Quick Hits The First Amendment generally applies to governmental actors, but private employers still must comply with the NLRA, which protects employees’ right to engage in concerted activity related to their working conditions. Several states, including California, Connecticut, Colorado, and New York, provide additional protections for speech, off-duty conduct, and…
When asked about her single status in a 2014 interview, pop icon Taylor Swift commented: “Life can be romantic without a romance.” It appears many people share this opinion as the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reports there were 8.4 million people living alone in the UK in 2023. Whether…
Workplace culture is an uphill battle when the budget is tight or, worse, nonexistent. You’re expected to create a thriving, engaged workforce, but the reality is harsh: Gallup reports that only 32% of U.S. employees are engaged at work. Meanwhile, disengaged employees are costing companies a staggering $450 to $550…
Ventas, Inc. is a real estate investment trust (REIT) and S&P 500 company that occupies an essential role in the longevity economy. With roughly 1,400 properties in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, the company’s portfolio serves a large and growing aging population. Among its assets are senior…
The presence of colossal stockpiles of nuclear weapons in two or three great military powers reduces the likelihood of a general war in its traditional sense. However, the state of “a world that will not be at peace” promised by George Orwell also looks like it is balancing on the…
Internationale Funkausstellung Berline (IFA) — Europe’s largest consumer electronics trade show held annually in Berlin, Germany — is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Launched in 1924 as a radio exhibition, IFA has transformed over a century into a stunning display of cutting-edge technology that shares a special bond with…
After almost two years of infatuation with generative AI (gen AI), companies are moving past the honeymoon phase to embrace the work that matters most: creating value from this tantalizing technology. Expectations are high. A recent McKinsey Global Survey found that 65 percent of companies across sizes, geographies, and industries now…
Quick Hits In answering a question certified from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that under Massachusetts law, certain business-to-business relationships in which franchisees have chosen to operate their independent businesses using a business format franchise, the franchisees are not employees…
We are excited to add OpenAI’s newest models o1-preview and o1-mini to Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Studio and GitHub Models. We are excited to add OpenAI’s newest models o1-preview and o1-mini to Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Studio, and GitHub Models. The o1 series enables complex coding, math…
Amid today’s economic uncertainty, the B2B landscape is undergoing significant transformation. Fueled by rapid integration of digital technologies, sellers continue to invest, innovate, and experiment with how they present their offerings. Their B2B customers are shifting toward consumer-like purchasing behavior. They’re also demanding a much more sophisticated buying experience and…
Harlan Krumholz: Howie, we’re back. Welcome to Health & Veritas. I’m Harlan Krumholz. Howard Forman: And I’m Howie Forman. We’re physicians and professors at Yale University, and we’re trying to get closer to the truth about health and healthcare. Our guest today is Dr. Margaret, or Peg, McGovern, but first…
Anuj Shrestha The Research Thomas Keil and Marianna Zangrillo conducted a 10-year research program that examined how new CEOs and executives succeed, including how they build strong leadership teams. They studied the appointment of over 100 CEOs and executives in Europe and the United States through interviews with these leaders,…
In the competitive world of business, entrepreneurs have long sought novel formulas such as the Business Model Canvas and the Lean Start-Up Method in their quest for success. The most potent tool, however, might be one that's centuries old: the scientific approach.From a series of experiments involving 759 start-ups across…
An international group of researchers, led by the Copenhagen Business School, the University of Basel and the University of Cambridge, surveyed 4,000 people from Denmark, India, Nigeria and the United States about inequality in personal carbon footprints – the total amount of greenhouse gases produced by a person’s activities –…
A new era of technological change is ushering the technology officer to the center stage, and expectations are high. Companies want their chief information officers (CIOs), chief technology officers (CTOs), and chief digital and information officers (CDIOs) to deliver on the often-elusive goal of turning the promise of tech into…
Currently cancer is usually diagnosed when tumours are already developed requiring, often significant, treatment to remove them and prevent further growth. However, a research team at the University of Cambridge will receive over £1.5m from Cancer Research UK over the next six years to investigate how the immune system evolves, targets and…
Russian-Indonesian seminar of the Valdai Discussion Club, the National Archives of Indonesia and the Federal Archival Agency of the Russian Federation On September 24, the Valdai Discussion Club, together with the National Archives of Indonesia and the Federal Archival Agency of the Russian Federation, will hold a Russian-Indonesian seminar titled…
The current tax year ends on 5 April 2024 with the 2024/25 tax year kicking off a day later. With the end of the tax year approaching, it’s a good idea to begin to plan what you need to do to ensure your taxes are in good shape. Peter Webb,…
In 2023, global beauty market retail sales grew to $446 billion, up 10 percent from 2022. In the year since the release of our inaugural state of beauty report, published in collaboration with The Business of Fashion in May 2023, the industry—comprising fragrance, makeup, skin care, and hair care—beat expectations…
Anuj Shrestha The Research The authors first studied openly accessible documents concerning the COVAX initiative to understand the organization’s functions, vaccine procurement process, and allocation framework. They then conducted semi-structured interviews online with representatives of COVAX stakeholders, including pharma companies, public health organizations, NGOs, and grant-making organizations. Informants were selected…
Engage students with interactive Hispanic Heritage Month lessons that highlight the rich heritage and impactful leadership of Hispanic figures. As we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month in the US from September 15 to October 15 each year, Microsoft is committed to honoring and amplifying the voices and contributions of the Hispanic…
For decades, the Business Roundtable, a professional association and lobbying organization formed by CEOs from many of the largest companies in the United States, asserted that companies exist to create value for shareholders. So, it was noteworthy when, in 2019, the leaders of 181 companies signed onto the organization’s revised…
Enterprises are looking to Global capability centers (GCCs) as critical innovation hubs to stay ahead in the competitive landscape, but the difficulty lies in aligning strategic priorities with the capabilities of GCCs to maximize their impact. In this episode of McKinsey Talks Operations, host Daphne Luchtenberg is joined by McKinsey…
The business transformations that generative AI brings come with risks that AI itself can help secure in a kind of flywheel of progress. Companies who were quick to embrace the open internet more than 20 years ago were among the first to reap its benefits and become proficient in modern…
The tools we now have to identify trends and shifts in such data are allowing us to develop crucial insights into the effects that human activity is having, and will have, on the natural world. Professor Joss Wright, Oxford Internet Institute and Oxford Martin Programme on Wildlife Trade If companies…
As many of you already know, and for those CEOs of small public companies that do not know, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been investigating the convertible toxic note industry for a few years and has recently filed several high profile enforcement actions against several of…
The Four Guardrails That Enable Agility Nick van der Meulen Key Insight: Defining constraints can help large companies foster employee autonomy and agility while maintaining organizational and strategic alignment. Top Takeaways: Organizational agility requires that employees be empowered to make fast decisions, take risks, and consider new ideas, but companies…
Understanding dilution is crucial for founders, particularly as they seek investment and scale their businesses. When high-growth companies attract investor capital, some level of dilution is expected. So here are five essential points every founder should know about dilution. 1. Definition and Impact What is Dilution: Dilution occurs when a…
The statistics for the University of Cambridge are available on the website as part of our ongoing commitment to transparency and openness around the use of animals in research.This coincides with the publication of the Home Office’s report on the statistics of scientific procedures on living animals in Great Britain in 2023. The…
Topics Column Our expert columnists offer opinion and analysis on important issues facing modern businesses and managers. More in this series subscribe-icon Subscribe Share Business doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Sometimes external conditions exert a much larger force than usual. That is certainly the case today, with political and environmental…
On September 4, 2024, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law an amendment to New York’s warranty reimbursement statute, N.Y. Veh. & Traf. Law § 465, requiring manufacturers to compensate dealers for labor using the “reasonable” time allowances contained in third-party labor time guides “reasonably utilized” by dealers for customer-pay…
Quick Hits A recent decision from the NLRB found that consent orders undermine the NLRB general counsel’s prosecutorial authority and fail to facilitate a mutual resolution of labor disputes. For now, the NLRB will no longer accept consent orders, which are settlement terms unilaterally proposed by a respondent (typically an…
Together with Oracle, we’re announcing upgrades to Oracle Database@Azure, giving customers the ability to run or build new cloud applications that combine Oracle Database services with native Microsoft Azure services and benefit from extremely low latency and high performance. This blog is co-authored by Kambiz Aghili, Vice President, Oracle Cloud…
AI can help you become a better writer, coder, and researcher. But can the powerful technology boost business acumen and economic performance?Sort of, says a recent study. An experimental artificial intelligence (AI) mentor designed to answer business questions from Kenyan entrepreneurs helped some become more successful—but led others down the…
A decision driven by pragmatic considerations… The problems afflicting Jakarta include overpopulation, pollution, subsidence and flooding. With 12 million people living there – 30 million if you include the entire metropolitan area – Jakarta is overpopulated. It’s one of the world’s most densely populated cities, with more than 16,000 people…
Joan Tabachnick ’86 has worked in the field of child sexual abuse prevention for more than 30 years and developed widely used educational tools and programs. She serves on the advisory council of Stop It Now, and recently retired as the executive director of MASOC—the Massachusetts Society for a World…
Radar Research finds that companies have been slow to adopt generative AI and that the technology’s labor impacts have not been widely felt. Kaushik Viswanath September 09, 2024 Reading Time: 2 min Topics Data, AI, & Machine Learning AI & Machine Learning Radar Brief insights on emerging trends in management…
Quick Hits The right to switch off would give workers the right to not have to engage with work correspondence (including emails, phone calls, and work-based messaging services) outside their contracted working hours. This right is intended to give “workers and employers the opportunity to have constructive conversations and work…
With stricter domestic violence laws being introduced, a common question being asked is whether financial abuse is a crime. While this has previously been seen in the context of family law proceedings, the introduction of coercive control as a criminal offence has expanded the consequences of financial abuse. This is…
On September 9, the Valdai Discussion Club presented the report “Neither East, Nor West: How Iran’s Economy Copes With Sanctions”. The discussion was moderated by Ivan Timofeev, the Club’s programme director, who noted that Iran remains one of the key cases for those studying the use of sanctions, and that…