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New research conducted with restaurant listings on Yelp found that establishments given prime position atop search results did get better results. Still, there's an important caveat. "The value Yelp ads seem to provide is in surfacing brands to customers," the researchers point out. That isn't to say that well-known companies should never use search ads; however, they should bear in mind that the ads work best when alerting customers to aspects of the brand that they're not already aware of.

When researchers compared daily data from the S&P 500 index with daily environmental data from Lower Manhattan, they discovered a connection between poor air quality and diminished stock performance.

This article introduces the special issue on the increasing role of cities as a driver for (open) innovation and entrepreneurship. It frames the innovation space being cultivated by proactive cities. Drawing on the diverse papers selected in this special issue, this introduction explores a series of tensions that are emerging as innovators and entrepreneurs seek to engage with local governments and citizens in an effort to improve the quality of life and promote local economic growth.

The prevailing geographic model for high-technology industrial organization has been the "nerdistan," a sprawling, car-oriented suburb organized around office parks. This seems to contradict a basic insight of urban theory, which associates dense urban centers with higher levels of innovation, entrepreneurship, and creativity. This article examines the geography of recent venture capital finance startups across U.S. metros and within a subset of them by neighborhood. It concludes that the model is changing. The suburban model might have been an historical aberration, and innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship are realigning in the same urban centers that traditionally fostered them.

The article presents a framework for exploring the drivers, structure, and dynamics of open data initiatives in the city context. Drawing on a case study of the city of Barcelona complemented with other cases, it develops a stepwise framework that can serve as a practical guide for both urban and private leaders to implement open data strategies. Following this model can enable managers to minimize risk and effectively harness the power of open data.

Pressures on infrastructure-due to growing urban populations, the ubiquity of new technologies, and collaborative business models-are fostering a new form of entrepreneurship focused on addressing quality of life in cities. Urban entrepreneurs are challenging the logic of formal market structures, forcing us to reframe our thinking around the interactions between place, individuals, institutions, and the resulting innovative outcomes. Urban entrepreneurs-operating at the neighborhood, city, and global levels-are developing alternative forms of private-public-people partnerships and unique business strategies.

Initiatives to redesign cities so that they are smarter and more sustainable are increasing worldwide. A smart city can be understood as a community in which citizens, business firms, knowledge institutions, and municipal agencies collaborate with one another to achieve systems integration and efficiency, citizen engagement, and a continually improving quality of life. This article presents an organizational framework for such collaboration and employs it to analyze Smart Aarhus, the smart-city initiative of Aarhus, Denmark. Based on the experiences of Smart Aarhus to date, it offers a set of lessons that can benefit the designers, leaders, and policymakers of other smart-city initiatives.

Governing a city is arguably one of the most complex management tasks facing organizational leaders. Based on an analysis of Vienna, London, and Chicago, this article demonstrates that city leaders treat cities as ecosystems, structured and governed either as "extended enterprises" where inputs from specialized organizations are coordinated and integrated into the final service or as "platform markets" where direct interactions between third-party service providers and citizens are facilitated by the city leaders. If cities are viewed as the "ecosystem of ecosystems," then successful city governance requires an orchestration approach where leaders choose the appropriate structure and manage the ecosystem dynamically in a constantly changing environment.

The Smart Cities movement has produced a large number of projects and experiments around the world. To understand the primary ones, as well as their underlying tensions and the insights emerging from them, the editors of this special issue of the California Management Review enlisted a panel of experts, academics and practitioners from different nationalities, backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. The panel focused its discussion on three main areas: new governance models for Smart Cities, how to spur growth and renewal, and the sharing economy both commons and market based.

Decision-making is one of the few variables that crosses all business functions, affects all companies, and leads to success or failure wherever it is used. However, decision-making is not a science: it’s highly subjective and susceptible to cognitive biases. In an organization, cognitive bias works on individual and group levels, influencing decision-making and outcomes. The results are often errors or bad choices, such as Lehman Brothers’s excessive risk-taking, Toyota’s inadequate response to quality problems, and BP’s decisions to skimp on safety practices. Some errors are unavoidable, but systemic errors can be prevented, largely by addressing the propensity for bias. Types of bias can include overconfidence, confirmation bias, analogy bias, availability bias, and herd mentality (groupthink). While completely removing bias is probably impossible, avoiding systemic errors is possible by taking the following steps: 1) force awareness of the potential for bias; 2) conduct a frank self-examination; 3) critically evaluate the knowledge the organization uses to make decisions; 4) diagnose the cultural codes of groups; 5) reframe problems; and 6) actively seek out contrary viewpoints. However you deal with cognitive bias, begin with acknowledgement that it exists in all organizations and teams. To prevent bias from leading to poor organizational decision-making, inputs for decisions should be tested for quality just like inputs in manufacturing are tested for quality.

For many companies, peak condition is sustained through digital fitness—an ability to invest in and innovate using digital technologies. However, Accenture research has found that many companies are not actively building their digital muscles, even when they are in a strong financial position. When we examined the financial and digital performance of over 300 global companies, we found one category of business that was surprisingly strong on financial performance, especially profitability, but comparatively weak on digital performance. We call this group Business Leaders. Business Leaders have maintained financial strength thanks to their legacy business but, if not renewed over time, the strong legacy of today can become a challenge tomorrow. Accenture research shows that Business Leaders underperform on four broad company activities: a) digital strategy planning and execution, b) digital production and delivery, c) digital customer experience management, and d) digital corporate culture and operations. As a result, Business Leaders need to: 1) get motivated to excel at serial investments, 2) renew their business model, but not alone, and 3) make cultural disruption a routine. Business Leaders may underestimate the impact that nimbler, more tech-savvy competitors can have on their current financial lead position. To get fit to lead in the future, these companies must focus on investment, business model renewal, and a persistent culture of innovation.

Can innovations come from China? Some influential people don’t think so. Today, of course, Alibaba is the Chinese innovator that clearly stands out. This paper argues that Alibaba’s impressive rise as a leading innovator on the world stage was driven in no small way by the institutional voids that challenge other firms in the same business environment. Alibaba not only thrived in an institutional void, it was a filler of institutional voids. Alibaba’s success has been attributed to factors including the massive size and rapid growth of the Chinese market, an influx of foreign capital, and an ingenious mix of Chinese and Western business systems. However, there are four reasons why China’s institutional void effect cannot be ignored: Alibaba received selective government support, experienced a strong CEO effect, strongly fit the paradigm shift to e-commerce, and accrued great benefits through ecosystem development. Arguably, developing a broad business ecosystem offers more benefits in an environment with institutional voids. One key tenet of an institutional void is the lack of market information—both for consumers and for businesses—which inhibits effective business operations. However, Alibaba became an “infomediary” for consumers by collecting information to help them make informed shopping decisions. Alibaba then collected consumer behaviour data from its online ecosystem, which is expected to have a significant impact on China’s business world and society.

In the digital space, what is the next big thing? Nobody knows. Nevertheless, today’s companies are under pressure to discover it. But chasing the digital holy grail can jeopardize management’s focus on what’s really important—digital transformation. One can read many books on how companies can accelerate digital transformation. But before you start planning, you should make one simple commitment: build digital into every project. Every opportunity to capture the creative power of digital technologies should adhere to the following four realities of competing in a digital world: 1) Customer experience is vital. 2) Customers are moving targets with short-lived attention and fragile brand loyalty. 3) Business ecosystems co-create value because no single organization possesses all the data, digital skills, and capabilities to win over today’s demanding and dynamic digital customers. 4) Digital platforms boost value co-creation and digital innovation strength is dependent on your ability to combine your digital assets with those of others. Use these four guidelines the next time you appraise an innovative idea or assess a project proposal.

Rather than giving credence to generational stereotypes that pit, for example, Baby Boomers against Millennials, effective leaders must focus on growing a strong relationship culture within their organization. Understanding and exploring individual personalities helps to grow and nurture human connection, as opposed to ascribing generic characteristics to people based on their date of birth. It’s easy to follow the path of generational stereotypes—not least because the idea is so popular in the media. We are constantly reminded how generation theory explains office dynamics. However, there are better lenses through which to view the complexity of team performance. One of the most commonly cited factors is the idea of collaboration—supposedly a Millennial character trait. But the data doesn’t fit as neatly into the collaborative Millennial construct as one might think. This tendency to transpose technological features onto generational values is one of the flaws of generation theory. A more effective approach is to drive ongoing relationship skill development within the office through formal programs. Interpersonal skill development programs help teams to understand each other and put their varied strengths to work. Although individuals and generations may show a myriad of differences, most people—regardless of age—are similar in their search for meaning and value. When understood and properly harnessed, this fundamental human desire has the power to unite any organization.

Expert crowdsourcing isn’t easy to get right because the success of a virtual community of practice is fully dependent on fulfilling the crowd’s wants and needs.

Physical retailers of the future will deploy technology to achieve mass customization one customer at a time.

The trials and tribulations of Dare Foods, along with its well-drafted shareholders’ agreement, show how good corporate governance reinforces the ability of courts to defer to directors’ business judgment.

Canada’s economy could use a blast of innovation. After all, between 2005 and 2015, productivity averaged only 1 per cent per year, while economic growth averaged under 2 per cent. Unfortunately, despite public policy talk of supporting innovation, the government does not go far enough to provide innovation incentives. Indeed, the stimulants currently in place are inadequate to produce the high-performance economy that Canada requires. To help the Canadian economy return to the 3–4 per cent growth rates of our past, policymakers should consider three strategies. 1) Improve returns on innovation by lowering taxes and freezing or lowering capital gains and options gains tax rates. 2) Improve the regulatory environment: Excessive and poorly conceived regulations serve as an innovation killer, especially for small businesses that lack the financial resources to manage an excessive compliance process. 3) Innovate government services: One approach is to take the shackles off government-sector incentive systems and specifically reward efforts at innovation. Another, less controversial approach is a competitive grant program aimed at would-be government-sector innovators. Finally, universities and colleges through their teaching and research programs are a hotbed of innovation. Enhanced post-secondary education funding with proper targets and controls could be a boon to innovation.

America faces a previously unimaginable leadership crisis. And that is why businesspeople fleeing White House advisory councils over Trump’s response to the tragic events in Charlottesville—where a civil rights activist was killed during a violent clash—should be applauded, not attacked. Unfortunately, millions of Trump supporters don’t see a problem with the comfort that racists are taking from his leadership. And because these Trump supporters are also consumers, it is risky business for CEOs to take a stand against the man. Simply put, Trump doesn’t understand or care why there should be no presidential ambiguity when it comes to discrimination. As things stand, the president of the United States does not understand good leadership. His behaviour is dangerously erratic, childish, and divisive thanks to his unhealthy need for applause. Perhaps watching more and more CEOs choose to serve the country and their corporate stakeholders by taking a stand against his administration rather than supporting it will eventually cause Trump to reflect on his flaws as a leader. Either way, when something far more important than profits is on the line, choosing not to be associated with someone who has repeatedly attacked the foundation of American greatness is a sound business decision.

The rate of cyber breaches at organizations in Canada is relatively low. Yet this has created a false sense of security, leading to delayed discovery and response along with other serious consequences for companies. In Canada, the average organization faces 96 targeted attacks each year, a third of which result in a security breach. And yet most Canadian companies do not have effective technology to monitor for cyberattacks. Companies also tend to focus on risks and outcomes that have not kept pace with threats. Despite hacker success, Canadian organizations are confident that they are managing cybersecurity correctly. There is still too much emphasis on compliance and passing audits conducted within the business. The following steps can help organizations deal with the high-impact cyber threats they face: 1) define cybersecurity success; 2) pressure-test security capabilities the way adversaries do; 3) protect from the inside out (e.g., limit internal access to key information); 4) make security everyone’s job; 5) lead from the top; 6) build on past lessons; and 7) invest to innovate and outmaneuver. As their digital security strategies mature and new solutions emerge, Canadian organizations that tie cybersecurity efforts to real business needs will gain a more justifiable confidence in their ability to deal with cyber threats.