Stack of golden George Washington dollar coins,. (c) 2007 Bill Koslosky, MD (CC BY 2.5)

Why Rewarding Competitiveness Is Stupid If You Want To Make Money

Forrest ChristianManaging, Reviews - Articles, Theory Leave a Comment

Here’s a repost from 2006 that didn’t make it over. It describes a set of studies that so disturb the basic religion of MBA that it required replication across the world to get published. With minor revisions. American business rewards competitiveness. That may seem like a know-nothing statement. Markets reward people with the best product. Most people in America believe …

"How To Make a Madoff"

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Ben Levisohn, “How To Make A Madoff“, Business Week, December 16, 2008. You don’t have to do anything to get a Madoff. They are always with us, like the poor. The question is whether or not you will create the social structures that detect them early. In evolutionary psychology, this is called cheater detection and it makes up a major …

ASSOCHAM: Indian Firms May Fire 25%

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ASSOCHAM threatens that Indian firms may lay off 25% of their workers in the next 10 days, according to Expressindia. This seems a bit excessive even by my apparently ghoulish attitude to the current recession/collapse. I’m not sure what this means or if it is simply posturing by Industry. A quarter of your workforce is a large number, especially if …

Restoring Discretion: The Reason for the US Army's New Air Reconnaissance Unit

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The New York Times reports Sunday that the US Army has created its own aerial surveillance unit because they weren’t able to get the service levels they wanted out of the unmanned Predator operations run by the US Air Force. It’s happening because the new unmanned systems have changed where the discretion for the reconn should lie. From NYT: In …

Latest Reading, or what’s keeping me busy

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Besides a new appointment at the Computation Institute at the University of Chicago, I’ve been busy trying to get my mind wrapped around Warren Kinston’s materials. And parent a colicky baby, of course. Current reading list (for my tracking purposes): Warren Kinson, 1994. Strengthening the Management Culture (available as a PDF download from the GO Society). The Sigma Centre, London. …

Structured Process vs. Drift: A Question of Worklevel?

Forrest ChristianComputers/IT, Managing, Organizations, Reviews - Articles Leave a Comment

Claudio Ciborra, who unfortunately died too early recently, left a rich quantity and breadth of writings on information systems from a sociological perspective. Here I look at one of thisClaudio Ciborra. 2002. “Design, Kairos and Affection“. From Managing as Designing: Position Papers [?], Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University. … if speed is the main characteristic of this activity, then in …

ADLER typewriter Model n°7 (Frankfurt / Germany). Unknown model date (probably ~1930/40). By Dake

How Standardization Creates Dis-Order

Forrest ChristianChange, Computers/IT, Reviews - Articles Leave a Comment

What happens when you move to standardization? In IT, we’re pushed to do single server loads, unified single-sign on systems, international PKI based Role Based Access Control, and all types of other forms of simplifying, rationalizing and standardizing. But no one ever stops to ask, Does standardizing in IT really make life easier? Not “no one” exactly. Because two researchers …