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 seriously in order to ensure their effectiveness into the future. But is that really the case? Is there really a scientific basis to support arguments and assertions about generational differences and their impact on organisations?

To explore these questions, I am delighted to welcome to Brain for Business Professor David Costanza.

David Costanza is a professor at the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce.

About our guest...

Professor Costanza’s research focuses on generational differences; adaptive leadership; high potential; organizational culture, decline, and death; as well as statistics and research methods. He has published in Journal of Business and Psychology; Journal of Vocational Behavior; Personnel Psychology; and Work, Aging and Retirement. He has authored for Slate and has been interviewed by The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, TIME magazine, VOX, and Yahoo! Finance. He is a member of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology and the Academy of Management and serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Business and Psychology and Work, Aging and Retirement.

• The 2023 article from the journal Acta Psychologica – Are generations a useful concept? – can be accessed here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001691823002354
• The Slate article referred to – Can We Please Stop Talking About Generations as if They Are a Thing? – to is available here: https://slate.com/technology/2018/04/the-evidence-behind-generations-is-lacking.html

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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 innovation and how can organisations support the greater adoption of their offerings?

To discuss this it is a pleasure to speak today with Dr Radu Dimitriu, Associate Professor in Marketing at Trinity College Dublin.

About our guest...

Dr Radu Dimitriu is an Associate Professor in Marketing at Trinity College Dublin. Radu has a PhD from BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo, and prior to joining TCD worked with Cranfield University in the UK (2010-2018). His research is focused on branding, consumer behaviour and psychology, social media marketing, CSR and prosocial behaviour, consumer responses to sensory-enabling technologies, and consumers' adoption of AI-enabled technologies such as autonomous products and chatbots. On the Trinity MBA, Radu is also coordinating the programme's capstone Strategic Company Projects, as well as lecturing on Marketing Strategy. Radu has been consulting for blue chip companies and regularly engages with the industry; recent engagements include that of Judge at the Ireland User Experience Awards and of Speaker at the Customer Experience Professional Association Day. A citizen of the world, he speaks several languages including English, Spanish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese and his mother tongue, Romanian.

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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 both the organization and the individuals concerned.

To explore the issue of professional misconduct in greater depth, I am delighted to be joined on the Brain for Business podcast by the co-author of a recent paper on the subject, Will Harvey.

Will Harvey is a Professor of Leadership at Melbourne Business School in Australia and is currently the Director of the Social Purpose Centre, as well as being an International Research Fellow at the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation.

Will researches on reputation, talent management and leadership within organisations. He has recently published the book, Reputations at Stake, with Oxford University Press and his work has appeared in journals such as Harvard Business Review, Journal of Management Studies, Human Relations, Management Learning, Work, Employment & Society, and the British Journal of Management.

The article discussed in the interview - Why Individuals Commit Professional Misconduct and What Leaders Can Do to Prevent It – is published in California Management Review and is available to download here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/00081256241305815

Full Reference: Harvey, W. S., Arora, N., Currie, G., & Spyridonidis, D. (2024). Why Individuals Commit Professional Misconduct and What Leaders Can Do to Prevent It. California Management Review, 00081256241305815.

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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 common denominator between law and ethics and have a crucial role to play in the ethics-based legal governance of AI.” Yet what might this mean in practice and how might we ensure that the opportunities offered by AI are taken full advantage of and not inadvertently stifled?

To discuss this I am delighted to be joined by Professor Linda Hogan, Professor of Ecumenics at the School of Religion at Trinity College Dublin and Dr Marta Lasek-Markey of the Adapt Research Centre, hosted by Trinity College Dublin.

About our guests...

Professor Linda Hogan is an ethicist with extensive experience in research and teaching in pluralist and multi-religious contexts. Her primary research interests lie in the fields of inter-cultural and inter-religious ethics, social and political ethics, human rights and gender.

Dr Marta Lasek-Markey is a Postdoctoral Researcher at ADAPT, the world-leading SFI Research Centre for AI-Driven Digital Content Technology, brings leading academics, researchers and industry partners together to deliver excellent science, engage the public, develop novel solutions for business across all sectors and enhance Ireland’s international reputation.

The paper discussed in the interview is open access and is available here:

Towards a Human Rights-Based Approach to Ethical AI Governance in Europe by Linda Hogan and Marta Lasek-Markey - https://www.mdpi.com/2409-9287/9/6/181

You can find out more about the the Adapt Centre at Trinity College and the FORSEE project here:

https://www.adaptcentre.ie/

https://www.adaptcentre.ie/news-and-events/forsee-project-kicks-off-in-dublin/

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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. A new book, Memory Lane, co-authored by our guest today, Professor Gillian Murphy, introduces readers to the cutting-edge science of human memory, revealing how our recollections of the past are constantly adapting and changing, and why a faulty memory isn’t always a bad thing.

About our guest

Gillian Murphy is an Associate Professor senior lecturer in the School of Applied Psychology at University College Cork in Ireland and leads the Everyday Cognition Lab. Gillian’s research interests primarily relate to understanding attention and memory in everyday scenarios. She has conducted research examining distraction and attention failure in simulated driving environments and eyewitness memory for crimes.

Much of her recent research relates to misinformation - assessing who is most susceptible to misinformation, how and when do false memories form in response to misinformation, and developing interventions to reduce harm.

You can find out more about Gillian's research here on The Everyday Cognition Lab homepage: https://www.everydaycognitionlab.com/

Details on Memory Lane by Ciara Greene and Gillian Murphy are available here: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691257099/memory-lane

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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 people to strive to find their ultimate life calling – if there even is such a thing?

To explore the question of callings in greater depth I am delighted to be joined by Professor Kirsten Robertson of Fraser Valley University in Canada.

About our guest…

Dr. Kirsten Robertson is a Professor of Organizational Behaviour and Human Resources in the School of Business at Fraser Valley University.

Kirsten’s research explores the lived experiences of individuals at work, with a particular focus on work meaningfulness, the interface between work and non-work, and workplace relationships with both people and animals. She has published her research in leading management journals, including the Academy of Management Review, Journal of Management Studies, and Journal of Organizational Behavior.

• The paper discussed in the interview - Living life ‘to the core’: Enacting a calling through configurations of multiple jobs – is open access and is available here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00187267241251956
• Kirsten’s Google Scholar page can be accessed here: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Piek-GcAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao
• Kirsten’s profile page at the University of Fraser Valley is available here: https://www.ufv.ca/business/faculty-and-staff/robertson-kirsten.htm

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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 actual benefits of diversity in terms of team effectiveness and performance have – up until now – been sadly lacking.

In a paper to be published shortly in the Journal of Business of Psychology, our guest today, Dr Lukas Wallrich and colleagues seek to address this gap in the literature.

About our guest...

Dr Lukas Wallrich is a Lecturer in Organisational Psychology at Birkbeck Business School , University of London, where he teaches on organisational psychology master programmes and primarily researches how workforce diversity can be harnessed to improve organisational performance. Other research interests include the effect of intergroup contact on pro-social behaviour, the development of stereotypes and implicit associations and the influence of traditional and new media on public attitudes.

Prior to moving into academia, Lukas worked as a consultant with McKinsey and Co.

• Lukas’s personal website is as follows: https://www.lukaswallrich.coffee/
• A pre-print copy of the article discussed is available here: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/nscd4
• The interactive web app with the data from the article can be accessed here: https://lukaswallrich.shinyapps.io/diversity_meta/

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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 researchers, consultants, private enterprises and governments to explore long-term futures across a diverse range of regions, industries and socioeconomic domains.

Yet what are megatrends?

And how can we better understand their significance and impact?

To explore this I am delighted to be joined on Brain for Business by Dr Claire Naughtin.

Dr Claire Naughtin is a Principal Research Consultant at Data61 – part of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation or CSIRO, an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research.

Claire leads Data61’s Digital Futures team and specialises in future-focused, strategic projects and has worked across a diverse range of policy and industry domains, including the future of trade, employment, healthcare and emerging technology and industry development opportunities. Among her most recent work, Claire co-led the delivery of CSIRO’s Our Future World report – a once-in-a-decade report that identified seven emerging megatrends that will shape the next 20 years for Australia.

Claire is passionate about bridging the gap between research and the real world and equipping leaders with a data-informed narrative of the future to help guide long-term decision-making. As part of this, Claire delivers strategic foresight training and workshops to help organisations build resilience to uncertain futures and publishes her research in scientific and industry journals.

• You can find out more about Claire and her work on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-naughtin/
• The “Our Future World” report can be accessed online: https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/data/Our-Future-World
• Further information about Data61 and the CSIRO is available here: https://www.csiro.au/en/about/people/business-units/data61

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