Workers who fall for ‘corporate bullshit’ may be worse at their jobs, study finds

Ever sat in a meeting where someone declares that your company is “growth-hacking” and “working at the intersection of cross-collateralization and blue-sky thinking” and called bullshit? Turns out you were right.

A new study out of Cornell University published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences found workers most excited and impressed by corporate speak may be the least equipped to make effective, practical business decisions, and it can leave companies with dysfunctional leaders.

Academically, “bullshit” is broadly defined as “a type of semantically, logically or epistemically dubious information that is misleadingly impressive, important, informative or otherwise engaging”, according to the study.

“Corporate bullshit” is a specific type of bullshit that uses puzzling corporate buzzwords and jargon and is ultimately “semantically empty and often confusing”, according to the research. It is often used by management to persuade and impress, sometimes to inflate perceptions of the company to workers and investors.