While new technology is intended to make work more efficient and effective, it often helps the professionals in a company while increasing the workload and decreasing the autonomy of assistants and other administrative-level or lower-level employees. Finding solutions to address workload issues related to new technology is hampered by three challenges: MIT’s Katherine Kellogg studied […]
Companies once viewed themselves as isolated entities engaged in win-lose battles with opponents for the same set of customers. The technology-driven evolution of business has re-ordered the universe. Today, companies operate as participants in business ecosystems in which they engage with a broad and diverse set of partners in a range of different types of […]
Many companies struggle to keep up with today’s supercharged, constantly evolving competitive markets, where customers needs, products and technologies change at ever-increasing speed. An in-depth study of the global telecom equipment leader Huawei Technologies by researchers from Cambridge University’s Judge Business School and China’s Zhejiang University’s School of Management offers a detailed lesson in what […]
The concept of agility — an approach to innovation and development based on shorter project timeframes, focused targets and ‘sprints’ — was first conceived in software development companies. Metaphors such as SEAL teams are used to describe these fast-moving, nimble project teams. This attractive concept is spreading to more traditional companies and industries, although with […]
New technologies and new attitudes about the role of business in society have rendered obsolete the business models, routines and processes rooted in the industrial world, according to a recent study entitled Work 2028: Trends, Dilemmas and Choices. The study was conducted by the Henley Centre for Leadership at the Henley Business School in collaboration […]
In the annual global MIT/Deloitte survey of executives and managers, 90% of respondents recognized that digital trends would disrupt their industries. Only 44%, however, believed their organizations were prepared for the disruption. Parsing the data in the survey returns, the MIT/Deloitte team were able to divide the companies of respondents into three categories: early-stage, developing, […]
Does a Chief Marketing Officer help a company, or is this position a ‘C’ that doesn’t earn its place in the C-suite? In 2008, an influential research study by Pravin Nath of the Drexel University (now at Oklahoma) and Vijay Mahajan of the University of Texas came to the conclusion that a CMO neither adds […]
Although the impact of the 2008 recession was nearly unprecedented in its scope and depth, nearly all organizations will inevitably face setbacks and severe challenges. Stable, resilient companies can meet these challenges head-on and not only ‘survive’ but emerge on the other side intact and strong. Companies can make themselves resilience in one of two […]
Both agency theory and stewardship theory help explain organizational dynamics, although starting from very different assumptions. Agency theory describes the relationship between the shareholders (called ‘principals’) and the company’s managers and executives (called ‘agents’) as a collaboration between parties with different interests: principals are focused on the success of the company while agents are focused […]
More and more board of directors have the CEO as the only insider on the board. At first glance, this movement toward near unanimous outside directors would seem to meet the mandate of independent oversight and governance that have defined corporate boards since the corporate scandals of the 1980s and 1990s. In fact, new research […]