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Ideas Made to Matter

MIT Sloan’s top 5 ‘Working Definitions’ of 2025

By

Tracy Mayor

Dec 8, 2025

At a time when artificial intelligence is upending every aspect of workplace and business norms, our biweekly Instagram series of words and phrases that define management ideas shared a theme of reassessment.

Over the past year, the most popular of MIT Sloan’s 2025 Working Definitions included meritocracy paradox, which points toward a new approach to talent management; network mapping, a fresh look at ecosystems, organizations, and communities; and China + 1, a business strategy that encourages supply chain leaders to rethink their reliance on China.

Learn more about those terms, plus two more, below.

1. Meritocracy paradox

Meritocracy Paradox Working Definition: A situation in which organizational efforts to reward merit and ensure equal opportunity for all may, ironically, deepen inequities and unfairness. — View on Instagram

2. Network mapping

Network Mapping Working Definition: The visualization and analysis of relationships, influence patterns, and information flows within organizations or communities. — View on Instagram

3. China + 1

China +1 Working Definition: A business strategy in which companies diversify their supply base and reduce reliance on China by establishing operations in at least one other country. — View on Instagram

4. Supertech leader

Supertech Leader Working Definition: A senior executive who cultivates a unified view of an organization’s technological landscape, including data, analytics, and digital transformation. — View on Instagram

5. BYOAI

BYOAI Working Definition: Employees’ use of unapproved, publicly accessible generative artificial intelligence tools for work-related tasks. — View on Instagram

For more info Tracy Mayor Senior Associate Director, Editorial (617) 253-0065 tmayor@mit.edu

David Rand

Ideas Made to Matter Online content moderation: What works, and what people want

MIT Sloan 2024 Working Definitions: greenhushing, financial nihilism, glass cliff, low-ego leadership, and exaptation strategy

Ideas Made to Matter Our top 5 ‘Working Definitions‘ of 2024

An illustration of a person's hand putting a ballot into a voting box surrounded by news clippings with words like "misinformation" and "fake"

Ideas Made to Matter In election cycles, voters tend to believe news that confirms their biases