Author's Blog

Three dreaded words: "Research shows that ..."

I'm just back from the meetings of the CIPD -- the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development -- the UK's largest HR conference.  People Management, a leading HR publication, summarized events with a daily edition, and the one I picked up yesterday, Sept 20, had some interesting reading.

    

      One article was titled “Engaged staff vital for performance.”  In it, Jane Hanson, HR director at First Direct, a hugely successful internet bank, was quoted as saying she "believed that staff engagement was the key factor in the recent success of the bank, which has seen profits grow by 30 percent in five years.”  Ms. Hanson noted, however, that the factors which were most important for engagement were sometimes surprising:  “Research showed that what mattered most to our people was such things as having fun at work, making good friendships, our brand identity, and the way we support families.”

    

      Ah, those three dreaded words:  “Research shows that…”   Invoking these words conveys credibility – after all, we did some research and you didn’t, so we must know what we're talking about.  But unless we’re talking about good research – well designed, with solid data, and appropriate inferences drawn from the data – we may be kidding ourselves.

A Little Clarity about Corporate Social Responsibility

The Sept 8-14 issue of The Economist runs an article, "In search of the good company," about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).  It mentions a new book by Robert Reich, former labor secretary under Bill Clinton, who apparently has done a 180-degree turn about CSR -- he used to urge companies to pursue socially responsible actions, but now believes that expecting companies to do so is not only futile, but diverts attention from the responsibility of the government to attend to social issues. 

In The Halo Effect, I show how the conventional wisdom -- that CSR leads to profitability -- is poorly done and inconclusive.  First, it is easy to attribute enlightened management to companies that are performing well -- that's an example of the halo effect.  But even if we conduct a longitudinal study and look

Top Brands -- Nice Headline, Doubtful Logic

I took part of the summer off -- but now it's back to work, and back to blogging.  One item in my mailbox that deserves note is the August 6 issue of Business Week, with its annual ranking of Top Brands.  BW usually presents this article with a big splash on its cover  -- but this year the story is found midway in the issue, beginning on p.56, while the cover is given over to a story about "The Pet Economy" and features a rather imposing bulldog.  Maybe BW is losing a bit of confidence in the way it evaluates brands?  That would be a step in the right direction, as its approach appears to be flawed.

Once again, BW has worked with a company called Interbrand to identify and rank the Best Global Brands.  The top five include Coca-Cola, Microsoft, IBM, GE, and Nokia, and are followed by Toyota, Intel, McDonald's, Disney, and Mercedes.  These are well-known companies with strong images, which is what brand is all about, no?  Who could argue with a list like this?