Additional information
by Nikki Blacksmith (Editor), Maureen E. McCusker (Editor)
Since the beginning of the 21st century, there has been an explosion in startup organizations. Together, these organizations have been valued at over $3 trillion. In 2019, alone, nearly $300 billion of venture capital was invested globally (Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2020). Simultaneously, an explosion in high volume and high velocity of big data is rapidly changing how organizations function. Gone are the days where organizations can make decisions solely on intuition, logic, or experience. Some have gone as far as to say that data is the most valuable currency and resource available to businesses, and startups are no exception. However, startups and small businesses do differ from their larger counterparts and corporations in three distinct ways: 1) they tend to have fewer resources, time, and specialized training to devote to data analytics; 2) they are part of a unique entrepreneurial ecosystem with unique needs; 3) scholarship and academic research on human capital data analytics in startups is lacking. Existing entrepreneurship research focuses almost exclusively on macro-level aspects. There has been little to no integration of micro- and meso-level research (i.e., individual and team sciences), which is unfortunate given how organizational scientists have significantly advanced human capital data analytics.
Unlike other books focused on data analytics and decision for organizations, this proposed book is purposefully designed to be more specifically aimed at addressing the unique idiosyncrasies of the science, research, and practice of startups. Each chapter highlights a specific organizational domain and discuss how a novel data analytic technique can help enhance decision-making, provides a tutorial of said regarding the data analytic technique, and lists references and resources for the respective data analytic technique. The volume will be grounded in sound theory and practice of organizational psychology, entrepreneurship and management and is divided into two parts: assessing and evaluating human capital performance and the use of data analytics to manage human capital.
Author Biography
Dr. Nikki Blacksmith is Co-Founder and CEO of Blackhawke Behavior Science and an adjunct faculty member at American University in Washington, DC. She serves as a Senior Research Fellow at the U.S. Army Research Institute for Social and Behavioral Sciences and is on the Board of Directors of a Sembramos, a nonprofit dedicated to building antiracist organizations. She is an Associate Editor for the journal Personnel Assessments and Decisions, a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Business and Psychology, and serves in multiple leadership roles for the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology. Dr. Blacksmith received her M.A. from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and her Ph.D. from the George Washington University in Industrial-Organizational Psychology.
Dr. Maureen E. McCusker is Co-Founder & COO of Blackhawke Behavior Science and Senior Research Analyst at Virginia Commonwealth University. As an Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, she has spent the last decade working with and studying leaders and teams in organizations from a wide variety of sectors, including corporate Fortune 500, medical, legal, academic, military, and non-profit. She has earned several awards and grants for scholarly research from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Virginia Tech, and the Department of Defense. Dr. McCusker serves as a Senior Research Fellow for the U.S. Army Research Institute. She holds a Ph.D. and a M.S. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Virginia Tech and a B.A. in Psychology and French from Georgetown University.
