Impact

Alix Barasch: A Trailblazer in Marketing Research

Anonymous — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 18:13:20 +0000

Alix Barasch: A Trailblazer in Marketing Research Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/07/2024 - 11:13

Anneli Gray

Bestowed with a prestigious award from the AMA, Professor Barasch wins acclaim as both a mentor and a pioneer in the field of marketing.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmdOH34OuQI]

Leeds’ professor Alix Barasch was awarded the distinguished 2024 Erin Anderson Award for an Emerging Female Marketing Scholar and Mentor last month at the 2024 AMA Winter Academic Conference in St. Pete Beach, Florida.

The annual award recognizes a female marketing scholar who is anticipated to become a leading marketing academic in the mold of Erin Anderson, a widely respected mentor and scholar whose research made significant contributions to the marketing discipline.

In 2023, Barasch won the Early Career Award from the Association for Consumer Research and was selected as a Marketing Science Institute Young Scholar in 2021.

She is well known for her studies of how new technologies are fundamentally reshaping consumer behavior and well-being. Her research has been published in top journals in marketing and psychology, and her work is regularly featured in global media outlets such as the New York Times, The Atlantic, Time, Washington Post, Fast Company, Wired and NPR.

Get her take on the award and hear from colleagues who’ve seen her impact firsthand.

Bestowed with a prestigious award from the AMA, Professor Barasch wins acclaim as both a mentor and a pioneer in the field of marketing.

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Leeds Welcomes a Juggernaut in Information Systems to its Faculty

Anonymous — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 17:18:45 +0000

Leeds Welcomes a Juggernaut in Information Systems to its Faculty Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 02/14/2024 - 10:18

Anneli Gray

Considered the most prolific researcher in Information Systems, Jason Thatcher has won awards for teaching, research and service—but he’s most proud of his work with PhD students.

He didn’t come to Boulder for the views or an insatiable love of the outdoors. Jason Thatcher joined the Leeds School of Business this past January because he saw a chance to make a real impact.

“It was the opportunity to build something here. This is one of the few Information Systems (IS) departments that combines leadership and human behavior with information systems—the fit with my research interests was ideal,” says Professor Thatcher, the Tandean Rustandy Endowed Esteemed Chair at Leeds.

With a long history of accolades in academia, and funding from organizations like National Science Foundation and IBM, Thatcher’s reputation as a juggernaut in IS research precedes him. So much so, that he was hired into the newly established endowed chair position at Leeds created by Tandean Rustandy (Fin’87), a ��Ƶ Boulder alumnus and generous donor.

A ‘modest’ start

Thatcher started his first semester with a bang, fresh off winning the Best Paper award at MIS Quarterly for his collaborative work on how bots disseminate information on social platforms.

“It’s about how bots make things go faster and how they alert people if something’s going on, and how they can change online conversations,” he explains. “I was surprised it won Best Paper. You never expect to win anything,” he says.

He gives the lion's share of credit to his co-authors, one of whom was a former PhD student he had previously mentored. “I truly learned by trailing along and watching [my co-authors] craft a masterpiece,” he said on LinkedIn.

In truth, his modesty belies his accolades.

Kai Larsen, a Leeds professor in the division of OLIA and chair of the hiring committee for Thatcher’s appointment, lists off a few of his impressive accomplishments:

Recognized as the most productive researcher in the IS discipline.
Has been published in journals such as MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of the AIS, the European Journal of IS and other Financial Times listed business journals.
Has served as president of the Association of Information Systems and on the editorial boards of top journals listed on the UT-Dallas list.
Has won countless awards for teaching, research and service.
Collaborates with teams around the world on cutting-edge research.

“He is a mentor to thousands of PhD students...on how to be a good person, how to handle research ethics, and how to do high-quality research.”

Kai Larsen, Professor of Information Systems

Recent curiosities

His primary research areas focus on understanding how the interaction of people and technology change the world we work in. He has studied diverse topics such as individual decision-making, strategic alignment and workforce issues as they relate to how people use information technologies in organizations.

His interests take him down countless paths. “I have academic attention deficit disorder,” he says. Lately, he’s been looking at how online technology impacts people.

In a recent study, his team found that when employers check up on an applicant’s social media activity, what they find factors into their hiring decisions. He warns: “Your personal views are potentially discoverable by anyone.”

On the flip side, his team also found that those with no online activity are far from in the clear: “If you have no social presence, it evokes suspicion.”

Thatcher’s teams have also looked into cybersecurity’s effect on employees, a study scheduled to be published in the Journal of Association for Information Systems. He found that when cybersecurity workplace policies require the monitoring of employees’ emails, they feel betrayed and less secure. To protect themselves, they end up finding workarounds for communicating.

Conversely, in another paper scheduled to appear in Information Systems Research, they found that overtrust in cybersecurity can lead to sloppiness, e.g., too much trust makes us more vulnerable to potential threats.

Stewarding students

You might say Thatcher is a big supporter of PhD students—and that would be an understatement. When it comes to doctoral students, he is deeply committed to their success, as evidenced by the recognition he’s received for his service and mentorship over the years.

“I know I’m successful when [students] no longer need me.”

Jason Thatcher, Tandean Rustandy Endowed Esteemed Chair

Larsen says, “He is a mentor to thousands of PhD students and young faculty who follow his copious daily LinkedIn posts on how to be a good person, how to handle research ethics, and how to do high-quality research.”

Thatcher contends that there are not many professional accomplishments of greater value than watching a young scholar mature and flourish. “I know I’m successful when they no longer need me,” he says.

“My role is a stewardship role. By helping others get on a trajectory to where they want to go, I become better, too. It works for me because I can sleep at night.”

Needless to say, he intends to continue bolstering students’ success at Leeds, building on the already successful work of Leeds’ faculty. He hopes to facilitate even more connections with “the rest of the world” because, he says, “it broadens students’ perspectives and makes them better scholars.” For starters, he would like to invite colleagues of his—faculty from Germany, China, Manchester and Copenhagen—to share their perspectives with PhD students.

When it comes to gaining a global perspective, he walks the talk. His academic career has followed him to universities around the world.

Here in Boulder, Leeds' Tandean Rustandy Endowed Dean Vijay Khatri looks forward to the impact Thatcher will make. “I'm extremely excited about Jason coming on board at Leeds. His presence promises to infuse our environment with fresh perspectives and groundbreaking ideas, offering immense benefits to students and faculty alike.”

Considered the most prolific researcher in IS, Jason Thatcher is most proud of his work with PhD students.

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When Trust Goes Bust, What Happens to Empathy?

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 18:04:38 +0000

When Trust Goes Bust, What Happens to Empathy? Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 01/02/2024 - 11:04

Anneli Gray • Photos by Cody Johnston

As downsizing and economic uncertainty shake up the workplace, employees wonder if ‘empathetic’ leaders are telling the truth.

Tony Kong studies trust in the workplace during times of crisis, such as COVID-19. “Leaders weren’t trained in empathy, trust-building or relationship-building. People needed flexibility and connection, but employers weren’t prepared for this.”

Massive layoffs in 2023 were a wake-up call for over 200,000 employees of tech giants like Amazon, Microsoft and Google, as well as fintech startups. Feelings of shock and betrayal replaced the trust workers once had in their employers—and who could blame them? The tech industry has been notorious for its empathetic culture, perks, and commitment to employees’ well-being.

At Salesforce, many of the 8,000 laid-off workers complained the company’s “touchy-feely” culture was a façade (Fortune, April/May 2023). CEO Marc Benioff, a self-described “empathetic” leader who spent decades developing a we’re-all-in-this-together family culture, was forced to justify Salesforce’s first-ever layoffs to shaken workers.

The truth, and nothing but the truth

From corporate downsizing to a slowing economy, it’s no wonder employees have lost some of the psychological safety they once had. As trust slides, so does their job satisfaction, productivity, creativity and innovation. Employees surveyed in the 2023 Ernst & Young’s Empathy in Business report overwhelmingly agreed that there’s a lot of talk about empathy but not enough follow-through. In fact, over half of employees surveyed (52%) perceive corporate attempts at empathy as inauthentic (an increase from 46% in 2021).

52% of employees perceive corporate attempts at empathy to be inauthentic.

2023 Ernst & Young’s Empathy in Business report

And in Businessolver’s 2023 State of Workplace Empathy report, the number of respondents who believed their company cared about them was at an all-time low: Only 66% believed they worked in an empathetic workplace—a substantial drop from 78% five years ago.

Employees report a lack of consistency when it comes to company promises, and this has a way of breaking down a culture of empathy. For example, recent return-to-office mandates have had a head-spinning effect on workers who relied on the flexibility of previously instituted hybrid models. (In Businessolver’s report, 96% of respondents considered flexible working hours the most empathetic benefit an employer can offer.)

Sensitivity and authenticity

Time and again research has shown that for businesses to be agile and adaptable, company leaders must provide transparency and psychological safety. Rather than focus solely on employee output, empathetic leaders put themselves in employees’ shoes. They listen, they’re approachable, and they’re flexible. As a result, their authenticity improves retention, performance, morale, motivation and collaboration—leading to substantial business outcomes.

“How to be a good leader is how to be a good human,” says Dejun “Tony” Kong, an associate professor of organizational leadership and informational analytics at Leeds. “It’s about how responsive you are to other people’s concerns—the basis of any relationship. People want to be heard and understood.”

Kong teaches Leeds’ Executive Leadership course and challenges students to imagine what kind of leaders they want to be. Strong leadership, he says, comes from self-awareness and reflection on one’s strengths and weaknesses.

His work on trust in the workplace—how it can predict a company’s performance during times of great stress, such as a pandemic, economic crisis or political upheaval—has won the Most Influential Article Award and a Best Paper Award from the Academy of Management’s Conflict Management Division.

Kong is now studying a new model for how companies can build systems and structures that cultivate a trusting culture. He says human resources staff will play a big part in creating systemic change that’s self-sustaining in maintaining an empathetic work environment. This, combined with leadership training, could positively influence the psychology, attitudes and behaviors of employees.

He points out that in recent years, the pandemic’s impact on the workplace has prompted a great need for empathetic leaders who can help employees adapt to the changing business environment. This requires a special skill set, and empathy tops the list.

Indeed, it is what leaders must get right.

As downsizing and economic uncertainty shake up the workplace, employees wonder if ‘empathetic’ leaders are telling the truth.

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