequality? with Professor Karin Hellerstedt and Professor Timur Uman, Jönköping International Business School
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…
- Series 2, Episode 40: Understanding the benefits of creative and adaptive leaders, with Dr Oana Velcu-Laitinen
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 fl…
- Series 2, Episode 39: How does CEO over-confidence impact performance? with Dr Barbara Burkhard and Professor Charlotta Sirén, Institute of Responsible Innovation, University of St.Gallen
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 term…
- Series 2, Episode 38: How feedback can super-charge your organisation, with Professor Henning Piezunka, INSEAD
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 improveme…
- Series 2, Episode 37: The challenge and opportunity of CEO activism, with Asst Professor Moritz Appels, Rotterdam School of Management
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…
- Series 2, Episode 36: Why Grand Innovation Challenges Matter, with Associate Professor Vera Rocha, Copenhagen Business School
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 resou…
- Series 2, Episode 35: Better understanding the psychology of entrepreneurship, with Professor Ute Stephan, King’s Business School
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…
- Series 2, Episode 34: The destructive impact of narcissistic leaders on their organisations, with Professor Thanos Verousis, Vlerick Business School, and Professor Pietro Perotti, University of Bath
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…
- Series 2, Episode 33: Understanding the impact of founder personalities on startup success, with Dr Fabian Braesemann, Oxford Internet Institute, The University of Oxford
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…
- Series 2, Episode 32: Understanding Radicalisation and De-Radicalisation, with Robert Oerell
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 wo…
- Series 2, Episode 31: Does it really matter whether we “identify” with our organisation? With Professor Chia-Huei Wu, King’s Business School
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 the…
- Series 2, Episode 30: How does power impact on psychopathic behaviours and leadership outcomes? with Dr Iris Kranefeld, Cologne Institute for Management Consulting
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 o…
- Series 2, Episode 29: How can we better understand and manage organisational scandals? With Professor Julien Jourdan, HEC Paris
“Scandals regularly sweep through organizational fields: they wreak havoc in markets, vaporize billions of dollars in firm value, bring down giant corporations, get CEOs fired, alter the evolution of technologies, and trigger major changes…