Strategy
To Find the Best Incentives for Employees, Start with a Simple A/B Test
Keeping people motivated can be tough. New research shows that a simple experiment can lead to big productivity gains.
Strategy
How to Negotiate via Email
This excerpt from Negotiating the Sweet Spot: The Art of Leaving Nothing on the Table offers three tips for writing emails that engage and persuade.
Strategy
Podcast: Wayfair Has Seen a Spike in New Customers. Here’s How It Plans to Keep Them.
On this special episode of The Insightful Leader, a conversation with the company’s chief merchandising officer about adapting for an unprecedented future.
Strategy
Tired of People Invading Your Six-Foot Bubble? Game Theory Has a Solution.
Well, not exactly. But it does offer a new way of thinking about the problem.
Careers
Take 5: The Upside of Failure
A look at the surprising benefits of striking out, and how to make the most of your mistakes.
Strategy
How to Design Financial Incentives in Professions That Are Highly Territorial
A study of doctors shows that the best incentive schemes harness a desire to expand and protect professional turf.
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Organizations
What Makes a Corporate Board Member Most Influential?
New research explores what it takes for directors to drive big-picture strategic change at a company.
Strategy
Take 5: How to Increase Your Office's Productivity
Research-backed tips for improving workflows and discouraging slacking.
Policy
Do High Local Taxes Really Hurt Economic Growth?
Corporate incentives and low tax rates are supposed to make a city more business-friendly. An economist explains why that’s often not the case.
Strategy
For Companies Worried About a Trade War, the Time to Act Is Now
A lot of companies are “holding tight and hoping it all just goes away.” Don’t be one of them.
Leadership
Podcast: Great Leaders Ask, "What Really Matters?"
Former Fortune 500 CEO Harry Kraemer discusses how knowing and acting on your values can guide you through a crisis.
Operations
Podcast: How Do Those Valentine’s Day Roses End Up in Your Bouquet? It’s Complicated.
Millions of blooms. Two continents. One day. And a very busy airport.
Strategy
Who Gets Blamed When a Group Project Goes Wrong?
Here’s why consequences stick to some team members more than others, according to a new study of retracted academic papers.
Organizations
How to Navigate a Vertical Merger after the AT&T and Time Warner Ruling
Here’s what companies can do to minimize antitrust concerns in an uncertain regulatory environment.
Strategy
Why Do Trainees Get Stuck with So Much Grunt Work?
There must be faster ways to get them up to speed. Yet grueling apprenticeships persist in medicine, law, and the trades.
Strategy
The Blockchain Revolution Has Reached a Crossroads. What’s Next?
Bitcoin and its ilk need to become more efficient without losing their trademark decentralization.
Strategy
The Blockchain Revolution Has Reached a Crossroads. What’s Next?
Bitcoin and its ilk need to become more efficient without losing their trademark decentralization.
Strategy
What’s Behind the Current Wave of Vertical Integration?
From Amazon–Whole Foods to CVS–Aetna, companies are reconfiguring for an uncertain future. Four strategy professors discuss.
Marketing
Podcast: How Amazon’s Alexa Learns
Plus, an algorithm that can identify new social-media hashtags as they emerge.
Strategy
How the Wrong Team Can End Up with Too Much Power in an Organization
Employee incentives that made sense at the time can lead to problematic power dynamics.
Strategy
When Picking the Wrong Person for the Job Is the Right Move
Sometimes building credible relationships with your employees and suppliers is more important than finding the “perfect” fit.
Operations
Want to Improve Your Sales Forecast? Check Your Company’s Facebook Feed.
Social media data can help predict consumer demand.
The Science Behind the Growing Importance of Collaboration
Plus, ideas for designing spaces that encourage employees to team up in unique ways.
Innovation
Take 5: How to Empower Employees to Be More Creative
Creativity is a potent engine for business. Nurture it without letting office divas run the show.
Strategy
What Happens to Quality When One Company Builds the Tracks and Another Runs the Trains?
Governments looking to improve their infrastructure will want to know the answer.
Innovation
STEM Degrees Are Good for Careers. But Do They Lead to More Innovation?
Science, technology, engineering, and math education helps job prospects, but hurts the likelihood of becoming an inventor.
Policy
Is an Unpredictable Leader Good for National Security?
Think the goal is to keep your enemies guessing? Game theory suggests otherwise.
Data AnalyticsStrategy
Using Cell Phone Data to Predict the Next Epidemic
Whom you call is linked to where you travel, which dictates how viruses spread.
Strategy
How Bell’s Became So Many People’s Local Beer
A Q&A with CEO Laura Bell on preserving company culture while growing aggressively.
Entrepreneurship
Finding the Right Partner Can Make or Break Your Startup
A Q&A on why you should “date before you marry” with an entrepreneur who took the plunge.
Strategy
Finding the Right Performance Incentives to Motivate Employees
Some incentive schemes encourage hard work—others reward those who game the system.
Data AnalyticsStrategy
How to Use Data Visualization to Improve Your Business
Understanding how our minds read visualizations can help answer your organization’s most important questions.
Organizations
Video: When Expectations Clash, Is the Problem Cultural?
You’ll do well to understand where others are coming from.
Marketing
Remaking Marketing Organizations for a Data-Driven World
A Q&A with United Airlines’ CMO on how to avoid becoming “an artifact of a prior era.”
Strategy
Video: Let Virtue Build Your Bottom Line
Trustworthiness pays off, especially in the midst of uncertainty.