Ethical erosion and moral strength in the workplace
Neuroscience explains why small transgressions at work turn into habit, and how the brain supports and rewards honest choices.
Psychology
Social psychology explains much workplace behavior that looks irrational. Cognitive biases, errors of judgment, and group dynamics, with the studies that document them.
Communication in the workplace: dynamics, complexity and organizational implications
From Weick onward, research describes workplace communication as the process through which an organization builds meaning, identity, trust and power.
Group work vs. the individual approach: an in-depth analysis of productivity dynamics
A century of experiments, from Allport to Zajonc, shows which tasks benefit from the presence of other people and which ones suffer.
Free, but not too free
Ability differences between boys and girls are minimal, yet the expectations of teachers, families and employers shape their study and career choices.
5 traits of “toxic” companies
Five traits business owners should keep an eye on, because a negative environment hurts employees, customers and results in often indirect ways.
Bullying in the workplace
Workplace bullying harms people's health and the company's results; research points to the organizational and individual factors worth acting on.
Artificial intelligence and empathy: toward a new paradigm in human-machine interaction
From Breazeal's social robots to today's assistants, machines are learning to read emotions, a step forward that raises questions of authenticity and privacy.
Artificial intelligence and social evolution
Seen through sociology, artificial intelligence grows out of existing social relations and tends to reproduce their injustices unless it is deliberately steered.
Do we learn from our mistakes?
The need for esteem and our defense mechanisms explain why, with colleagues and staff, recognition gets more lasting results than reprimand.
Cohesion in the workplace
From Festinger's definition to the risks of groupthink, the factors that hold a team together and practical techniques for strengthening its cohesion.
Errors of judgment and the fundamental attribution error
Heuristics save mental effort but skew our judgments of people: where this error comes from and how to reduce its weight in our assessments.
How will we come out of this? The psychological impact of Covid in the workplace
Written in February 2021, mid-pandemic, it describes the collective emotions of people at work and the support companies were called on to give.
Simplifying the offer to increase sales (reason-based choice)
People who are uncertain or face too many alternatives prefer to wait, even at a price: two classic experiments and what they mean for sellers.
The sales process and rationality in decisions: prospect theory
Reference points, probability weighting, and the value function: the model that describes how customers actually choose, applied to the sales process.
Interpreting others on the basis of their behavior: correspondent inferences
We judge coworkers we barely know by their behavior and overlook their role, until a partial picture hardens into a lasting one.
Why can’t companies change? The bystander effect
The more people notice a problem, the less likely anyone is to act: ambiguity and diffused responsibility hold back change inside organizations.
Herzberg’s theory of hygiene factors and motivators (satisfaction and motivation in the workplace)
Job satisfaction and dissatisfaction are not opposite ends of one scale, and that changes what managers should do first to motivate their people.
Locus of control and motivation
People who feel in control of events respond to praise and rewards differently from those who credit luck, which matters before you try to motivate.
Horses, customers and products: customer involvement in the search for innovative products
Ask customers what they want and you get a faster horse: what research says about the limits of letting customer requests drive product development.
SPEAKING: elements, conventions and codes of spoken communication
There is always a gap between what we mean and what the listener understands; eight elements help narrow it with people from other cultures.
A path to defining and reaching ambitious goals
Starting from who we want to become, rather than from the next deadline, makes goals more coherent and ambitious: the possible selves approach.
What is the hidden cost of unemployment?
Work provides time structure, social contact, purpose, identity, and activity; losing these latent functions costs more than economic indicators show.
How to make decisions within an organization
Rational model, bounded rationality, garbage can, Vroom-Yetton: how individuals and groups actually decide, and which biases pull them off course.
How do customers reason when we make our case? Why is it so hard to persuade, even on solid rational grounds?
Context, familiarity, and expectations shape judgment before reasoning starts: how impressions form and when an argument can actually change them.
Motivation and work: the importance of task, organization and goals
Only 11% of Italian employees say they are engaged: motivation theories show where to act before turning to training courses and incentives.
Individual and group performance compared: when is the group more efficient?
From Allport to Zajonc, a century of social facilitation research shows when working together pays off and why brainstorming groups so often disappoint.