Idea posted: April 2026

Institutions: London Business School    Harvard Business School    University of California    Northeastern University   

The modern experience of time is defined by a paradox: despite living in an era of unprecedented material wealth, we are increasingly time-poor. By 2018, 80% of employed Americans reported…

Idea posted: March 2026

Institutions: University of Helsinki    University of Turku   

In a world of open-office plans and bustling coffee shops, the ability to focus on a difficult task while ignoring background noise is a vital professional skill. A study from…

Idea posted: January 2025

Institutions: Harvard Business School   

This working paper investigates why training investments, essential for productivity, often suffer from low participation rates and insufficient worker engagement. It addresses a gap in existing literature by examining how…

Idea posted: January 2023

Institutions: MIT Sloan School of Management   

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…

Idea posted: June 2019

Institutions: HEC Paris    University of Michigan Ross School of Business   

As robotics continues to advance, companies are finding more and more opportunities to transfer repetitive and tedious tasks to robots, freeing up their employees to focus more on tasks that…

Idea posted: September 2017

Institutions: Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health    SUNY Upstate Medical University    Syracuse University   

Over a period of six days, a team of researchers recreated a variety of air quality conditions, and simultaneously conducted cognitive tests of volunteers under the various conditions to determine…

Idea posted: August 2016

Institutions: ESADE    University College Dublin    Georgetown University McDonough School of Business   

Developed in Japan, lean manufacturing introduced tools, processes and a mindset that eliminated waste and ensured the smooth flow of production without sacrificing quality. Kanban, a system that sounds the…

Idea posted: October 2015

Institutions: Kellogg School of Management    Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine   

Collaboration, either formal or discretionary (informally approaching others for guidance, information or assistance), is considered a virtue in today’s workplace. The advantages of collaboration are many, ranging from creativity and…

Idea posted: April 2015

Institutions: ESMT European School of Management and Technology    Karlsruhe Institute of Technology   

Research has shown that downsizing will often have a direct negative impact on customer satisfaction, and this negative impact results in a decline in business performance. This causal chain seems…