[AISWorld] [External] [EXT] Re: [External] Hiring Professor (Female Only) in Information Systems and Technology Management, UNSW Sydney

[Michael Cuellar]

Please delete if not interested!

I agree that a perfect meritocracy is not possible. However, the impossibility of perfection does not mean that we condone and endorse injustice. There was in the past a pattern where women were rejected in favor of men simply because they were women. Is it now just that we commit the opposite injustice by rejecting men simply because they are not women? In fact the case that we are discussing is even more egregious because it is overt and has the sanction of law. 

The answer is of course it isn’t just to do so. 

The impossibility of a meritocracy also doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive for a meritocracy. Of course everyone is subject to biases. There is no sinlessly perfect elite that makes unbiased decisions. We have to therefore find ways to eliminate or to drown out biased opinions. Dr. Palvia makes a good point in this regard., The opinion of a diverse group of knowledgeable people is better than any single decision maker (the Wisdom of Crowds). Using the largest group of knowledgeable people possible eliminates biases and makes the best decision possible. 

----------------------------------------------
Michael Cuellar, PhD, PMP
Associate Professor, 
Enterprise Systems and Analytics
Georgia Southern University

Parker College of Business
Enterprise Systems and Analytics Department
PO Box 7998
Statesboro, GA  30460-7998
email: mcuellar at georgiasouthern.edu
phone: (404)-405-4510

Editor-In-Chief Journal of the Southern AIS
Senior Editor, JISE

> On Jun 12, 2022, at 5:23 AM, wombat <c.conway at ieseg.fr> wrote:
> 
> On 6/12/22 05:21, John Venable wrote:
>> Apologies for filling your in-tray if this doesn't interest you.
> 
> And likewise! :-)
> 
> I'd like to add a "Hear hear!" to this email. Dr. Venable has said in a much clearer and less inflammatory way what I have been trying to point out.
> 
> With respect to Dr. Cuellar's and Dr. Palvia's posts:
> 
> Meritocracy is a lovely fantasy. It's not real. Whenever people are judging other people, there are ALWAYS biases[7]. Even people like us who are trained to be, and try very hard to be[3], as objective as possible cannot possibly be completely objective. Frankly, I believe this is a consequence of Gödel's theorem[1], and the ideal of complete objectivity is unreachable. I'm far from convinced that even "good enough" is reachable; our brains wire themselves to group the things that we perceive to make classification and decision-making easier. It's not something that can be unlearned.
> 
> Read the research on meritocracy. Maybe it will open your eyes.
> 
> A great place to start is this article, and it's even in the business literature (most critical work on meritocracy is published in sociology journals, and tends to focus on its inherent socioeconomic biases):
> 
> Castilla, E. J., & Ranganathan, A. (2020). The Production of Merit: How
> 	Managers Understand and Apply Merit in the Workplace.
> 	Organization Science, 31(4), 909–935.
> 	https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2019.1335
> 
> [1] Yes, I know that Gödels thereom is about formal systems and not the human self[2], but what is the brain if not a formal system?
> 
> [2] And, for that matter, exactly what is the human self? How can we determine objectively that it is in fact capable of objectivity?
> 
> [3] Which I respect greatly, and I am sure that all concerned in this dispute practice as much as possible; attestations of experienced discrimination[4] suggest that good intentions abound.
> 
> [4] I, too, have experienced age discrimination. Sucks, but that's how the system currently works. And because of this, I work very hard to change the system for the better, and do not assume that anyone[5] can truly be objective, because they can't.
> 
> [5] And don't even get me started on so-called "AI".
> 
> [6] There is no footnote 6. You're just reading all the footnotes, aren't you?
> 
> [7] In fact, what is the "merit" in "meritocracy"? Every single one of us has a definition which differs at least slightly, and sometimes wildly, from others. Our idea of merit often involves being "someone like me", because we *think* we live in a meritocracy, thus we *deserve* our current status, and the idea that we got that status because of luck or socieconomic or cultural or racial or genetic or sexual advantages challenges our notion of self. Thus, we reject the idea that we don't deserve what we have; we must "merit" it, and the definition of merit becomes rapidly "like me". Again, see the org science paper for how this plays out. Look at the sociology and social psychology research that it cites. The scientific verdict is clear: meritocracy isn't based on any objective definition of the word "merit".
> 
> Christopher M. Conway Ph.D. also known on the net as wombat since 1986.
> Computer scientist, software engineer, social psychologist, musician, statistician, amateur philosopher, polymath.
> 
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