Category Archives: Uncategorized

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A Review of Adam Grant’s Originals

Adam Grant is among the most popular professors in America. He has successfully navigated the transition from scholar to one who makes scholarship popular. Given his success and other books that I have been reading lately, I was interested in his latest book, Originals:  How Non-Conformists Move the World. Unfortunately, I was quite disappointed. In today’s post, I will share a review of Adam Grant’s Originals and where I believe the book fell short.

Photo credit: Time

Grant’s goal in the book was to explain how people come to champion original ideas. Specifically, what makes people support novel ideas, think outside the box, and embrace risk taking.

Given his expertise as an organizational psychologist with the Wharton School, Grant certainly has the expertise to tackle the topic.

Yet, the book fails to deliver on this promise.

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Understanding the different types of colleges and universities

There are many different types of college and universities in the United States. Too often, we discuss higher education through the prism of selective and research institutions. Yet, we know that these types of institutions aren’t the norm, but instead are a very small percentage of all colleges and universities. In today’s post, I want to share the different criteria that can be used to identify differences between institutions. Understanding the different types of colleges and universities is important for graduate students and really anyone involved in higher education.

Photo credit: Eric Chan

The range of institutions present in the U.S. system of higher education is considered a major strength.

As I’ve discussed here as well as my monograph on the subject, institutional diversity is profoundly important for higher education to meet the multiple and, at times, conflicting goals placed on the system.

But how do we tell institutions apart?  What criteria and characteristics are most useful to consider?

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Merry Christmas everyone!

I hope everyone had a great end of the semester and you are looking forward to an exciting new year.  Today, as is our tradition, we’re taking a break from discussing the current issues facing higher education and tips for how to be more productive.

Instead, as my present to you, I want to share my three favorite Christmas music videos.  Unlike that new pair of socks from Grandma each year, these never get old.

Take some time to relax and enjoy your family and friends.

Merry Christmas!

The Grinch

Charlie Brown Christmas Dance

John Denver and the Muppets sing 12 Days of Christmas

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Dark side of organizational culture

Organizational culture can help build a shared sense of values and support a consensus among organizational members. Indeed, much of the research explores the positive aspects of culture. Yet, as I discussed in my post on the sorority recruitment videos at the University of Alabama, culture can prove damaging and destructive as well. In today’s post, I want to share an excerpt from my article Witch-hunting at Crucible University:  The power and peril of competing organizational ideologies that appeared in the Journal of Higher Education in 2011.

Photo credit: Flickr Josh

Competing perspectives of organizational culture highlight the role of subcultures which can have quite divergent values and interests (Martin, 2002; Sackmann, 1992).

Subcultures may form around hierarchical rank or occupational position. In universities, the disparate histories and epistemological assumptions of various academic disciplines cause them to operate as independent “tribes” (Becher, 1989).