Assumptions beyond the science: encouraging cautious conclusions about functional magnetic resonance imaging research on organizational behavior

• Date: 01 November 2016
• Author: Luke Boorman,Karen Niven
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2097
• Published date: 01 November 2016

Assumptions beyond the science: encouraging

cautious conclusions about functional magnetic

resonance imaging research on organizational

behavior

KAREN NIVEN

1

*AND LUKE BOORMAN

2

1

Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Manchester, U.K.

2

Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, U.K.

Summary Functional magnetic resonance imagi ng (fMRI) is likely to become the major tool for studying t he neural

underpinnings of organization al behavior. It is a technique for brain i maging that, according to advocates ,

provides information about whic h areas of the brain are activated during organization al processes (e.g., lead-

ership and decision-making). In this article, we take a critical look at this tool from a technical perspective.

In particular, we take the reader through the as sumptions that must be made at the three main st eps of the

research process (study desi gn, data capture, and interpretation of results) i n order to draw conclusions about

organizational phenomena from fM RI research. Applying this analysis to three case studies demonstrates the

gap between what fMRI can actually tell us and the claims ofte n made about the contribution of fMRI to

understanding and improving organi zational behavior. Our discussion pr ovides researchers with a series

of recommendations oriented toward optimizing the use o f fMRI to help it live up to its potential in the field

of organizational behavior and consumers with a means of eval uating fMRI research in order to draw appro-

priate and warranted conclusions. Cop yright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: organizational neuroscience; functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); study design; low

power; poor reliability

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a brain imaging technique that is considered to be at the forefront of

neuroscience research. By capitalizing on the magnetic properties of blood, the technique detects spatially localized

changes in the brain’s blood oxygen levels, which are thought to relate to the areas of the brain that are in use while

participants are engaging in various tasks or mental processes. fMRI may therefore provide insight into the neural

underpinnings of various cognitive, affective, or behavioral processes and is a widely used method for researchers of

such higher-order processes in humans because it is noninvasive and relatively harmless. The technique is particularly

popular because it offers higher spatial resolution than other noninvasive techniques like electroencephalography (EEG),

although there are still limitations on its resolution (measures of the fMRI signal are typically taken at the voxel level,

with each voxel containing—and thus summarizing information across—hundreds of thousands of brain cells). Such is

the popularity of fMRI that it is almost omnipresent in neuroscience publications. Logothetis (2008) reported that an

average of eight journal articles using fMRI methods were published per day between 2007 and 2008, while others have

documented the exponential rise in fMRI publications since its inception (Bandettini, 2007).

As part of the emerging paradigm of organizational neuroscience (Becker, Cropanzano, and Sanfey, 2011),

researchers have started to consider the use and applications of fMRI within the field of organizational behavior.

*Correspondence to: Karen Niven, Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Manchester M15 6PB, U.K. karen.niven@mbs.ac.uk.

E-mail: karen.niven@mbs.ac.uk

This article was initially published as a Special Issue article on 01 March 2016 for a Special Issue titled “Can Neurons Manage?”by the SI editors

Dirk Lindebaum (University of Liverpool), Peter J. Jordan (Griffith University), Mike Zundel (University of Liverpool), and David Wastell

(University of Nottingham), and will be published as a Research Article in volume 37, issue 8 of Journal of Organizational Behavior.

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 01 July 2015

Revised 18 January 2016, Accepted 27 January 2016

Journal of Organizational Behavior, J. Organiz. Behav. 37, 1150–1177 (2016)

Published online 1 March 2016 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/job.2097

Research Article

Table 1. Functional magnetic resonance imaging studies of organizational behaviors.

Study

Organizational

process Key question

Experimental

task(s) Control task(s) Sample Analysis procedure

Bagozzi

et al. (2012,

Study 3)

Customer

orientation

What is the

neurological

basis of

customer

orientation,

and how

does this

compare with

sales orientation?

Participants were

presented with

3-second video

clips of the

following: (i)

positive emotion

faces and (ii)

negative emotion

faces (to induce

empathy).

Control tasks

were as follows:

(i) 3-second

video clips of

neutral faces;

(ii) 3-second

video clips of

moving

geometrical

shapes; and (iii)

instructions to

imitate the

emotion faces

during viewing.

Twenty-four

right-handed

participants

(16 men and

eight women)

who were

salespeople,

12 high and

12 low in

customer and

sales orientation.

No power analysis

reported.

Analyses using

regions of

interest

identified based

on prior research.

Contrasts were

between the

experimental

tasks and each

control task

and between

the two

experimental

tasks. Self-

reported

customer

orientation and

sales orientation

were correlated

with mean signal

change between

conditions. Small

volume correction

used to correct

for multiple

comparisons.

Bagozzi

et al. (2013,

Study 1)

Machiavellianism What are the

theory of mind

underpinnings of

Machiavellianism?

Participants

listened to

stories lasting 33–

36 seconds of

professional

interactions between

a customer boundary

spanner and a

customer, and then

were asked a question

about why or how

these characters

Control tasks were

as follows: (i)

process stories of

a similar

length that

presented a

scenario

involving a

customer boundary

spanner and then

asked a question

about that scenario

(thought not to

Forty-three

right-handed

participants (37

men and six

women) who

were customer

boundary spanners.

No power analysis

reported.

Analyses using

whole brain and

regions of

interest identified

based on prior

research.

Contrasts were

between the

experimental

task and each

control task.

Self-reported

Machiavellianism

(Continues)

TECHNICAL ISSUES WITH USING fMRI 1151

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 37, 1150–1177 (2016)

DOI: 10.1002/job