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Art of the Sale: Recommendations for Sharing Research With Mainstream Media and Senior Leaders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Don C. Zhang Open the ORCID record for Don C. Zhang [Opens in a new window]
Don C. Zhang*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Louisiana State University
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Don C. Zhang, Department of Psychology, Louisiana State University, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, 236 Audubon Hall, Baton Rouge, LA 70803. E-mail: zhang1@lsu.edu
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Extract

Research collaborations are two-way streets. To obtain support from organizations, academics must communicate the value of their research projects to the stakeholders. In their focal article, Lapierre et al., (2018) described this process as the academic “sales pitch”, one that must be “short yet attention grabbing” (p.20). Academic research in industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology, however, is rooted in esoteric jargon (e.g., validity and reliability) and unconvincing evidence (e.g., r and r2) (Highhouse, Brooks, Nesnidol, & Sim, 2017; Rynes, 2009). These concepts are difficult for non-academics to understand and may even undermine the value of our work (Brooks, Dalal, & Nolan, 2014; Kuncel & Rigdon, 2012; Mattern, Kobrin, Patterson, Shaw, & Camara, 2009). CEOs and other senior leaders often have limited time, attention, and expertise to process your pitch: A bad one could effectively derail the collaboration before it even began.

Type
Commentaries
Information
Industrial and Organizational Psychology , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , December 2018 , pp. 589 - 593
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology 2018 

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