Author: EconLearner

As they are busy sorting out which functional changes will last and which will be sidelined, Marty Lariviereprofessor of Operations at the Kellogg School and co-author The Chamber of Commerce blog, anticipates less seismic changes in the future than many might envision. But that doesn’t mean everything will be business as usual. “We’ve already had something of a return to normalcy,” he says. “But there are aspects of convenience — like click-and-collect grocery and grocery delivery — that aren’t going away.” Here, Lariviere offers three predictions for the year ahead and beyond. Consumer goods companies will keep it simpleIn a…

Uber, for example, announced that it has over a thousand experiments running on its platform at any given time. LinkedIn recently subjected 20 million users to thousands of experiments (unbeknownst to them) in a five year period.It’s not just app clients that are affected. They are also the people who rely on these apps for gigs. Some research considerations that nearly a fifth of people in the United States used a digital platform to find a job in 2021.How might all this experimentation affect workers?A new paper by Hatim Rahman Kellogg’s, Tim Weiss of Imperial College London and Arvind Karunakaran…

In recent decades, innovation challenges, hackathons and other open innovation competitions have become quite popular, particularly in technology. But the broader use of contests as a powerful, cost-effective way to reward effort spans all industries. US government agencies run prize competitions that encourage the public to solve problems. NGOs regularly hold fundraising contests that encourage donors to compete for prizes or recognition. Managers hold contests—although they may not explicitly describe them as such—to encourage employees to compete for a coveted promotion. And in the distant world of cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin miners compete with each other to win Bitcoin by being the…

Partnershipgetty Weird projects, especially in the realm of modern brand collaborations. Today’s fickle consumers—led by the most fickle of all, Gen Z—are rapidly shifting allegiances. To keep coming back, brands collaborate in unexpected ways and reap successes that are often surprising. These unconventional marriages between seemingly disparate brands have been happening for a while. I think so Cheetos meets Forever 21 in 2019. (Wouldn’t that be a laundry day nightmare?) Or the super frenzy GoPro-Red Bull mash-up in 2016. Now, they’re starting to come fast and furious. Today, we’re seeing plenty of out-of-the-box thinking on display when it comes to…

“It’s important to know if you’re delivering the experience you want customers to have and making it better,” he says Joel K. Shapiro, clinical associate professor of data analytics at Kellogg. “To do that, you have to measure as much as you can about what’s happening to them.”But according to Shapiro, too many companies are ignoring some of the juiciest data. This is the head-scratching data, the metrics that don’t quite fit existing models. These are the extremes. And they can highlight your product or service’s biggest weaknesses—as well as where it has the potential to really shine. Companies can…

You may worry that speaking your opinions too often, or too strongly, might cause conflict with colleagues and employers. However, if you respect your colleagues, you probably assume that any differences in political leanings will not create problems in your career.And that’s what the economists assumed too. “In the private sector, the common sense consensus is that politics don’t really matter in the workplace,” he says Eduardo Tessoassistant professor of managerial economics and decision sciences at the Kellogg School.But it turns out that your political views can be a big factor in whether you get hired for a particular job…

China has mirrored Russia’s historical trajectory for most of the past 100 years. In the early twentieth century, both were large empires with outdated institutions that could not protect their people from foreign wars, corruption, inequality, and poverty. While the per capita income of Russia in 1900 was approx one third that of the United States, Chinese incomes were Half those of Russia. In 1949, the new People’s Republic was modeledpolitically and economically for the Soviet system. In both China and the Soviet Union, a command economy replaced markets, and the central government affected every aspect of people’s lives—what they…

According Cynthia Wanghis director Center for Dispute Resolution and Investigations and clinical professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School, conspiratorial beliefs are common in times of uncertainty. “What’s new is that this conspiracy rhetoric has become more mainstream in the conversation around the midterm elections,” Wang says. “We’re seeing candidates inviting fringe conspiratorial communities into their platforms.”Offers information from her recent research to explain the explosion of conspiracy rhetoric from politicians – and what could be done to dissuade voters from embracing conspiracy theories.Hooked on Epistemic Junk FoodMany political leaders don’t necessarily believe the conspiracy theories they espouse,…

It’s not just your imagination. Something has really changed in American politics, he says Eli J. Finkel, professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School. Especially in the last five years, “the two sides hate each other so much,” he says — to the point that almost any tactic can be justified “to defeat these Satan worshipers on the other side.” The dangers of this partisan hatred are obvious and playing out all around us, threatening our ability to deal with serious national issues and even jeopardizing the peaceful transition of power. But as the problem grows, so do…

The researchers call these scenarios “representational thinking.” But contrarian thinking is not limited to our personal or professional lives. In a recent study, Neil Roseprofessor of marketing at Kellogg, and his colleagues investigate how it plays out in the political arena: What we think the world would be like if politicians had he acted differently?As the American left and right become increasingly polarized over how to interpret events, the group wondered whether similar partisanship would color opposing thinking.They suspected it might. After all, says Roese, facts are somewhat limited by observation, but counterfactuals are “more open to the imagination.”The researchers…