Designing a mobile app to help create lasting changes in behavior is a difficult challenge. New research suggests that a measure of motivation – the Intrinsic Motivation Index score (IMI) – could play an important role in any solution.
Category Archives: Leadership & Behavior
Understanding what governs and influences the behavior of individuals in social or commercial interactions, decision-making and leadership is the aim of the faculty’s economists and psychologists working in the field of organizational behavior.
Changing behavior: Harnessing the power of social influence
Whether it is trying to increase the welfare of citizens through public policy, or adapting organizational culture to a new business environment, changing behavior is one of the biggest challenges faced by managers and policymakers. Theoretically, harnessing the power of social influence is a highly cost-effective and relatively simple mechanism for achieving widespread behavioral change. In practice, however, the ability to use targeted interventions in this way to trigger broader behavioral change is far more complex than is often assumed.
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Corporate chameleons: How applicants adapt their assessment responses to get hired
Job applications are often highly competitive. Inevitably applicants will try to present the best, most suitable version of themselves to the hirer. But just how far will they go to appear an attractive applicant?
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Long live the power breakfast: Why executives should schedule critical tasks for early in the day
Many executives spend significant sums improving their personal performance. However, new research by Elizabeth Demers and her co-authors, suggests that there is one relatively simple, effective and low cost way of upping your game as an executive. They show that, for a combination of reasons, cognitive function, mood and the ability to communicate tend to decline throughout the day. For executives with packed diaries and little time to replenish reserves, it is best to get critical tasks scheduled for the morning.
Disrupting human resource development: The impact of immersive virtual reality
Interpersonal skills training is about to get a little less personal, it seems. A new paper from Marianne Schmid Mast and co-authors suggests that our role-playing training partners of the future may not be our colleagues or managers, but virtual humans instead.
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The leadership IQ dilemma: when super smart people are perceived as ineffective leaders
General intelligence is an essential characteristic for good leadership. Research by John Antonakis and colleagues on the relationship between IQ and perceptions of effective leadership reveals that a leader’s optimal IQ level depends on the average intelligence of the group being led; too high or too low leader IQ may spell disaster for the leaders.
Managing the expectations trade-off: Why flexible agreements often prove counter-productive
A common criticism of economics is that economic theory often fails to predict real world events, spectacularly so in some cases. More recently, however, a more empirical approach to economics has emerged that combines economic theory, psychology, and laboratory experimentation, in order to better understand decision making in real life situations.
Performance outcomes, fuzzy signals, and the charisma effect: how we evaluate leaders from a distance
You might hope that senior leaders, the people who run countries, corporations or other organizations, are chosen on the basis of a performance track record that can be directly linked to their decisions and actions. But, as research by John Antonakis and Philippe Jacquart reveals, this is far from the truth.
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Motivation: The network effect
New research reveals that the motivation to behave in a socially beneficial way can spread from one individual to another, particularly when they are closely connected. This means that organizations can leverage the impact of actions designed to motivate so-called prosocial behavior by targeting social networks.
Watching me, watching you: making sense of social interaction
Whether it is negotiating, selling, motivating, or even dating, people with access to the latest social sensing technologies and techniques will have a distinct advantage as they engage in a range of activities, business related or otherwise. While they may not be able to read minds, they will be able to monitor the impact of their social interactions on others in real time, and modify their behavior accordingly to achieve their desired outcome.
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