The Artificial Intelligence and Business Strategy initiative explores the growing use of artificial intelligence in the business landscape. The exploration looks specifically at how AI is affecting the development and execution of strategy in organizations. As an associate professor at Harvard Business School and cofounder of the Customer Intelligence Lab…

Historically, it’s been tough to quantify the success of events, presentations, and speeches. We’ve long known that the spoken word is a powerful tool for influence and action, but how do you measure that power? When many organizations flipped from in-person to virtual and hybrid meetings and events, presentation analytics…

  The act of challenging a superior necessitates more than just raising one’s voice; it involves understanding, navigating, and engaging in the subtle yet complex dance of power dynamics, diplomacy, and mutual respect. Approaching someone above you in the professional hierarchy requires a delicate balance and a deep understanding of…

Strategic planners are often blind about how the future will challenge their status quo. A scenario-planning mindset can help them see what they’re missing. Executives engaged in strategic planning typically have a blind spot. They focus almost exclusively on possible courses of action and pay little attention to the future…

Throughout 2023, tech companies have continually laid off workers. The year started with Amazon and Salesforce cutting 18,000 and 8,000 people, respectively, and sector momentum grew into the spring. An article in the April/May 2023 issue of Fortune magazine asserted that companies were “swapping exuberance for efficiency” and pointed out…

The launch of generative AI represents an era-defining moment. Never before have so many people become so excited by a technology program. Within five days of ChatGPT’s release in November 2022, more than 1 million people (including me) had logged on to try it out. If financial investments are a…

  We’ve known for a while that relationships that have fallen into a state of inactivity — or become dormant ties — can be resurrected. As people venture back into professional social settings after having experienced pandemic-induced disconnection, they are particularly keen to revive these inactive ties. Such connections have…

Leaders can’t identify and manage data monetization opportunities if they can’t productively discuss the topic. Try this practical matrix approach. Barbara H. Wixom, Cynthia M. Beath, and Leslie Owens Companies can’t manage what they don’t measure. They also can’t manage what they can’t discuss. Take the term data monetization: Definitions…

An early-stage company requires a different organizational structure than a mature one. Marketing leaders must adapt their teams and strategies accordingly. Kimberly A. Whitler and Jonathan Metrick   Determining the optimal design of a department or function is a key aspect of organization design and one of the most important…

More jobs than ever require a four-year college degree, including many that never did in the past. Beth Berwick is among those calling for a retreat. “You have to take that requirement off of job descriptions,” she said. “It’s excluding 64% of the population — including 76% of Black Americans…

  How do CEOs make good decisions? At a time when senior leaders have access to more data and sophisticated analytics tools than ever before, the central challenge of making good decisions about hiring, product development, and resource allocation is increasingly not a lack of information. Rather, it is knowing…

The authors have been studying procurement and automation for two decades.i Mary Lacity has conducted more than 50 case studies on enterprise use of automation technologies. Remko Van Hoek and Lacity have been studying early adopters of procurement technologies for three years, including companies using e-auctions, artificial intelligence, and other…

If you saw the action-adventure movie Everything Everywhere All at Once, you might have had the same reaction we did. Impressive and exciting? No doubt — that’s one reason why it won seven Academy Awards. A portent of the future? Perhaps — as scientists explore the idea of a multiverse,…

Leaders like to show that they value employees. They proclaim that everyone on the team is critical to the organization’s success. As uplifting as that sentiment is, it simply isn’t true. Talent can be a source of competitive advantage only if great people are in the most critical roles. Having…

Companies say they desperately want employees who can communicate effectively — leaders tell me that all the time in workshops — but how many of them really mean it? It’s hard to find a job posting that doesn’t mention the communication skill set as a key requirement. And yet, when…

The public’s growing concerns about environmental issues, along with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s efforts to impose fines on businesses for greenwashing, point to the potential fallout when companies engage in environmentally damaging actions. Companies such as Burger King, KFC, and McDonald’s have all been recent targets of government and…

We are in the middle of a robot revolution. The past decade has seen dramatic growth in robot adoption across an increasing number of industries, and it shows no signs of slowing. In a recent McKinsey survey of companies worldwide, 88% of respondents said they plan to invest in robotics…

While many companies talk the talk of sustainability, claiming to be integrating environmental and societal concerns into their business models, far fewer walk the walk: Managers typically treat sustainability as someone else’s problem and relegate it to a department or even a single individual.1 On the other hand, companies that…

  Are stock buybacks as bad as they’re made out to be? The ubiquitous corporate practice of repurchasing shares has been the focus of much political and media scrutiny. The federal Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 included a 1% excise tax on repurchases (which President Biden has proposed increasing to…

In today’s competitive job market, companies must focus not only on finding the best candidates but also on fostering positive relationships with them, starting with the first step of the recruitment process through every stage of employment. Communication is key to successfully creating those connections. How leaders communicate with prospective…

Most executives acknowledge that learning is crucial to the performance of their business. But at a recent research workshop that my team and I ran with executives from over 40 companies, it became clear that organizations’ traditional learning models are facing pressure from the emergence of new work models. The…

Flexible work arrangements, such as hybrid and remote models, have become important for talent acquisition and retention in the post-pandemic world. As organizations refine their virtual work practices, it is important to ensure that they are inclusive of neurodiverse employees. Because remote work often lacks concrete time cues and is…

Emphasizing skills in your talent strategy can have an outsize positive impact on hiring, upskilling, and retaining employees. By Aneesh Raman and Elyse Rosenblum As the threat of an economic downturn looms, we are entering the fourth consecutive year of uncertainty and rapid change. Three years ago, a global pandemic…

One of the many topics involving generative AI that is receiving a lot of attention is its potential effects on Hollywood and the entertainment industry. It’s an obvious concern because generative AI can create the types of outputs that the industry uses — text (in the form of stories, scripts, ad copy, and reviews), marketing […]

Download the Event Summary Download (PDF) The pandemic irrevocably changed the how, why, and where of work. At Work/23: The Big Shift, a half-day summit held May 4, 2023, MIT Sloan Management Review brought together company executives and academic experts in talent management, hybrid work, employee well-being, and workplace culture. Together, they explained how organizations […]

Call me shortsighted, but I am not losing sleep over the prospect of a supercharged AI gaining consciousness and waging war on humans. What does keep me up at night is that humans are already wielding the power of artificial intelligence to control, exploit, discriminate against, misinform, and manipulate other…

Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel and a towering figure of the early semiconductor business, died earlier this year at the age of 94. He leaves behind one of the more successful companies in history and, of course, his famous Moore’s law. He predicted in 1965 that the density of transistors…

The Research The author conducted the research underlying this article while co-leading Mercer’s Workforce Sciences Institute.i The author analyzed the results of his research team's statistical analyses of three to five years of employee data for 20 large and midsize, mostly global, employers representing manufacturing and services companies in a…

In today’s rapidly evolving work environment, professional development is no longer a nice-to-have perk, it’s an imperative. With budget tightening and workforce disruptions such as layoffs affecting many sectors, now is not the time for organizations to eliminate employee professional development and training. Likewise, individuals should continue to upskill regardless…

Corporate philanthropy spending reached new heights in 2021, exceeding $21 billion in the U.S. alone and marking a 24% increase over the previous year. These contributions, which traditionally focused on supporting galleries, museums, and shiny new buildings, have gained a higher profile in corporate decision-making. While management scholars have long…

Hina Dixit’s interest in supporting people and solving problems has its roots in her family’s call office business, where she helped people place telephone calls when she was growing up in India. Later, after earning her bachelor’s degree in computer science, she was quickly recruited into the tech space, where…

When Southwest Airlines suffered a post-holiday meltdown in December 2022, the trigger was a bout of adverse weather. But the storm hit Southwest harder than it did most airlines. The company’s outdated computer systems collapsed, and years of underinvestment in technology, particularly staff scheduling systems, led to more than 16,700…

My organization urgently needs to execute a new strategic initiative, but I’m not confident that my current staff members have the skills and drive required. How can I field a championship team when I don’t have any all-star players? It’s easy for managers to succumb to a scarcity mentality and…

When Geoffrey Hinton, a pioneer of deep learning, quit Google recently, he made it clear that he is worried about the risks of artificial intelligence. He is not alone. Following the launch of ChatGPT-4, thousands of artificial intelligence experts signed a letter calling for a pause in the development of…