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Berend van der Kolk

@berendvdkolk.bsky.social

210 followers 73 following 87 posts

Associate Professor | VU Amsterdam | 📚The Quantified Society | Studying metrics and their implications | Also into 🎹 Site: berendvanderkolk.com Book: https://tinyurl.com/quantsoci Research: https://tinyurl.com/scholarkolk

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Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · Nov 17

Welcome to my BlueSky profile.

I'm a researcher and teacher interested in performance measurement.

I write and post about this theme, and occasionally on other topics including politics, jazz, and higher education.

More info: berendvanderkolk.com/about

Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · 3d

www.afr.com/companies/pr...

Deloitte to refund government, admits using AI in $440k report

Deloitte will issue a partial refund to the government after admitting that artificial intelligence had been used in the creation of a report littered with errors.

www.afr.com

Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · 3d

😐
"Deloitte Australia will issue a partial refund to the federal government after admitting that artificial intelligence had been used in the creation of a $440,000 report"

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Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · 3d

Follow your dreams...👇

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Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · 7d

Vandaag in de @telegraaf.nl een stuk over de prestatiesamenleving, met bijdragen van psycholoog Nienke Wijnants en ondergetekende.

Link: www.telegraaf.nl/nieuws/waaro...

Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · 23d

Sorbonne University decides to withdraw from THE World University Ranking: www.sorbonne-universite.fr/en/news/sorb...

Why would universities do this? I wrote a blog about it recently on social science space, available here: www.socialsciencespace.com/2025/08/stop...

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Reposted by Berend van der Kolk

Trouw @trouw.nl · Sep 5

Hoeveel sterren geeft u dit stuk? Over onze doorgeslagen obsessie met online reviews

Of het nu gaat om restaurants, glasbakken of taxichauffeurs: we recenseren alles. Een goedbedoeld systeem, maar het lijkt zichzelf uit te hollen door overvloed en manipulatie. Wat hebben we er dan nog aan? Amber Dujardin recenseert de recensiesamenleving.

www.trouw.nl

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Reposted by Berend van der Kolk

Ronald Hartz @ronaldhartz.bsky.social · Aug 21

'Let’s replace the frame of academia as a competition with a frame that recognizes and rewards cooperation. Let’s put an end to the ranking circus.'

Stop the University Ranking Circus by @berendvdkolk.bsky.social

#HigherEd

www.socialsciencespace.com/2025/08/stop...

Stop the University Ranking Circus - Social Science Space

It’s that time of the year again. Some 50 percent of your academic LinkedIn connections share they are “happy” or even “thrilled” […]

www.socialsciencespace.com

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Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · Aug 18

"we should ignore rankings as academics: they are misleading and harmful to academic values"
- www.socialsciencespace.com/2025/08/stop...

Stop the University Ranking Circus - Social Science Space

It’s that time of the year again. Some 50 percent of your academic LinkedIn connections share they are “happy” or even “thrilled” […]

www.socialsciencespace.com

Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · Aug 17

#academicsky #quantifiedsociety #meetmaatschappij #academia 😁

Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · Aug 2

"The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth, and truth be defamed as lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world (..) is being destroyed."
- Hannah Arendt

NBC News @nbcnews.com · Aug 1

BREAKING: President Trump fires the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics hours after weak jobs report.

Trump fires labor statistics boss hours after weak jobs report

The president implied that the BLS commissioner, long-time federal employee Erika McEntarfer, manipulated the data "for political purposes."

nbcnews.to

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Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · Jul 30

group.mercedes-benz.com/innovations/...

group.mercedes-benz.com

Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · Jul 30

MS Teams in a car - I cannot wait..

Never able to skip a meeting anymore if you're traveling.

🤨 "Car productivity"

#surveillance

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Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · Jul 25

Look! I found a scatterplot during my holidays 🤓

(@ Museo Can Mario)

Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · Jul 11

How does digitalization of finance departments take shape?

To answer this question, we conducted a survey and various interviews with finance directors. We find, among others, that having a digitalization strategy matters.

authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...
doi.org/10.1016/j.ma...

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Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · Jul 8

Link: retractionwatch.com/2025/06/30/s...

Springer Nature book on machine learning is full of made-up citations

Would you pay $169 for an introductory ebook on machine learning with citations that appear to be made up? If not, you might want to pass on purchasing Mastering Machine Learning: From Basics to Ad…

retractionwatch.com

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Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · Jul 8

Well, well, well... 🤡

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Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · Jun 24

False dichotomies: a blessing or a curse?

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Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · Jun 23

Hoe verhouden controle en vertrouwen zich tot elkaar in de zorg? En welke rol speelt prestatiemeting?

Dit thema komt aan de orde in het dubbelinterview in FIZIER, het blad van de beroepsvereniging van zorgfinancials.

Interview (18-21): issuu.com/fizi4/docs/f...
Onderzoek: doi.org/10.1016/j.ba...

Reposted by Berend van der Kolk

Emily Fridenmaker @emilyfri.bsky.social · Jun 17

This was always my main beef with the quality improvement projects I was exposed to in the past--tracking data that didn't actually reflect changes that mattered, and forcing non-data to be data. I think we can do better than that.

Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · Jun 17

Your daily reminder 👇

(Source: quantifiedsociety.com)

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Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · Jun 17

Your daily reminder 👇

(Source: quantifiedsociety.com)

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Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · Jun 11

Congrats Marijke! Well deserved! 👍👍

Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · Jun 10

For those interested in management control & motivation: a paper was published last week by Hikaru Goto and Makoto Kuroki, replicating our motivation paper in a Japanese setting.

Replication: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Our original paper:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · Jun 4

Wat is indicatorisme?

Lees en leer erover bij @binnenlandsbestuur.bsky.social : www.binnenlandsbestuur.nl/carriere/vu-...

#indicatorisme #meetmaatschappij @vuamsterdam.bsky.social

Wat is indicatorisme?

Indicators zijn overal. Of het nu gaat om inwonerstevredenheid, ervaren veiligheid of de financiële positie van een gemeente, door het meten en rapporteren van indicatoren proberen we grip te krijgen ...

www.binnenlandsbestuur.nl

Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · May 31

🤩 Is there any place on earth with a higher (history+beauty)/m2 ratio than Rome?

Berend van der Kolk @berendvdkolk.bsky.social · May 26

What's a potential problem of quantitative research?

"quantitative analysis and discourse often implies a degree of certainty in its generalisations that vastly exceeds the limits of assumptions and probabilities involved in the underlying calculations"
- Parker & Northcott, doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ...