Watching for the Next Economic Downturn? Follow Corporate Debt

What really fuels a boom-and-bust cycle in the modern global economy? It’s not always household debt, says a new paper that parses in-depth data across 115 countries. Instead, rising corporate debt may flash the clearest warning that a fiscal crisis is on the horizon. In recent years, experts focused on…

How a Mission to Cut Food Waste Launched a Multimillion-Dollar Venture

On a hectic Friday in October 2016, Josh Domingues wondered if he had made a mistake quitting the security of a well-paying job managing contracts for professional hockey players to start a new venture selling nearly expired groceries at discount prices. After all, a trial run of the 27-year-old entrepreneur’s…

Do Social Movements Sway Voters? Not Really, Except for One

People might be more likely than ever to protest in reaction to a social problem or geopolitical crisis. But do such activist events, even large-scale demonstrations, change public opinion?New research shows that protests rarely change views or alter voting decisions, findings that could have important implications in an election year…

Why Great Ideas Get Stuck in Universities

Entrepreneurs must overcome many barriers to get discoveries to market, but academic researchers face an additional one they might not realize: themselves.Academics tend to develop a myopic focus on the unique expertise they spend their lives developing, but that narrow scope can become a commercial hindrance. A recent study of…

Forgiving Medical Debt Won’t Make Everyone Happier

The solution seems obvious. Forgiving medical debt should ease both financial and emotional burdens for the two in five people in the US who carry it.Yet a new comprehensive study that tracked more than 200,000 patients and randomly relieved more than $169 million of medical debt for 83,401 patients finds…

Transforming the Workplace for People with Disabilities

Brian Kenny: In April of 1945 while stationed in Italy, a 21-year-old American soldier was struck by enemy fire and left with debilitating wounds to his right arm and hand. That life-changing moment that could have sent him spiraling would instead motivate him in ways he never could have imagined.…

The New Rules of Trade with China: Navigating Tariffs, Turmoil, and Opportunities

When former President Donald Trump slapped sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports in 2019, the economic dynamics between the world’s two biggest economies forever shifted. American businesses hoping President Joe Biden would return to decades-long precedent instead find some tariffs escalating, upending longstanding principles of free trade established when China joined…

New Hires Lose Psychological Safety After Year One. How to Fix It.

Starting a new job often brings excitement and high hopes of mingling with colleagues, sharing innovative ideas, and making a positive impact on an organization. Soon, however, a new employee’s excitement may start to wane, if the person notices that questions and suggestions aren’t actually welcome.In fact, new hires often…

Corporate Boards Are Failing in Their No. 1 Duty

Ask board members their most important duty, and they will likely say it is appointing and overseeing the CEO. Yet many boards fail to make appropriate choices, often because they don’t prepare candidates for the challenges they will inevitably face after stepping into the role.When CEO appointments go wrong Let’s…

Weighing Digital Tradeoffs in Private Equity: Do Costly Upgrades Pay Off?

When private equity (PE) firms buy a company, they typically follow a standard playbook to create value—streamlining operations, restructuring debt, changing management, and cutting costs. However, as digital technologies and artificial intelligence allow companies to drive productivity and innovation, PE firms are discovering new sources of value creation, new research…

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and Brand Building

Brian Kenny: On March 21, 2006, Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter, launched a communications revolution with the phrase, "just set up my twttr" all lowercase. Little did he know that 15 years, hence almost to the day, those 16 characters would net him $2.9 million. More specifically, a digital image…

The Critical Computer Science Principles Every Strategic Leader Needs to Know

In an AI-world, leaders who speak technology’s language gain an edge. But that doesn’t mean every manager needs a computer science degree.A handle on a handful of basics goes a long way toward preparing strategic leaders for today’s reality: Almost all businesses now touch technology—some more so than others. “Every…

Are Management Consulting Firms Failing to Manage Themselves?

After nearly a decade of uninterrupted growth, strategic consulting firms are now facing one of their most challenging periods in memory, prompting widespread cutbacks in staff and changes to recruiting. How did these firms get to this painful point? In response to unprecedented client demand before and during the COVID-19…

Five Essential Elements to Build the Capital You Need to Lead

To aspiring entrepreneurs and other business practitioners looking to advance their careers, the path to a leadership role may seem daunting. Yet anyone with a dream to open a business, start a nonprofit, or simply move up the ranks at work can indeed get where they want to go, as…

Gen AI Marketing: How Some ‘Gibberish’ Code Can Give Products an Edge

It’s the new way of comparison shopping in the age of large language models (LLM): Tapping into AI-driven search engines for research and advice on which products to buy. But can consumers trust the recommendations to be impartial?New research finds that companies can subtly manipulate the LLM into favoring their…

How Transparency Sped Innovation in a $13 Billion Wireless Sector

Many businesses are loath to share proprietary information with others, fearing it will undercut their long-term financial prospects. They view openness as a threat to innovation.But a new years-long study of the wireless router industry shows that businesses that are transparent with suppliers and partners about their technologies can increase…

Rapport: The Hidden Advantage That Women Managers Bring to Teams

It’s a manager’s nightmare: A customer pulls into a drive-thru after a long day at work with children in tow, everyone looking frazzled and famished. After waiting patiently in line, the customer grabs her bag of burgers through the window and happily zips away—until her kids rip open their bounty…

Industrial Decarbonization: Confronting the Hard Challenges of Cement

Cities like Cairo; Chongqing, China; Delhi; and Kinshasa, Congo are experiencing population explosions accompanied by unprecedented demand for homes, offices, factories, and infrastructure. In the United States, the Biden Administration’s policy-driven infrastructure boom is gaining steam in the world’s largest economy.These trends translate into ballooning global demand for steel, cement,…

Central Banks Missed Inflation Red Flags. This Pricing Model Could Help.

It’s no secret the Federal Reserve and other central banks weren’t prepared for the swift, steep curve of inflation’s climb after COVID-19 snarled supply chains in 2021 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent energy prices soaring in 2022.“Central banks are accustomed to working in low-inflation environments.” If central banks had…

What Your Non-Binary Employees Need to Do Their Best Work

When Katherine Coffman presents her research findings about how gender stereotypes shape the behavior of men and women in the workplace, she is often asked: What about non-binary individuals?“People understandably keep asking, ‘What about people other than men and women?’ We know a lot of past [research] hasn’t included everyone,”…

The Harvard Business School Faculty Summer Reader 2024

As the vacation season looms, Harvard Business School faculty members share recommendations for a little light reading. Spoiler alert: Lessons in Chemistry tops two of their beach-read lists.For those whose brains can’t—or won’t—turn off, HBS faculty also suggest some of their favorite business and academic tomes. Their favorites hit some…

How Younger Immigrants Gain an Edge in American Business

For refugees fleeing troubled regions as disparate as Afghanistan and Ukraine, finding meaningful work in the United States is not only key to their own success, but also crucial for businesses navigating labor shortages.New research offers lessons for policymakers and employers learned from the final wave of migration after the…

How One Insurtech Firm Formulated a Strategy for Climate Change

Brian Kenny: On September 2, 1666 in a bake shop on Pudding Lane in London, Thomas Farriner, baker for King Charles II, failed to properly extinguish his oven, sparking a fire that burned for five days, destroying 80 percent of the city, including 13,000 homes, 87 parish churches, the Royal…

Navigating Consumer Data Privacy in an AI World

Harnessing customer data well is central to any modern business, as is earning consumers’ trust that their information will stay private. With data breaches growing more common, regulations are tightening across the globe to bolster security, creating a new web of norms firms must understand. As generative artificial intelligence (AI)…

Racial Bias Might Be Infecting Patient Portals. Can AI Help?

Patients and physicians increasingly turned to digital platforms, like patient portal messaging, when COVID-19 made contact risky, but a new study of how providers managed the messaging surge suggests an uncomfortable downside: What if the color of a patient’s skin predicted the response they got to an inquiry?Researchers analyzed more…

Job Search Advice for a Tough Market: Think Broadly and Stay Flexible

New graduates entering the job market will face a very different landscape from even a year ago, with a murky economy and potentially more limited career prospects. Though unemployment figures in the US remain near historically low levels, the pace of hiring in April slowed, according to the Bureau of…

Banned or Not, TikTok Is a Force Companies Can’t Afford to Ignore

Businesses that dismiss TikTok as merely a platform for teenagers looking to create and consume cat and dance videos do so at their own peril. That’s the message of a Harvard Business School case study tracing the video-sharing app’s explosive rise to the world's most-used platform. Owned by Beijing-based ByteDance,…

The Importance of Trust for Managing through a Crisis

Brian Kenny: You may have heard of the “Butterfly Effect” in which a butterfly flapping its wings in Texas leads to changes in wind patterns that cause a tornado in Brazil. It's a simple and poetic way to explain Chaos Theory. In February of 2020, the butterfly took the form…

What the Rise of Far-Right Politics Says About the Economy in an Election Year

As more than 50 countries hold elections in 2024, far-right politicians and policies look poised to gain ground, continuing a years-long trend evident in Europe, the United States, and South America.These movements often stoke grievances about international trade, immigration, fiscal policy, and the size of government and amount of state…

A Major Roadblock for Autonomous Cars: Motorists Believe They Drive Better

Think you’re a better driver than most people? You’re not alone. And you may be one reason self-driving cars haven’t taken off.About 77 percent of participants surveyed in a new study rated themselves superior to automated vehicles, while 60 percent thought other people were worse. Drivers’ egos may be bridling…

Picture This: Why Online Image Searches Drive Purchases

In a visual world, most online retailers still rely on consumers to define and enter their own search keywords. But using images to help shoppers sharpen their queries could push them to buy more, spend more, and feel happier about their purchases.“For a long time, consumers have been asking things…

Called Back to the Office? How You Benefit from Ideas You Didn’t Know You Were Missing

Leaders have fretted since COVID-19 lockdowns that collaboration and innovation might suffer when teammates interact less. New research points to an emerging concern four years on, as organizations settle into remote, hybrid, and in-person configurations: Potentially fewer opportunities for vital knowledge sharing outside one’s core department.That is one implication of…

Lessons in Business Innovation from Legendary Restaurant elBulli

Brian Kenny:What do tires and oat cuisine have in common? The answer was obvious to brothers André and Édouard Michelin. France in 1889 had just a few thousand cars on the road, barely enough to keep their fledgling tire company afloat. So they created a guidebook to show people all…

How Much Does Proximity Influence Startup Innovation? 20 Meters’ Worth to Be Exact

A new study of startups sharing a coworking space offers a new wrinkle in the debate over work-from-anywhere: Proximity matters, especially close proximity, to spread knowledge between disparate enterprises.“The more different the startups are, the more they’re going to benefit from being nearby,” says Harvard Business School assistant professor Maria…

When Managers Set Unrealistic Expectations, Employees Cut Ethical Corners

In the 1990s, when Harvard Business School Professor Lynn S. Paine was researching and writing about examples of corporate misconduct, she hoped more businesses would take decisive action to root out fraud and other unethical behavior.Many companies have since formed ethics and compliance programs designed to boost responsibility, yet corporate…

Have You Had Enough?

(Illustration created using image generated by Midjourney, an artificial intelligence tool.)Last month, I posted a column in HBS Working Knowledge titled, “What’s Enough to Make Us Happy?” Over the last few months, I’ve been asking myself the same question: “What’s enough?” My answer, as it turns out: Twenty-four years and…