A team of researchers offers a framework to help organizations support creativity more effectively. Elements of this framework including balancing the usefulness and originality of creative ideas depending on the organization’s needs and choosing the best approach to creative ideas: 1) focusing on the sheer quantity of new ideas, 2) exploring the potential of a category, or 3) looking for creative ideas across categories.
Is branded paid advertising worth the money? A 2015 study based on eBay traffic said no: prospects using brand name searches will find their way to the website, with or without paid ads to lead them. A new study, however, using a brand that is not one of the largest in the world, shows a different result: about half of the customers are lost.
Can leaders be too smart? A recent study offers a surprising answer: up to a certain point, the smarter you are, the more effective you are as a leader. But being too smart can actually reduce how effective you are perceived— in large part because you lose touch with your subordinates.
The use of innovation intermediaries to find outside solutions and ideas or innovation partners is becoming more common. Choosing the right intermediary can depend on factors such as the type and complexity of problems or needs, whether the search for partners or solutions, and the extent of the envisioned collaboration among innovators.
In the case of major industry disruption, successful companies survive through a well-orchestrated series of strategic moves. New research shows that the sequence and timing of those moves can make the difference between failure and success.
While digital age marketing channels such as social media marketing and mobile marketing has captured the public’s attention, the view from the Chief Marketing Officer’s desk is more measured, according to a new survey of marketing leaders in the U.S. Social media marketing continues to grab more and more of the marketing budget, for example, but measuring its impact on the bottom line remains elusive.
With traditional marketing losing its impact in today’s overcrowded marketplaces, marketers are developing creative covert campaigns to create buzz around their products. Sometimes, however, these covert campaigns can backfire.
New research reveals that promotions are more effective with luxury and hedonic products (think Godiva chocolates or that vacation by the sea) than for more utilitarian products. The reason: they help reduce consumer guilt about the purchase.
Third party influence can have a major impact on a company’s reputation. By replacing the traditional company-centric communication strategy, a new stakeholder-centric Channel Strategy Model helps companies understand stakeholder perspectives that are outside the companies’ sphere of experience — and opens up new avenues of indirect communication.
The benefit to companies of bundling products and services is complicated. Consumers will demand more compensation and feel greater dissatisfaction if a component is missing from a bundle than if it is missing in isolation. However, consumers will be willing to pay less for an item added to a bundle (and derive less satisfaction from that item) compared to the same item purchased separately.
Reflecting the impact of customer review sites, new research shows that independent hotels are adjusting their advertising spending based on reader reviews — the better the reviews, the less they spend.
While emerging countries are starting to generate more innovation, most of the world’s innovation continues to be clustered in regions of the advanced economies.
New research reveals that buyers of hedonistic, luxurious products often feel guilty about their indulgent purchase — but that bundling even a small utilitarian feature with the product can assuage this guilt and make consumers more likely to buy and increase willingness to pay.
Forget discounts. Customers perceiving a genuine effort by companies to invest in the customer relationship will feel grateful toward the company — an emotion that leads to overall (and longer lasting) customer satisfaction.
New research based on 2800 corporate CEOs shows that extraverted CEOs are more likely to engage their firms in the uncertainty of M&A activities, proving that CEO personality can drive firm behaviour. However, under certain conditions, the situation dictates the options available to CEOs, regardless of their personalities. Thus, for example, even less extraverted CEOs make more acquisitions in highly competitive industries.
Our brains prefer to think in straight lines: if one bag of oranges costs $5, then two bags cost $10 and three cost $15. However, this bias toward linear thinking often traps unwary business decision-makers who fail to recognize the non-linear relationships they are dealing with (e.g. increasing retention rates from 10% to 30% or from 60% to 80% does not have an equal 20% impact on customer lifetime value).
Organizations find that knowledge often gets ‘stuck’ within the different professional cliques. In a health care setting, for example, nurses talk to nurses and doctors talk to doctors, and knowledge has difficulty passing between these two professions. However, all organizations have individuals who can act information ‘brokers’, bridging the gap between the professions.
Friendships in the workplace lay the foundation for collaboration and learning. Friendship cliques, however, can also produce fissures that only people with personalities of the diplomats in the organization can span.
Leadership success is built not only on the competencies of the leader but also the perceptions of followers. Conceptualizing perceptions as attitudes unveils a more nuanced and complete explanation of leadership success (and failure).
Research shows that the existence of a generation of ‘digital natives’ and the ability of this generation to multi-task are in fact two harmful myths — myths that lead to erroneous assumptions about learning and work efficiency.
A groundbreaking 2004 journal article showed how behavioural economics could explain self-defeating retirement savings decisions made by employees. It was an early example of the power of behavioural economics over standard economic theory by the ‘father of behavioural economics’.
A large field experiment involving Norwegian taxpayers underreporting foreign income reveals that the probability of detection deters the greatest number of potential non-compliant taxpayers; moral arguments sways fewer non-compliant taxpayers but inspires those who listen to significantly increase their reported income.
A new study shows that the appearance of self-confidence resulting from high performance gives men greater influence in their organizations. The same is not true for women, who in addition to appearing self-confident must also demonstrate active concern and support for others.
Risk aversion and career concerns are pushing managers to play it safe, reducing the shareholder value of their companies — and the incentive compensation structures meant to motivate managers often have the opposite effect.
Behavioural economics solutions to societal problems mostly take the form of economic ‘nudges’ — such as defaults to increase retirement plan enrolments. However, the potential for behavioural economics to help resolve societal problems is far greater than the common nudges. A new paper explains how policy makers have failed to take full advantage of behavioural economics solutions.
Despite its negative connotation, office politics is a fact of workplace life. Successful people are politically savvy but also driven by integrity and authenticity. Vlerick Business School offers a guidebook for navigating the landscape of office politics without losing that authenticity.
A leading researcher on the issue of management-subordinate conflicts explains why it is important for leaders to mend any poor or strained relationships with their subordinates — and what steps to take.
Top management teams with entrenched knowledge bases tend to break into knowledge-based subgroups. CEOs by virtue of their integrative characteristics may be able to reconcile the differences and overcome the potentially negative effects. This study shows that there is more than meets the eye when it comes to the effects of knowledge diversity in management teams at multinational enterprises.
New research reveals the 10 structural barriers, from board size to the complexity of a firm, that explains why boards of directors can fail to effectively monitor their companies.
Based on a meta-analysis of academic publications, researchers identify two strategies and four tools that entrepreneurs can deploy to gain access to vital external resources.
