‘Fed Up’ and Emotional Labour
The genesis of Gemma Hartley’s new book Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward was an essay she wrote for Harper’s Bazaar, titled “Women Aren’t Nags – We’re Just Fed Up”. The essay...
View ArticleSame Question, Different Answers: How It Happens
How can two studies researching the same question come up with two different answers? That was the dilemma that several media outlets recently had to confront, with the release of the results of two...
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Pumpkins and Pomposity
Margaret Wente, a columnist for the Globe and Mail newspaper, isn’t known for having insightful or original perspectives on issues. Earlier this year, it was discovered that some of her columns were...
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The Olympics, Part II: Inspiring Or Discouraging?
There was a lot of complaining – justifiable complaining – about the media coverage of the recent Rio Olympics. The coverage was sexist; a television commentator attributed the success of swimming gold...
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Conferences and Codes of Conduct
Nearly every organization has a code of conduct for its employees. These codes are usually explicit rules about what the organization’s members are and aren’t allowed to do, including the penalties –...
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20 Years of ‘Heavy’: An Interview with Eric Matthews
In 1995, there was an “adult alternative” radio station in Bellingham, Washington – just south of the Canadian border – that played pretty much everything and anything. One day when I was listening to...
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Book Publishing and False Economies
The North American book publishing industry has been disrupted in the last couple of years. Publishers’ revenues are dropping for a number of reasons: different publishing formats, the increased ease...
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“Follow Your Heart”: An Interview with Jim Pons
The start of a new year, along with all the “New Year, New You” encouragement, usually leads people into thinking about making changes. One kind of change that’s often considered is a new job or a new...
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Feedback at Work
Giving feedback – to employees, peers, or even bosses – is a tricky but essential process in almost every organization. It’s important to let people know how they’re doing in their work, but it’s often...
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Employee Engagement Surveys (and doing them well)
2015 was a really bad year for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). At the start of the year, business correspondent Amanda Lang was accused of being in a conflict of interest for her reporting...
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This is What We Lose
The new film Spotlight tells the story of an investigation by a team of reporters at the Boston Globe newspaper in the early 2000s. The reporters documented extensive child abuse by priests and...
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Business Professors and Activism: An Interview with Scott Behson
Being neutral in academic work is something that I think many academics struggle with. I came to academia from journalism, so my experiences in journalism might have given me a heightened sensitivity...
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Overflow and Too Much Research
Can there be such a thing as too much research? And if there is, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Two recent studies suggest that a lot of research is essential to the development of reliable...
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The Dark Side of Workplace Wellness
The Report on Business section of the Globe and Mail newspaper recently ran an interview with the authors of a provocative new book, The Wellness Syndrome. The authors, Carl Cederstrom and Andre...
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Why Academic Freedom is Important to Everyone (Not Just Academics)
The ongoing conflicts at the University of British Columbia that I wrote about last week have caused a lot of discussion about the concept of “academic freedom”. Unfortunately, a fair amount of that...
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Blogging, Academia, and Diversity
When Jennifer Berdahl was appointed to a faculty position in the University of British Columbia (UBC) Sauder School of Business, a UBC press release quoted her as saying that she intended to “create...
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D.F.L. (Dead F***ing Last)
When you look at competition results, there are several acronyms that you might see next to athletes’ names, such as DNQ (did not qualify), DNF (did not finish), and WD (withdrew). But there’s also an...
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Bill C-377: A Sad Day for Democracy
Canada Day, July 1, is a day for Canadians to show their pride in their country. I love my country deeply. I am very grateful to have been born here, and I chose to live here. But this Canada Day is...
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Calling for a Public Inquiry
There is a situation going on right now in my home province of British Columbia that is deeply distressing to me as a researcher, as an instructor who teaches courses about employment, and as a...
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Disrupting Gender Stereotypes in the Media
My friend Sam Ford does a lot of interesting things, and one of them is teaching in the Popular Culture Program at Western Kentucky University. Last year, at a research conference, Sam was on a panel...
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