Researchers from Google's People Operations group present at the Society for
Industrial and Organizational Psychology conference pretty much yearly, and
many of them are I/Os by training. I believe they were on a couple dozen
presentations last year, so if you are truly curious, I would recommend you
attend. I can't imagine they would ever go to Academy, as there would not
be an audience there for their work (too practical). Their motives appear
to be to share their findings, to establish their expertise, to promote
their brand, to encourage attendees to use the information they are sharing.
The same as anyone at any conference.
Someone else in this thread mentioned terminology. In their presentations,
they use all the terms you find in the scientific literature, even if they
use different terms in public-facing materials. I suspect Google has found,
as most practitioners have, that using the terms coined in the literature
when trying to sell someone a product is not always the most profitable
approach. And it is also generally more profitable to pretend you invented
something when you are trying to sell that idea to someone else when you
have the brand recognition that Google does.
Is there a similar set of stories about how wonderful management scholars
are at going into organizations and using evidence and data? If not, that
would suggest to me the problem doesn't lie with Google.
-Richard
---
Richard N. Landers, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Industrial/Organizational Psychology
Associate Editor, Computers in Human Behavior
Old Dominion University | Mills Godwin Building 346E, Norfolk VA 23529
Home:
http://rlanders.net | Blog:
http://neoacademic.com | Lab:
http://tntlab.org
Tw: @rnlanders | Ph: 757-683-4212 | Fx: 757-683-5087
-----Original Message-----
From: Organizational Behavior Division Listserv
[mailto:
OB@aomlists.pace.edu] On Behalf Of Rob Briner
Sent: Saturday, February 27, 2016 5:27 AM
To:
OB@aomlists.pace.edu
Subject: Re: [OB-LIST] FW: NYTimes: What Google Learned From Its Quest to
Build the Perfect Team
Hi Neal
Thanks for this. I don't know about you or anyone else but I find all these
stories from Google (and some other organizations) about how wonderful they
are at using evidence and data a bit perplexing. It always seems impossible
to see, as it is in this article too, exactly what scientific findings they
looked at, how they reviewed them, how they identified their quality and
relevance, how they summarized or aggregated the evidence, and finally how
and if they actually used it in their work. Also, in other articles and
interviews, Google imply they completely ignore published scientific
evidence and only rely on their own (big) data.
I guess any story where any organization is saying how great it is at doing
something needs to be taken with quite a large pinch of salt unless they are
transparent and detailed about what they are doing and are open about their
failures as well as successes. Also, what is Google's motive for telling us
this?
I'd be really interested to know if anyone has seen any transparent and
detailed and critical account of what Google do around data and scientific
evidence - it's doesn't seem to be in any of the public accounts I've seen
but I could well be missing something.
Cheers
Rob
Rob B Briner | Professor of Organizational Psychology | School of Management
| University of Bath Scientific Director | Center for Evidence-Based
Management (www.cebma.org) Twitter @Rob_Briner
-----Original Message-----
From: Organizational Behavior Division Listserv
[mailto:
OB@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Neal Ashkanasy
Sent: 27 February 2016 00:29
To:
OB@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: [OB-LIST] FW: NYTimes: What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build
the Perfect Team
Dear OB colleagues
It's good to see that someone is reading our research and applying our
findings!
NY Times: New research reveals surprising truths about why some work groups
thrive and others falter.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-ques
t-to-build-the-perfect-team.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-s
hare
Cheers
Neal M. Ashkanasy, PhD
UQ Business School
The University of Queensland
Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia
Phone: +617 3346-8006
Fax: +617 3346-8188
e-mail:
n.ashkanasy@uq.edu.au
https://www.business.uq.edu.au/staff/details/neal-ashkanasy