Akhil Bhardwaj’s Post

The folks at Bath are pretty active….

If you’re interested in pragmatism or generally looking for an interesting sesssion at AOM, this is certainly one:

"Recently, there has been considerable interest in large language models: machine learning systems which produce human-like text and dialogue. Applications of these systems have been plagued by persistent inaccuracies in their output; these are often called “AI hallucinations”. We argue that these falsehoods, and the overall activity of large language models, is better understood as bullshit in the sense explored by Frankfurt (On Bullshit, Princeton, 2005): the models are in an important way indifferent to the truth of their outputs. " (great paper, well worth the read). https://lnkd.in/d76Zyzyq

Kakutani argues that much of the alternative facts Trumpian world we see today has its roots in the post modernist push of the academic left of the 70s that showed disregard to the pursuit of objective truth. To be sure, the right wing may have “bastardized” it, but the broader point here is the extreme of both sides are not that different from each other. Provocative and interesting, also a short read.

Is Boeing too big to fail? And if yes, what does it mean and what can be done to promote safety? In this op-ed, I suggest that indeed, Boeing is too big to fail. I further suggest that the giant has fallen into a confidence trap and offer a solution that centers on introducing executive “skin in the game.”

I look forward to presenting my research on "The Confidence Trap" and how to avoid it at the 15th CRA Risk & Safety Forum. You can read some of that research at the following links: https://lnkd.in/eZeU2QXv (Can Boeing Fix Itself?) https://lnkd.in/eXmXU5MB (The Confidence Trap in Operations Management Practices: Anatomy of Man-Made Disasters) https://shorturl.at/itfNG (Boeing’s fraud case shows that some businesses are still too big to fail)

We’re hiring. Come join us.

We are hiring.

Can Boeing fix itself? Yes, but as Luk Van Wassenhove, Henk Akkermans and I argue, it requires looking beyond solutions centering on leadership and culture towards governance. And it entails introducing some C-suite skin in the game. "Safety should not rest solely on the leadership. It should be underpinned by governance structures that promote good practices on one hand, and prohibit shady quality practices and other forms of opportunism on the other. Good leadership can improve safety outcomes, but to depend on it is akin to favouring benevolent dictatorships over healthy democracies, which have institutional safeguards to prevent abuse of power and harm due to incompetence. The solution lies in establishing governance with appropriately designed incentives, implementing proper administrative controls, allocating decision rights based on expertise and, ideally, selecting employees who place organisational well-being above myopic self-interest."

“[Researchers]increasingly resort to pretentious and long-winded prose to at least create the illusion of “theory development.” The result is writing that can only be understood by those already on the inside of the debates it references. As opposed to “imposter syndrome,” in which qualified people doubt their suitability for a given job, I suggest that many of us have become “genuine imposters” in that we pretend to be doing more important work, and more competently, than we really are.” Similar statements can likely be made for the veneer of methodological “sophistication,” which if examined closely by those outside epistemic communities that use it reveal something entirely else. To the extent that these communities can capture journals, research appears legitimate. We ultimately circle back again to the relevance of management theory to practitioners…….