Managing a Personal Crisis, and More – Boston News
What’s going on in Boston this week?
How to Manage an Employee Who’s Having a Personal Crisis – Harvard Business Review
The Harvard Business Review recently explored how managers can best support employees to “take care of themselves emotionally while also making sure they are doing their work.”
Annie McKee, author of How to Be Happy at Work and a senior fellow at Penn’s Graduate School of Education, offers three helpful suggestions:
- Set a tone of compassion in the office. It will not only give your employees confidence to approach you with struggles, but also give you the ability to spot warnings signs.
- Be creative with solutions. A flexible schedule may allow a person to maintain their output without much disruption.
- Check in from time to time, both to reassure the employee and to make sure that further adjustments or accommodations aren’t needed.
You can read the full article over at HBR.
Agile at Scale, Explained – MIT Sloan Newsroom
MIT Center for Information Systems Research’s Kristine Dery is currently studying how agile management—the increasingly popular management methodology adopted by the likes of Microsoft, Ericsson, and Spotify—relates to the employee experience.
MIT Sloan School of Management senior lecturer and industry liaison Carine Simon writes, “The traditional method of managing, the waterfall method, which is very inflexible, planned-in-advance, linear, and not iterative at all, wasn’t lending itself at all to the flexibility and the adjustments that were necessary to make great software.”
Simon adds, “[Agile is] iterating with customer feedback, prototypes, and tests, versus taking some requirements and issuing the product maybe a year later, when the customer’s requirements have changed or technology has evolved.”
Many companies have taken note of agile’s prevalence and begun to “ask whether the method’s practices and philosophies could be scaled up to apply with equal success to other projects or even entire business functions,” according to Simon and Dery.
Simon continues, “In customer-centric processes where customer input is key, and in that sense it’s quite uncertain or fast-changing, then those would be the types of areas in a firm that lend themselves to agile.”
Check out the full article here.
Questrom Professor Named 2018-19 Batten Fellow – Questrom Blog
BU Questrom School of Business‘ Siobhan O’Mahony was recently awarded a 2018-19 Batten Fellowship by the Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at University of Virginia Darden School of Business.
The Batten Fellows program, according to Darden, “provides support for prominent thought leaders and high-potential scholars who seek to generate new knowledge about entrepreneurship and innovation.”
O’Mahony, an Associate Professor of Strategy & Innovation and Academic Director of Research and Curriculum for Innovate@BU, explores how “technical and creative projects organize for innovation.”
O’Mahony plans to use her fellowship to “research entrepreneurial ecosystems and how those systems influence entrepreneurs and their efforts around venture creation.”
Read all about O’Mahony’s fellowship as part of the full article here.
Can Society Keep Up with Tech Entrepreneurs? – Boston News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from Boston business schools this week.
When Technology Gets Ahead of Society – Harvard Business Review
The Harvard Business Review recently dove into work by professor and Harvard‘s Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute Director Tarun Khanna that examines tech entrepreneurs’ “insouciance about the legal and social issues their innovations birth.”
Khanna explains that one pervasive issue we are collectively trying to negotiate is that necessary “regulatory, logistical, and social barriers” often struggle to keep pace with new and increasingly disruptive technologies.
“Although electric cars are subsidized by the federal government, Tesla has run afoul of state and local regulations because it bypasses conventional dealers to sell directly to consumers. Facebook is only now facing up to major regulatory concerns about its use of data, despite being massively successful with users and advertisers.”
Khanna argues that instead of shortening the “period between the advent of a technology and the emergence of the rules and new behaviors that allow society to embrace its possibilities,” Khanna encourages tech leaders to “take more responsibility for the whole ecosystem and bring regulators and consumers along with them, all of society stands to benefit.”
You can check out the full article here.
Machine Learning Will Redesign, Not Replace, Work – MIT Sloan Newsroom
MIT Sloan’s Erik Brynjolfsson, Carnegie Mellon’s Tom Mitchell, and Daniel Rock, a doctoral candidate and researcher at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, published new research in the American Economic Association Papers and Proceedings, which finds that automation will most likely replace “specific tasks within jobs, rather than entire occupations themselves.”
Brynjolfsson writes, for instance, about deep neural networks that are adept at “tasks involving predictive analytics, speech and image recognition, and natural language processing, among others.”
The researchers write, “Automation technologies have historically been the key driver of increased industrial productivity. They have also disrupted employment and the wage structure systematically.”
“However, our analysis suggests that machine learning will affect very different parts of the workforce than earlier waves of automation. Machine learning technology can transform many jobs in the economy, but full automation will be less significant than the re-engineering of processes and the reorganization of tasks.”
You can read the full article here.
Northeastern Recognized For Excellence in Fostering Entrepreneurship – D’Amore-McKim Blog
At its recent Symposium for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Deshpande Foundation bestowed its 2018 Entrepreneurial University Award on Northeastern for the school’s “overall excellence in innovation and entrepreneurship.”
The Deshpande Symposium assembles “policy planners, academics, and practitioners from around the globe to discuss best practices for integrating entrepreneurship through university and college communities.”
This marks the second time in four years that Northeastern was honored at the Deshpande Symposium, having won the 2015 Excellence in Student Engagement in Entrepreneurship award.
Of the Entrepreneurial University Award, D’Amore-McKim Dean Raj Echambadi writes, “We pride ourselves in creating and training ‘Chief Entrepreneurial Officers’ who think differently and are capable of solving the grand challenges of business and society in a global economy.”
“This award is a testament to the strength of experiential learning through the integration of rigorous classroom education and real-world entrepreneurial engagement.”
The full article can be found here.
MIT on the Problems with Twitter, and More – Boston News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from Boston business schools this week.
Marketers Take Note: When Too Many Choices are a Burden, Not a Benefit – Questrom School of Business News
BU Questrom School of Business Ph.D. alum Sarah Whitley recently co-authored a new Journal of Consumer Research paper with Associate Professor Remi Turdel and fellow Assistant Professor Didem Kurt, in which they discovered “that people typically want more choices when they’re buying for pleasure [and they want] fewer choices when they make a purchase for strictly utilitarian or functional reasons.”
The research dives into what is more commonly known as the Paradox of Choice. The idea crept into the market lexicon shortly after the release of the 2004 book The Paradox of Choice – Why More Is Less from psychologist Barry Schwartz, NYU alum and U. Penn Ph.D. The general idea Schwartz derived was that consumer anxiety could be caused by too many options. However, research from Whitley, Turdel, and Kurt reveal that it may only pertain to specific kinds of purchases, not simply overall.
Whitley says the major takeaway is that businesses can be more strategic if they know “what motivates the buying decisions of their customers.”
“For product categories where people feel that they have unique preferences, it may be worth it to have more variety. It may be fine to reduce the number of offered products where this is not the case.”
You can read the full article here.
Solving Twitter’s ‘Follow-Back’ Problem – MIT Sloan Newsroom
About four years ago, MIT Sloan Associate Professor of Operations Tauhid Zaman put together a social media experiment in which he used Taylor Swift’s friends on Twitter to “open the gates to her inner circle.”
Dubbed the “follow-back problem,” Zaman sought to understand “the underlying dynamics of follows on Twitter, [such as] what kinds of Twitter interactions matter the most when trying to get followers? And do overlapping social networks actually help build connections? If they do, then to what degree do they help?”
Zaman found that Twitters “who don’t follow many other people are unlikely to follow you back, while those who follow a lot of people are likely to follow you if you follow and retweet them.” He also found that if, for instance, “Swift follows somebody who, in turn, follows Zaman, then Zaman has a greater chance that Swift will follow him.”
The article notes that social media tools can “have a tremendous blast radius” in terms of their ability to powerfully influence the opinions of a whole country.
“In my opinion, this can be far more dangerous than conventional weapons which have a fixed blast radius. These are weapons, and I’m building efficient ways to use the weapons, so this has to be handled with care,” Zaman said.
Read the full article, the first in a three-part series examining new work about Twitter, influence, and bots, here.
How CEOs Manage Time – Harvard Business Review
Harvard Business School Professors Michael E. Porter and Nitin Nohria recently published a piece in the Harvard Business Review that examines how CEOs allocate their time.
According to the article, face-to-face interactions take up “61 percent of the work time of the CEOs we studied. Another 15 percent was spent on the phone or reading and replying to written correspondence. The final 24 percent was spent on electronic communications.”
The authors describe the CEO’s job as “relentless.” They write, “Given that work could consume every hour of their lives, CEOs have to set limits so that they can preserve their health and their relationships with family and friends. To sustain the intensity of the job, CEOs need to train—just as elite athletes do. That means allocating time for health, fitness, and rest.”
You can read the full article here.
Seamless Shopping, Work Authenticity, and More – Toronto News
Professors at Toronto’s premier business schools have been making headlines this week. Let’s see what they’ve been up to.
Phasing Out the Checkout Line: Retailers Race to Make Shopping More Seamless – CBC News
Walmart’s scan-and-go shopping option, which allowed customers to scan items themselves and pay for them with a phone app, has been removed from U.S. stores. Retail expert and professor at Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management Steve Tissenbaum posited that scan-and-go was not actually more convenient for consumers, but felt it was important for businesses like Walmart to continue to innovate seamless shopping.
“They [customers] want it to be as quick and as seamless as possible when they’re ordering stuff online. Retailers certainly have to move forward. Otherwise they’ll be left behind,” Tissenbaum said in a recent CBC News piece.
The retail giant seems to agree with Tissenbaum’s view, and has launched the “check out with me” project, which will allow employees to use mobile devices to scan and charge customers for their items anywhere in the store.
You can read more about Walmart’s new project here.
How to Keep it Real at Work – Forbes
An HBR article from Wilfrid Laurier University social psychologist Vanessa Boute was recently featured in Forbes, highlighting whether employees feel authentic at work, and how this impacts their performance. Boute writes:
“One study found that the greater employees’ feelings of authenticity are, the greater their job satisfaction, engagement, and self-reported performance. We suggest, then, that the crucial point is finding a balance so that we can be true to ourselves while flourishing and finding success within the company.”
The Forbes article utilizes Boute’s findings while examining the balance between being genuine and making calculated, political moves in the workplace, and offers suggestions for leaders in the workplace to increase their authenticity. The advice included increasing transparency, truly listening to employees, being open about one’s own flaws and mistakes, and maintaining professional boundaries.
Read more about being authentic while advancing professionally here.
Choosing a Strategy for Your Startup – Harvard Business Review
The Harvard Business Review also recently interviewed Joshua Gans, professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, on its HBR IdeaCast. The Gans interview delved into the philosophy behind the HBR article Gans recently co-authored, “Do Entrepreneurs Need a Strategy?” Gans promoted researching strategic options before launching a startup, and choosing the strategy that best aligns with the company’s long-term goals. For example, entrepreneurs must decide whether their business will be collaborating or competing with existing businesses in the same market. Collaboration may allow a newer company to take advantage of the resources of more established businesses in the same market without being viewed as a threat, but competition leads to more autonomy for the fledgling company. The interview explored the merits and drawbacks of several entrepreneurial strategies. Gans says:
“One of the things we want to emphasize is that choice is choice. So, what we say is basically when you’ve done this process and you’ve got one or two, you know, got two or more options sitting there before you, you then go with your gut essentially, or you come up with a rationale saying why you are the right person; you feel better with one path and another.”
You can listen to the full interview with Gans here.
MIT Sloan Debunks Entrepreneur Myths, and More – Boston News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from Boston business schools this week.
The 20-Year-Old Entrepreneur is a Lie – MIT Sloan Newsroom
MIT Sloan School of Business professor Pierre Azoulay and Ph.D. student Daniel Kim used a new working paper as an opportunity to debunk the myth of the 20-year-old Silicon Valley tech-prodigy entrepreneur. The reality is that the average age of successful entrepreneurs veers closer to 42. Azoulay elaborates:
“If you knew nothing else, and you had two identical ideas, one proposed by a very young person, one proposed by a middle-aged person, and that’s the only thing you have to go on, you would be better off—if you wanted to predict success—betting on a middle-aged person.”
Kim adds: “In theory, we know that with age a lot of benefits accumulate. For instance, you get a lot of human capital from experience, you also get more financial resources as you age, as well as social connections, all of which will likely boost your odds of success as an entrepreneur.”
Read more about the duo’s research here.
Case Study: Can This Japanese Snack Food Company Break into the U.S. Market? – Harvard Business Review
As part of a fictionalized case study, HBR recently published a profile on Kenko USA, the American subsidiary of Japan’s largest rice cracker producer, about its ongoing plans to enter the American market. Kenko USA hopes to become synonymous with rice crackers much in the same way that Kikkoman became inextricably linked with soy sauce.
In 2012, Riku Nakamura relocated from Tokyo to San Mateo, California to oversee the launch of Kenko’s first foreign subsidiary. According to the article, “Riku knew that the key was to expand beyond Asian supermarkets and grocery stores’ “international” sections and get Kenko crackers into the snack aisles of mainstream U.S. food outlets, but his team’s efforts had yet to bear fruit.”
You can read the entire case study here.
Hybrid Strategy Leaves Auto Industry Leaders Playing Catch-up, Professor Says – D’Amore McKim News & Research
There’s quite a bit of chatter within the auto industry about the so-called “hybrid trap” in which established industry leaders have been forced to catch up to the hybrid strategies of more aggressive startups to varying degrees of success.
Northeastern University D’Amore-McKim School of Business‘ Jean C. Tempel professor of entrepreneurship and innovation Fernando Suarez explored this phenomenon in detail as part of an MIT Sloan Management Review article. He elaborates:
“Most established corporations follow the hybrid approach because it gives them peace of mind. It allows incumbents to convince themselves that they’re responding to technology-driven transformation in their industry when, in fact, they’re losing ground. They fall back on learned patterns, which slows development. When you are serious about going the route of new technology, you have to rethink all of your designs and processes.”
Read more about Suarez’s research here.
Boston News: MIT Tackles Universal Basic Income, Negative Reviews, and More
Let’s visit some of the biggest news coming out of Boston business schools this week.
12-Year Study Looks at Effects of Universal Basic Income – MIT Sloan Newsroom
MIT Sloan School of Management associate professor Tavneet Suri, alongside nonprofit company GiveDirectly, will conduct a lengthy, 12-year study into the effects of the constant hot-button issue of universal basic income. UBI is a basic concept that an acting government will assist its citizens by distributing a recurring stipend, supplementing the loss of jobs to things like automation.
“Suri is conducting the research along with MIT professor Abhijit Banerjee, Princeton professor Alan Krueger, University of California San Diego professor Paul Niehaus, and GiveDirectly president Michael Faye. Overall, GiveDirectly expects to transfer $25 million to more than 21,000 people (not including the control group), 5,000 of whom will receive cash transfers for 12 years. The money comes with no strings attached.”
Read more about the extensive MIT UBI study here.
The Costs and Benefits to Responding to Negative Online Reviews – BU.edu
When BU Questrom marketing professor Georgios Zervas and USC’s Davide Proserpio looked into thousands of TripAdvisor reviews, they found a fairly surprising turn: hotel managers that actively engaged with reviewers, positive or negative, may have actually helped their overall ratings. Zervas notes that it actually diminished the number of negative reviews because users were more wary when they saw hotel staff members participating in a conversation.
However, the two found that the reversal cause of this interaction was that negative reviews who did leave reviews, after engaging with the hotel staff, tended to leave longer reviews—which often made the negative details much more elaborated and personal. Zervas notes this is still probably good overall, saying, “The remaining negative reviews are detailed and contain constructive feedback that [hotel management] can act upon.”
BU professor Georgios Zervas and USC’s Davide Proserpio found uniquely beneficial ways companies can utilize review sites like TripAdvisor.
Read more about BU Questrom’s study on TripAdvisor here.
What Could Amazon’s Approach to Health Care Look Like? – HBR
The Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Morgan Chase venture to disrupt the healthcare industry led to a minor panic for other healthcare shareholders, but its potential impact is still fairly uncertain. HBR writer Robert S. Huckman and admitted Amazon shareholder recently explored the potential positive impacts, including simplifying a very complex U.S. healthcare prescription service industry, “simplifying data capture,” and the repeated effort from Amazon to improve its services to regular customers.
On the latter reason, Huckman explains, “Amazon has an internal challenge — managing the health and health spending of its employees — that is shared by many other companies. Yet Amazon likely does not have a full “solution” in mind just yet. Rather, it has ideas and hypotheses to test. By creating a space in which those ideas can be tested, Amazon may be able to play a key role in allocating resources to solutions that show themselves, over time, to be promising.”
You can read more about Huckman’s outlook for Amazon healthcare here.
