Innovative Thinking

Edgar Schein: Helping Video Interview (Bertelsmann Stiftung)

In this video interview, Professor Emeritus Edgar Schein discusses ways that managers and consultants can provide help in ways that make significant differences. More >>

Edgar Schein: Helping (Creelman Research)

Professor Emeritus Edgar Schein talks about the complexity of helping, and working with clients to be sure that useful help is given just when it is ready to be accepted. More >>

Putting Heads Together (Science)

A new study co-authored by MIT Sloan researchers documents the existence of collective intelligence among groups of people who cooperate well, showing that such intelligence extends beyond the cognitive abilities of the groups' individual members, and that the tendency to cooperate effectively is linked to the number of women in a group. More >>

Chris Peterson at DSS Consulting (MIT Sloan Teaching Innovation Resources)

This case illustrates the importance of leaders developing teams that have connections to other groups, both inside and outside the organization. It also highlights the importance of a leader working to ensure a team's efforts are aligned with an organization's strategy. More >>

The New Intelligent Enterprise (MIT Sloan Management Review)

Companies are either collecting more data than they know what to do with--or could collect it if they tried. The best ones are finding new competitive advantages in the "data flood"--new ways to capitalize on exponentially increasing computer power, storage capacity, communications speed, and "smart-world" instrumentation. More >>

A Billion Brains are Better Than One (MIT Sloan Management Review)

MIT Sloan's Thomas W. Malone, author of The Future of Work, on how the smartest companies will use emerging technology to tap the power of collective intelligence More >>

The Collective Intelligence Genome (MIT Sloan Management Review)

A user's guide to the building blocks of collective intelligence: By recombining CI "genes" according to the work required, managers can design the powerful system they need. More >>

Erik Brynjolfsson identifies seven characteristics of successful digital organizations (MIT Sloan)

Why is it that some companies are able to get more out of their investment in information technology than others? In their new book, Wired for Innovation: How Information Technology is Reshaping the Economy, Erik Brynjolfsson and Adam Saunders, two MIT-trained economists, offer a critical examination of how companies with the highest levels of return on their technology investment are putting money into organizational capital, and how other firms can follow suit. More >>

Intellectual Capital: Jeanne Ross on the Center for Information Systems Research [Podcast] (MIT Sloan)

How people and machines can come together for better business. More >>

What the GDP Gets Wrong (Why Managers Should Care) (MIT Sloan)

The irony: We know less about the sources of value in the economy than we did 25 years ago. More >>

IT Savvy: Making IT a strategic asset to outperform competitors (MIT Sloan Alumni Magazine)

IT savvy is reflected in a firm's ability to use IT to consistently drive performance. Like savoir-faire, IT savvy looks effortless from the outside. A quick test will reveal how IT savvy your firm is. More >>

Why Decisive--and Effective--Corporate Action is Lacking (MIT Sloan Management Review)

There are many reasons why companies are struggling to tackle sustainability more decisively. But our research points to three root causes. More >>

The Loop You Can't Get Out Of (MIT Sloan Management Review)

A few words from the father of system dynamics on organizational decision making, human frailty and the reasons that managers trying to solve problems so often just make them worse. More >>

Sustainability as Fabric -- and Why Smart Managers Will Capitalize First (MIT Sloan Management Review)

A founder of MIT Sloan's Laboratory for Sustainable Business says the best way to get people to take sustainability seriously is to frame it as it really is: not only a challenge that will affect every aspect of management but, for first movers, a source of enormous competitive advantage. More >>

The Business of Sustainability (MIT Sloan Management Review)

Will sustainability change the competitive landscape and reshape the opportunities and threats that companies face? Will sustainability have a material impact on your company? What should you and your company do about it? Our special report explores these burning questions and many more. More >>

MIT Sloan Professor finds Copenhagen Climate Summit agreement inadequate to reach global goal for greenhouse gas emissions (MIT Sloan)

The current proposals under consideration in the negotiations to produce a global climate treaty are not only inadequate, they could lead to a catastrophic rise in global warming, according to MIT Sloan School of Management Professor John Sterman, who recently returned from the U.N. Summit in Copenhagen. More >>

The Climate Collaboratorium: A New Forum Brings Experts Together to Combat Global Warming (MIT Sloan Alumni Magazine)

"If we don't solve global warming, many people would say nothing else will matter much," says Patrick J. McGovern Professor of Management Thomas W. Malone, the center's founding director and an MIT management professor. "If ever there were a problem on which we should try to bring together the best human and computational intelligence that our species could muster, this would be it." More >>

The Business of Sustainability (MIT Sloan Management Review)

Will sustainability change the competitive landscape and reshape the opportunities and threats that companies face? Will sustainability have a material impact on your company? What should you and your company do about it? Our special report explores these burning questions and many more. More >>

Financial Services: Prospects for Your Future [Video] (MIT World)

In a lively discussion with Simon Johnson, Lawrence Fish deconstructs the near collapse of the banking system and points out the multiple factors that have contributed to the financial crisis. More >>

The Baseline Scenario: What happened to the global economy and what we can do about it Lessons Learned and Soon Forgotten (Baseline Scenario)

One year after the collapse of Lehman, the controversial "rescue" of AIG, and the ensuing collapse of world financial markets there are two questions: what have we learned, and what good will it do us? More >>

Rebuilding research capacity key to investment in innovation, says John DeTore (MIT Sloan)

Beating up on Wall Street may be fashionable, but the "dismantling" of one critical piece of the financial sector -- investment research -- poses a serious threat to the nation's economy, according to investment firm veteran and MIT Sloan School of Management lecturer John DeTore. More >>

MIT Sloan lecturer Otto Scharmer finds "acupuncture points" could help create new economic system (MIT Sloan)

There are a lot of conversations going on these days about crises. Whether it's the financial crisis, the climate change crisis, the food crisis, the education crisis, or the security crisis, each topic has its own conferences, Websites, programs, and funding mechanisms. More >>

SEC fair disclosure rule causes companies to borrow more, MIT Sloan professor Reining Chen finds (MIT Sloan)

The US Securities and Exchange Commission in 2000 adopted Regulation Fair Disclosure, a rule requiring firms to provide investors equal access to information about companies. The goal of Regulation Fair Disclosure intended to curb insider information and protect small investors. More >>

Tavneet Suri's research finds the new cell phone-based payment system helps Kenyans save, and better withstand shocks to their personal finances (MIT Sloan)

In Kenya, a country where 83 percent of adults have a cell phone, but only 22 percent have a bank account, a new mobile payment system is having a transformative effect on people's household finances, according to research by Tavneet Suri, a professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management. More >>

Banks face struggle to recover customers lost during financial crisis (MIT Sloan)

The financial crisis may have eased, but many banks, especially smaller ones, face a continuing challenge to regain lost customers, a task that is important not just for the banks, but for the overall economy, according to MIT Sloan School of Management Assistant Professor of Finance Rajkamal Iyer. More >>

MIT Sloan professor finds that innovation creates systematic risk in financial markets (MIT Sloan)

While innovation benefits the overall economy with increased output, consumption, and wages, it also poses significant risk for older firms and workers, according to MIT Sloan School of Management Professor Leonid Kogan. It increases competitive pressure, reduces profits of existing businesses, and erodes the human capital of older workers. Those workers are less able to adapt to new technologies, which reduces their wages compared to their younger counterparts, he says. More >>

New book by MIT Sloan professor presents unique approach to corporate strategy (MIT Sloan)

In today's challenging economic environment, finding ways to differentiate and grow a business is more important than ever. In a new book, The Delta Model (Springer), MIT Sloan School of Management Professor Arnoldo Hax presents a fundamentally new approach to strategy focused on the customer rather than competitors. More >>

How Bosses Stay in Charge: A new theory by MIT Sloan Professor Robert Akerlof illustrates how managers establish and maintain authority over their employees (MIT Sloan)

It's an age-old economic conundrum: how can companies ensure their employees are working as hard as they should, even when the big boss isn't around? The question is the topic of a new theory by Robert Akerlof, a postdoctoral associate in applied economics at MIT Sloan School of Management, about how managers bolster their authority, even in a difficult economy. More >>

Deliberate de-marketing: MIT Sloan Professor's research shows how discouraging demand strategically manages buyers' expectations and their perceptions of quality (MIT Sloan)

When Paramount released "Star Trek" last year, it took a curious approach to its promotion. Rather than hype the movie, the studio relentlessly downplayed it. Executives compared it to "Batman Begins" and "Superman Returns," claiming all three movies lacked big stars, and were based on old franchises that had been in decline. More >>

MIT Sloan visiting professor finds current bank risk management measures insufficient (MIT Sloan)

The current risk management system for international banks is insufficient to prevent large losses of capital, according to MIT Sloan School of Management Visiting Professor Gordon Alexander. In his research on the current regulatory framework for trading books -- which utilizes Value-at-Risk and Stress Testing to assess downside risk and to determine capital adequacy -- he found those measures to be inadequate to prevent future economic turmoil. More >>

The heart is not a lonely hunter, MIT Sloan professor Joshua Ackerman finds (MIT Sloan)

Looking for success on the dating scene? MIT Sloan Assistant Professor Joshua M. Ackerman suggests it might be a good idea to bring a friend. More >>

Ray Reagans, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Management and Associate Professor of Organization Studies, offers a new look at social capital (MIT Sloan)

Ray Reagans says he has always been drawn to how race, ethnicity, and inequality intersect, but as an undergraduate he was concerned by the fact that it seemed to be more passion than analysis that would determine people's positions. This is what led him to pursue these issues from both a sociological and an economic perspective. Receiving degrees in both areas as an undergrad at Brown, he then went on to earn his PhD in sociology from the University of Chicago, but even then he did so very much through the lens of economics. More >>

Patents alone not enough, says MIT Sloan School of Management professor Joseph Hadzima (MIT Sloan)

Even after the economy rebounds, firms that slashed their investments in intellectual property due to the recession may lag behind those that did maintain and properly plan their IP strategies, according to an MIT Sloan expert, who finds a clear correlation between IP and capital market success. More >>

Online advertising: Better targeted, but not always profitable, says MIT Sloan professor Alessandro Bonatti (MIT Sloan)

An MIT Sloan School of Management professor offers a cautionary note to merchants and others who think they can get better results at a lower cost by advertising on the Internet instead of through more traditional media: Be careful what you click for. More >>

To succeed in business, try saying what you feel, MIT Sloan professor Daniel Shapiro advises (MIT Sloan)

If there is one well-established business principle that needs to be scrapped, it's the idea that emotions must always be kept in check, according to Daniel I. Shapiro, a visiting professor at MIT Sloan School of Management and a trained clinical psychologist. More >>

Intellectual Capital: Professor Deborah Ancona on the MIT Leadership Center [Podcast] (MIT Sloan)

Impacting the way the world thinks about leadership More >>

Intellectual Capital: Arnie Barnett finds safety in numbers [Podcast] (MIT Sloan)

George Eastman Professor of Management Science Arnie Barnett has a passion for applying math to problems. More >>

Intelligence, Cognitive Reflection, and Decision Making [Video] (MIT World)

Would you go for the sure bet -- say, a guaranteed $100, or a 75% chance on $200? How about receiving $3,400 this month, or waiting two months to get $3,800? More >>

Your Next Supply Chain (MIT Sloan Management Review)

Would you go for the sure bet -- say, a guaranteed $100, or a 75% chance on $200? How about receiving $3,400 this month, or waiting two months to get $3,800? More >>

MIT Sloan Professor Renee Richardson Gosline finds counterfeits don't necessarily hurt legitimate brands (MIT Sloan)

Counterfeit products have become increasingly common in recent years, representing 7% of worldwide trade. However, despite the pervasiveness of the problem, MIT Sloan School of Management Professor Renée Richardson Gosline says that counterfeits don't hurt the legitimate brands so long as consumers feel confident in their ability to distinguish between the real and the fake. More >>

Strategy as love, not war (MIT Sloan)

Most executives have probably, at one point or another, sat through a strategic planning session that focused on their organization's position in the marketplace -- its mission and objectives, its strengths and weaknesses, and the opportunities and threats it faces. But what if there's another way entirely of thinking about strategy? More >>

Strategy as love, not war (MIT Sloan)

Most executives have probably, at one point or another, sat through a strategic planning session that focused on their organization's position in the marketplace -- its mission and objectives, its strengths and weaknesses, and the opportunities and threats it faces. But what if there's another way entirely of thinking about strategy? More >>

Intellectual Capital: Professors Tom Kochan and Paul Osterman on IWER Adapting to the changing nature of work (MIT Sloan)

Adapting to the changing nature of work More >>

Waking Up to the Jobs' Crisis: Welcome to the Real America! [PDF] (MIT Sloan)

The wake-up call delivered by the public via recent elections and opinion polls has stirred the Administration to action on two dimensions of America's jobs crisis: the jobs' deficit and wage stagnation. But Congress is still reluctantly stumbling out of bed without a clear agenda for the task at hand. More >>