Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Corporate Brain


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. After considerable work on the article, the earlier delete !votes concern's appear to be mostly addressed. Nom has changed their !vote. Consensus is it is now in good enough shape to keep. (non-admin closure)  Onel 5969  TT me 13:41, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Corporate Brain

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This article seems to synthesize a number of frequently deployed brain-related metaphors, and presented the hodge-podge as if it were an actual, single concept in management theory. The article has become a bizarre coatrack for a bunch of unrelated concepts in management or business administration that all use the word "brain". It's hard to say whether this stuff meets our notability guidelines because this article dosen't actually seem to be about anything. Salimfadhley (talk) 04:19, 10 December 2015 (UTC)


 * WP:SYNTH, WP:OR, WP:NEO - David Gerard (talk) 15:25, 10 December 2015 (UTC) Userfy - I don't want to unduly discourage a new contributor - userfy this until it is up to scratch - David Gerard (talk) 10:22, 15 December 2015 (UTC) Move to Organizational metacognition - has been improved to the point of keeping - David Gerard (talk) 21:39, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete A synthetic topic; self-promotional. Alexbrn (talk) 15:28, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Interestingly, the article concludes "The corporate brain metaphor is not a management theory and does not have a single agreed definition for use. The corporate brain metaphors and analogues have been criticised as a hodge-podge which is neither notable as a concept or a management theory in itself." Which is pretty much our consensus here. However, let's be more respectful here regarding this work, which appears to be based on his own published paper in Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (see ref # 28), which is a peer-reviewed academic journal. I don't think it's our place to dismiss Cleverley's work as "bizarre." However it is a case of WP:NOTESSAY and I would agree to delete. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 16:07, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * As the articles initial creator, I have made significant changes to address the concerns raised and also submitted a title change from Corporate Brain to 'List of brain related metaphors in management theory' as suggested by User:Salimfadhley. I disagree with David Gerard as the article contains original research, see JASIST reference, which is a peer reviewed tier #1 journal in this area. I have taken out a reference to my blog website and other changes to address the self promotional theme raised by Alexbrn, leaving only the peer reviewed JASIST article and over 20 verifiable published sources from a number of authors since the 1930's. I agree with the comments on 'essay' style in places so have tried to make it more factual based on comments from Shawn in Montreal where the essay style appears to be the primary objection. Appreciate if you could take the time to have another quick look. I am new to Wikipedia so I apologise for making basic mistakes PHCleverley (talk) 17:43, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Management-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 16:09, 10 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Draft and userfy again as I simply accepted this because it seemed notable and acceptable but if it's not fully set, simply return to draft and userfy where it can still be worked. SwisterTwister   talk  20:47, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Support agree, the article may be saved given some additional work. --Salimfadhley (talk) 05:04, 11 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Thankyou SwisterTwister . I am hoping when the editors who originally raised objections look at the revised article as it is now this will be acceptable as-is or only requires minor revisons. PHCleverley (talk) 21:02, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I would like to help revise the article, but I can't tell which parts are drawn from which references in some cases.--Bored (talk) 23:24, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * This is fairly esoteric stuff for most of us, and while editors at this Afd are encouraged to do what they can, I also think that we might benefit from expert attention from someone in Prof. or Mr. Cleverley's field. I've tagged it. Unfortunately the WikiProject for the field I think is closest is only "semi-active." Would anyone like to add other wikiprojects to the template? thanks, Shawn in Montreal (talk) 00:02, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, I've added two other Wikiprojects. WikiProject Cognitive science seemed the most promising to me. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 00:17, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I have alerted Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Business using almost exactly the same text. --Salimfadhley (talk) 03:32, 11 December 2015 (UTC):


 * Comment - after rereading this article, it still seems to be an article survey about a bunch of mostly unrelated metaphors. The only unifying factor is that all of them allude to brains or animal cognition in some way. Only one researcher (who is also the author of this article) has seen fit to synthesize these previously unrelaed concepts. The only thing stopping this from being blatent WP:OR is that the original research has presumably been conducted within a unversity or school of management. --Salimfadhley (talk) 05:03, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment - Thankyou for the critique and editing help. Building on this, the article has been completely rewritten and a request put in to rename it to Organizational Metacognition with a link from Organizational Learning. All mentions of the 'corporate brain' metaphors have been removed as they only seemed to cause misunderstandings from editors on what the article is actually about. The concept is based on peer reviewed published research from more than one author and source. The article is no longer essay like. I have also added the category of Information Science PHCleverley (talk) 07:46, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete. An incoherent essay, with a title added on as an afterthought. Maproom (talk) 11:18, 11 December 2015 (UTC)     Keep. The article has been totally rewritten, former criticisms no longer apply. Maproom (talk) 10:45, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment - Can you please clarify Maproom whether you are referring to the old article text, or the current article which has just been completely rewritten and has a page move request in for a name change to Organizational metacognition? If so, can you please tell me which parts you feel are essay like (opinions rather than information from peer reviewed sources) and why you think the title is an afterthought? PHCleverley (talk) 11:40, 11 December 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by PHCleverley (talk • contribs) 11:32, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I was referring to the article as it was when I posted. It was titled "Corporate Brain", and was four sentences long. Maproom (talk) 15:57, 11 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment - The article now is very short and to the point as I seem to be falling foul of essay objections. The page is no longer called the corporate brain and all mentions of this have been dropped, a move request has been submitted to rename it Organizational metacognition. It now simply reads (supported by verifiable references and links to other pages) *Organizational metacognition is a concept related to metacognition, organizational learning and sensemaking used to describe how an organization 'knows what it knows' [1] and how teams learn to learn[2][3][4]. Poor organizational metacognition has been observed in enterprise search where searchers and management show surprise when presented with how poorly exploratory search tasks are performed in the organization.[5] Feedback on this is appreciated from you all. PHCleverley (talk) 12:07, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete. The older version is gibberish, the newer version is a few empty sentences, both are OR. 209.211.131.181 (talk) 16:29, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment - Thankyou 209.211.131.181 but I do not understand why you say the description of Organizational metacognition is empty sentences when it has been used by numerous academics who have published in very good peer review journals. Have you read any of the articles by those authors I cite in the article? Please provide evidence for your statement that the article is not verifiable using published research. I agree the article can be further developed by other editors and scholars in the future, perhaps from this talk forum. I have kept it deliberately short to avoid any concerns of essay style at this time, but will add more detail as your complain appears to be in part because it is too short and does not go onto details. PHCleverley (talk) 16:51, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * "Empty sentences" means what it sounds like: the few sentences currently in the article don't actually mean anything, they only look like they mean things. That's not a useful foundation for an article. I haven't read any of the sources yet, but I will. 209.211.131.181 (talk) 17:29, 11 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep as revised and with move to Organizational metacognition. The original article was a mess focusing on the brain metaphor. Metacognition is a real thing, and Google shows over 1500 hits for "Organizational metacognition" including many books relating to the topic. The current state of the article is a valid stub, and the new topic focus may aid redevelopment.
 * Note: PHCleverley citing your own work is a Conflict of Interest. Editors can be sensitive to the possibility of self promotion, as well as concerns that an article must present a balanced summary of the field rather than focusing on the research of one individual. For example the current sentence citing your own work seems reasonable in itself, however I can't imagine a random editor would have selected that as the first-and-only sentence (after the topic definition) to represent the field. If you continue to develop the article then I urge you to focus on independent sources. If you need to cite your own work then I suggest you use the talk page to post the new sentence and source-cite, with a Request_edit template for another editor to review and add. COI edit requests tend to be backlogged, but someone eventually gets to it. Alsee (talk) 17:41, 11 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment - Thankyou Alsee. Its the first positive comment I have received, so I must be learning from the comments made on this talk page! I have made some additions to address the comments of 209.211.131.181 in particular to add the concept of Deutero-learning which is the third type of Organizational Learning identified by Argyris and Schon. As a researcher (I have made no attempt to hide my identity) I guess I have an inherent bias towards my published work, but your point is taken I shall remove the reference to the published paper and follow the workflow you suggest. Thankyou. PHCleverley (talk) 18:14, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment - Could some of the editors who originally suggested 'delete' for this article, please have another look at the revised article in light of the significant changes made, request for article name change to 'Organizational metacognition' and comments from Alsee who has suggested a Keep outlining their reasons. In particular Salimfadhley who raised the deletion request, whether the changes made meet your approval and address the objections originally made. This would give time to make any changes if there are any further suggestions or objections as the deadline for deletion is Wednesday. Thank you. PHCleverley (talk) 11:46, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Looked, the new version should be deleted or merged somewhere as it is two sentences that say nearly nothing useful - David Gerard (talk) 15:19, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment - Thankyou David Gerard for re-looking and providing feedback. I have added a new paragraph and dipped into the literature to provide more details on this subject. I hope you find this more useful.  PHCleverley (talk) 17:48, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm really getting the idea this article is completely unfinished work in progress and should be put back to your userspace until it's ready for prime time - David Gerard (talk) 17:58, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment - Thanks for the feedback. This is my first Wikipedia article, I did read many of the guidelines and was bold. However, it is fair to say the past 5 days has been a learning experience for me and not always a comfortable one as I seem to have broken almost every rule in the book. I have one editor who feels the last version was a 'keep' - enough on a notable subject to continue, so this gives me encouragement. I have added a lot more detail since then to meet your objections and I hope it will be developed by other editors, rather than just me. I think there is enough there that is useful on this subject. If you think I need to write more then I will return back to my userspace but I would still have the challenge knowing how much to add to make you feel it is useful David Gerard. PHCleverley (talk) 18:11, 14 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment - As the 'Organizational metacognition' article is due to be deleted tomorrow I have added further text to the article as the only outstanding objection I am aware of appears to be the opinion from at least one editor that there is not enough useful content, although another editor is of the opinion that the article is worthy of a 'keep'. The article has been significantly extended overnight (without making it verbose) and now has sections on Learning prototypes, Terminological ambiguities, Significance and Examples in practice. It is supported by 19 references (most of them peer reviewed) and links to other Wikipedia Articles. It would of course (like most articles) benefit from further development over time. I have looked at other comparable Wikipedia pages that have existed for some time without change, in similar areas (organizational science) and I am of the opinion the article is comparable, there are some broader topics that have more descriptions, but there are certainly many pages on concepts that have less. I am available today and would have time for one more edit, should there be something that an editor wants to see that they feel is not in the article. PHCleverley (talk) 09:01, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * It does seem to be a completely different article than what I originally nominated, and as such is probably worthy of additional review. --Salimfadhley (talk) 10:10, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Pinging Alexbrn, Shawn in Montreal, Maproom, David Gerard to take a fresh look. This is a whole new article, well developed, well sourced, on a legitimate topic, which will move to a much better title/topic after the AFD resolves. Alsee (talk) 21:09, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's much better. The writing seems unclear to me, but it's much clearer on the concept and is talking about a real concept that's out there in the wild. I've changed my opinion above to "move to Organizational metacognition" - David Gerard (talk) 21:39, 15 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment: now a completely different, and much improved, article. How are we handling this? Will there be a new AfD discussion? Should I strike my earlier "delete" !vote? (The mismatch between the article title and the bolded phrase in its opening sentence is a problem, but I understand why it is that way, and don't see it as important,) Maproom (talk) 00:07, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Withdraw - PHCleverley has turned this around. --Salimfadhley (talk) 02:02, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment I don't believe the AfD can be withdrawn at this point (since there are delete !votes registered; see WP:WDAFD and WP:SKCRIT), but you can certainly strike your earlier !vote if your opinion has changed. The closing administrator will take the new information into consideration when closing the AfD. clpo13(talk) 09:31, 17 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment : Thankyou everyone for your patience. I'm pleased I got there in the end with your help. PHCleverley (talk) 10:06, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
 * And thanks to you,, for your own patience, and the work you have done. It is great to see it turned into a useful article. Maproom (talk) 13:04, 16 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment : Quick question folks. Is it my responsibility to delete the notice at the top of the article page with the old objections or do I wait for an administrator to do this? PHCleverley (talk) 11:12, 17 December 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.