Brain for Business

In a recent article Dr Nathan Kettlewell and colleagues explored the impact that life events can have on overall wellbeing. What is the impact of major positive life events? And equally what is the impact of not so positive life events? In Episode 40 of the Brain for Business, Brain for Life podcast we explore these and other issues related to understand the impact of events on our positive and affective wellbeing.Dr Nathan Kettlewell is a Chancellor's Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Economics Discipline Group at the University of Technology Sydney and a research affiliate of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course and the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA). As a researcher, Nathan’s main research interests are public policy, health economics and behavioural economics. Nathan is particularly interested in the formation of peoples' risk attitudes and what these attitudes mean for their life outcomes, understanding peoples' demand for private health insurance, and causal evaluation of government programs. Nathan’s website is as follows: https://sites.google.com/site/nrkettlewell/The article discussed is available here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352827319302204 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In a recent article in the online magazine Aeon, the renowned science writer, Philip Ball, considered the concept of imagination and coined the phrase “homo imaginatus”. Yet what really is imagination? How has it been perceived over the centuries? And what role does imagination play in human creativity?Philip is the author of many popular books on science, including works on the nature of water, pattern formation in the natural world, colour in art, the science of social and political philosophy, the cognition of music, and physics in Nazi Germany. He has written widely on the interactions between art and science, and has delivered lectures to scientific and general audiences at venues ranging from the Victoria and Albert Museum (London) to the NASA Ames Research Center, London's National Theatre and the London School of Economics.Formerly an editor at Nature magazine, Philip continues to write regularly for Nature. He has contributed to publications ranging from New Scientist to the New York Times, the Guardian, the Financial Times and New Statesman. He is a contributing editor of Prospect magazine, and also a columnist for Chemistry World, Nature Materials, and the Italian science magazine Sapere. He has broadcast on many occasions on radio and TV, and is a presenter of "Science Stories" on BBC Radio 4. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, sits on the editorial board of Chemistry World and Interdiscipinary Science Reviews, and is a board member of the RESOLV network on solvation science at the Ruhr University of Bochum.Philip has a BA in Chemistry from the University of Oxford and a PhD in Physics from the University of Bristol.Philip’s Aeon article on imagination and Homo Imaginatus can be accessed here: https://aeon.co/essays/imagination-isnt-the-icing-on-the-cake-of-human-cognition Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In recent years we have perhaps seen a golden era of narcissistic leaders. Yet what is their real impact? And is being a narcissistic leader necessarily a bad thing?Jon Gruda is an Assistant Professor in Organisational Behaviour at Maynooth University in Ireland. He has previously held appointments at emlyon Business School (France) where he completed his Ph.D. in Management from 2012 to 2017, together with a joint Doctorate in Psychology at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main (Germany).Professor Gruda’s primarily focuses on relational leadership, dark leadership traits, personality and anxiety. Recently, he was selected as one of 373 young scholars out of 20,000 applicants worldwide to attend the Lindau Nobel Prize Laureates Meeting in Economic Sciences. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If 20% of pregnancies result in miscarriage, why do we find it so hard to talk about it?In this episode of the Brain for Business, Brain for Life podcast we speak to Professor Kaylee Hackney. In recent research she and colleagues have explored the impact of the miscarriage on the workplace and the challenges faced by both women and their employers during what is inevitably a very difficult time for those involved.Kaylee Hackney is an Assistant Professor at the Baylor University Hankamer School of Business in Waco, Texas. She studies employee mistreatment, stress, and well-being with a focus on pregnancy in the workplace. Her research has been published in leading academic publications such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Group & Organization Management, and Organizational Psychology Review. Kaylee teaches Leadership and Organizational Behavior at Baylor University.You can find out more about Kaylee’s research and listen to the latest episodes of her podcast on her website: www.kayleehackney.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In a 2015 article, Professor Jack Goncalo and colleagues explored the impact of “political correctness” on creativity in work groups. At the time the findings – that political correctness is actually good for creativity - were so controversial that the article was rejected numerous times before finally being published in the leading journal in the field.So why – and how – is political correctness actually good for creativity? We explore this and more with Professor Goncalo.Article link: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0001839214563975Jack Goncalo is Professor of Business Administration and the Robert and Helen P. Seass Faculty Fellow at the Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to joining the University of Illinois, he was Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Cornell University ILR School where he was the Proskauer Professor.Professor Goncalo’s research is focused on individual and team creativity, the evaluation of new ideas and more recently, the dark side of engaging in creative work. His research spanning the fields of Management and Psychology has been published in leading academic journals and been featured in numerous media outlets such as CNN, Time Magazine, The New York Times and Forbes Magazine. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic struck, remote working including working from home was in some cases a luxury and in others a case of organisational trial and error. Yet for many around the world, in March 2020 remote working became a necessity, imposed both by governments and employers.In a recent report published in the prestigious journal Nature Human Behaviour (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01196-4), a team from Microsoft explored data from over 60,000 Microsoft employees to analyse and understand the organisational impact of this shift. To explore this further we are joined by two of the report’s authors, Jaime Teevan and Longqi Yang, both of Microsoft.Jaime Teevan is a corporate vice president and chief scientist at Microsoft. She is an advocate for finding smarter ways for people to make the most of their time, and believes in the positive impact that breaks and recovery have on productivity. Jaime leads Microsoft’s future of work initiative which brings researchers from Microsoft, LinkedIn and GitHub together to study how the pandemic has changed the way we work. Previously she was the Technical Advisor to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research AI, where she led the Productivity team.Longqi Yang is a Senior Applied Researcher at Microsoft’s Office of Applied Research. His research centers around interactive machine learning systems and their applications on future of work, productivity, and wellbeing. He is currently leading applied research initiatives at Microsoft to understand the impact of remote and hybrid work and build AI systems to enhance new work practices. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The impact of bias on individual decision making has been widely explored, yet we actually do not know so much about how bias and discrimination happen in teams and groups. In this episode of Brain for Business, Brain for Life, behavioural economist Professor Vessela Daskalova of University College Dublin, tells us about her own experimental research into role of social identity and the “in-group/out-group” bias in group decision making.Professor Vessela Daskalova is an Assistant Professor of economics at University College Dublin, a Fellow at the Geary Institute for Public Policy, and Associate Faculty at Toulouse School of Economics. As a researcher in the areas of Behavioural and Experimental Economics, Microeconomic Theory, and Political Economy, Professor Daskalova focuses on the areas of discrimination, social identity, and bounded rationality. As part of this, much of her research is dedicated to trying to better understand decision making in both individual and strategic/collective decision making situations.For more information visit: www.vesseladaskalova.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Policing organisations and the challenges they face are in many ways unique. So what are the implications for leadership and for those in leadership roles in policing?Dr Victoria Herrington is Director of Knowledge at the Australian Institute of Police Management in Sydney. Vicki has spent a career in applied, academic and neo-academic organisations across the UK and Australia and is an active researcher in the field of criminology with a deep commitment to interdisciplinarity. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The menopause is a normal part of the human lifecycle for approximately 50% of the population, but all too often those experiencing the menopause are left unsupported by both their employers and society more broadly. Yet this should not be case: simple steps can help to make a huge difference for those experiencing this entirely natural and normal process.Jo Brewis is Professor of People and Organisations in The Faculty of Business & Law at the Open University Business School.Her research interests fall into two broad categories. First is the intersection between the body, sexuality, gender, emotions, identity, organizing and organizations, including publications on menopause transition and women’s economic participation and methodological considerations in organization studies deploying queer theory. The second is academic practices in organization studies research, including publications on research ethics and peer review.In addition to this, Jo is the co-author of the 2017 UK government report The effects of menopause transition on women's economic participation in the UK. As an independent panel member for Menopause Friendly Accreditation amongst other activities, she works to further the menopause in the workplace agenda. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Working long hours can, for some, be a badge of honour proving to themselves and the world how important and irreplaceable they really are. Yet the longer-term consequences and impacts of consistently working long hours are devastating for health and well-being. In this episode of the Brain for Business, Brain for Life podcast we talk to Dr Frank Pega of the World Health Organization (WHO) who outlines the shocking findings of research he has undertaken with a global team of experts into the effects of over-work and working long hours, including increased risk of heart attack and stroke The article referred to is available here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412021002208Dr Frank Pega is a Technical Officer in the Environment, Climate Change and Health Department at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland. As an epidemiologist and health economist, he is passionate about producing innovative and high-quality evidence and policy that can be used to improve workers’ health. He is WHO’s responsible officer for the WHO/International Labour Organization joint estimates of the work-related burden of disease and injury, which includes coordinating contributions from 200 individual experts in 35 countries. Before re-joining WHO in 2015, Dr Pega worked for 15 years in health research and policy roles in international organisations, national governments and universities in the Americas, Europe and the Western Pacific. He holds a PhD and postdoctoral fellowship in Epidemiology and Health Economics from the University of Otago, New Zealand. He has published 45 articles in leading academic journals and received several international awards, including a Fulbright Fellowship at Harvard University. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.