In the news
It costs a firm more to hire a CEO from outside than to promote from within. Why? Associate Professor of Accounting Mary Ellen Carter and two colleagues explain in a Barron’s blog post based on their research.
Messages abound that dads are the dolts when it comes to child-rearing, one father wrote in a Los Angeles Times op-ed that cited Center for Work and Family research on social isolation among stay-at-home dads. Fast Company referenced the same study for an article on workplace parental leave.
In a report on workplace surveillance, Axios drew upon Assistant Professor of Management and Organization Curtis Chan’s research suggesting that surveillance can have unintended negative impacts on employee performance. The Atlantic and Scientific American picked up on Chan’s findings as well (quoting his colleague Michel Anteby).
“One of the most influential yet least visible leaders [of] the military-industrial complex” addressed the Boston College Chief Executives Club, the Washington Post reported. Phebe Novakovic, chairman and CEO of General Dynamics, criticized Silicon Valley tech companies for their reluctance to work with the government and warned that “great empires fall from the inside out” in her talk on the Heights, a rare public appearance.
At the Carroll School’s annual Finance Conference, Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Robert Steven Kaplan said “heightened business uncertainty” is threatening to have “a chilling effect” on business activity. He cited uncertainty about issues such as trade and growth, during a talk covered by the New York Times and Reuters.
A Forbes article on “how to say ‘no’” (hint: use the words “I don’t” rather than “I can’t”) was based in part on a study co-authored by Associate Professor of Marketing Henrik Hagtvedt.
“Maybe managers should get their fingers out of their ears and start listening to their investors,” writes the Economist. “That’s the conclusion of a recent paper by Clifford Holderness of the Carroll School of Management at Boston College.” The magazine was reporting on the finance professor’s global meta-analysis, published in the Journal of Financial Economics last fall.
Everyone knows that older workers are more resistant to new technology, right? Hardly, says Professor of Information Systems Gerald Kane. He shared with the Wall Street Journal results of his research showing that 76 percent of people in their 50s say it’s important to work for a company that is a tech leader. That’s just a few points below workers in their 30s or even 20s. That insight and many more are in Kane’s new book, The Technology Fallacy: How People Are the Real Key to Digital Transformation. Kane also co-wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal arguing that companies will reap the benefits of digital innovation if they incorporate “ethical guardrails” into their practices, seeing ethics as “a growth enabler rather than as a constraint.”
Alicia Munnell, the director of the Center for Retirement Research, was quoted in the New York Times on Social Security’s cash flow problem and in the Wall Street Journal regarding a 2005 bankruptcy law that consumer advocates say is unfair to disabled veterans, retirees, and the unemployed.
One “simple tweak could drastically raise our pathetic recycling rates,” Associate Professor of Marketing and Haub Family Faculty Fellow Gergana Nenkov and colleagues wrote in Fast Company. That tweak? Tell consumers what their old containers will be turned into.
Where once workers griped amongst themselves at the water cooler or in the lunch room, they now air complaints about their employer on social media, noted Professor of Business Law Christine O’Brien in a Bloomberg Law article. “Employers are trying to navigate the law to prohibit as much on social media as they can.” Bloomberg sought O’Brien’s expertise for a story on a National Labor Relations Board advice memo in August related to a national pharmacy chain’s social media policy.
Labeling chips and candy as “crunchy” makes them more appetizing to consumers. That’s one finding of Assistant Professor of Marketing Nailya Ordabayeva and a colleague, whose article in Appetite has garnered attention in outlets such as Men’s Health and Eating Well, both of which suggest using the trick to your advantage—by thinking of celery and broccoli as crunchy snacks.
It can be devastating to lose a job, but professionals can bounce back with strategies outlined by O’Connor Family Professor Michael Pratt and a colleague in the Harvard Business Review. In addition, Pratt, who is also the PhD director in organizational studies, commented in Happify on when a hiring manager should trust his or her gut.
Fortune reported on a survey by Professor of Information Systems and William S. McKiernan ’78 Family Faculty Fellow Sam Ransbotham that was published in MIT Sloan Management Review. Ransbotham and colleagues found that the companies that are seeing gains from their investments in artificial intelligence are those that use AI as a way to disrupt current business practices like sales, rather than treating AI as a “technology thing” that they buy from a vendor. CIO Dive called attention to these findings, too.
Assistant Professor of Management and Organization Beth Schinoff co-authored an article in the Harvard Business Review exploring how “micro-moves”—small actions or behaviors that might seem inconsequential in the moment—can affect our work relationships, for better or worse.
To contribute to solutions on climate change, businesses can learn a few things from natural systems such as forests, writes Professor of Management Sandra Waddock, the Galligan Chair of Strategy and a Carroll School Scholar of Corporate Responsibility, in a blog post she co-authored with Club of Rome member Petra Kuenkel. “Six Strategies for Stabilizing the Planet” appears on the Network of Business Sustainability. It is based on Waddock and Kuenkel’s study “What Gives Life to Large System Change?”
The NBA finds itself caught between defending human rights activism (by players and employees) and carrying on a lucrative business with China, the Carroll School's Warren Zola told The Guardian newspaper. "So you have this tension—money versus the rights given to people here in the United States in the Constitution. It’s a huge conflict," said Zola, who is Executive Director of the Boston College Chief Executives Club.