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Why the US Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions does not signal the end of affirmative action or substantially change US corporate DEI methodology.

Reviving an inactive social connection might seem as simple as reaching out to someone and starting a conversation, but reestablishing a professional relationship takes more care. New research has found that there are three key elements to refreshing a dormant tie successfully: remembering each other well, catching up on relevant experiences, and perceiving the relationship similarly. The researchers discuss how best to reestablish positive professional connections and avoid awkward missteps.

Recent years have brought major technological breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI), and firms are expected to invest nearly $98 B in 2023. However, many AI projects never leave the pilot phase, and many companies have difficulties extracting value from their AI initiatives. To explain this contradiction, this article reports on a study of 55 projects implementing AI in organizations. It shows that organizational challenges in implementing AI projects are a result of a paradoxical tension created by two different perspectives on data science work: craft and mechanical work. Executives, managers, and data scientists should actively manage this tension to enable and sustain value creation through AI.

The unique needs of companies at different growth stages are best served by a marketing organization designed to meet the organization's goals and a CMO with the right skills. Early-stage companies need a scrappy generalist, developing companies need a scale specialist, and mature companies need a strategic marketing leader. Based on research and interviews with 100 CMOs, the authors identified three key traps in designing marketing organizations and ways to avoid them.

A perennial challenge for executives in established firms is deciding how and when to respond to emerging technologies. This article demonstrates that the way emerging technologies play out in established industries differs according to how the business system is affected. Some have primarily a supply-side effect (on how a firm in the industry creates its product), while others have a primarily demand-side effect (on how users consume the product). Supply-side effects play out over relatively long periods of time in a predictable way, with incumbent firms executing similar strategies though at different speeds. Demand-side effects are faster-acting and more volatile, with incumbents often experimenting with a range of different business models as they seek a viable way forward in a changing market. By understanding these important differences between supply-side and demand-side effects and being able to anticipate the typical patterns of responses from incumbents, executives can make better choices in how and when to invest in emerging technologies.

In times of crisis, organizations face a dilemma: How should they balance between minimizing losses and surviving financially, and acting for the benefit of all stakeholders and of society at large? In theory, managers should balance between multiple demands, forgoing short-term profits to address human needs when necessary. But in practice, managers may face challenges in balancing demands during a crisis. Combining the stakeholder-agency and compassion perspectives in the context of crisis management, we present the compassion-centric behavioral agency in crisis (CCBAC) framework to address this theory-practice gap. We suggest three levers for organizations and policymakers to encourage this behavior from organizations: developing and using technological and innovation capabilities, paradoxical leadership behaviors, and employee well-being and generosity programs. Organizations benefit from the CCBAC framework because they become better positioned to maintain their long-term competitive advantage and positive organizational identity while contributing to the needs of society. Policymakers benefit from incentivizing such organizations because they serve as an intermediary to achieve outcomes for society at large. Throughout this article, we use the COVID-19 pandemic, responses to mass shootings, and other example crises to highlight the tension and opportunity within our "both/and" approach. We conclude that organizations can be compassionate even as they pursue profit and efficiency in the long run.

The market for behavioral biometrics-a technological evolution whereby patterns in human movement and activities can be identified, captured, and analyzed-is expected to exceed US $11 billion by 2031. We highlight the evolution from early physiological biometrics (e.g., fingerprints and iris scans used to verify the identity of individuals) to today's behavioral biometrics. Technological advancements now turn our retail stores, offices, and warehouses into live data streams that let us closely and automatically monitor employees' conduct at work. Although this development raises several legitimate surveillance and privacy concerns, behavioral biometrics can potentially benefit organizations and employees alike. Such mutual benefits compel managers to approach behavioral biometrics using our TRUST framework: transparency of intentions, respect for concerns, understanding the importance of choice, sharing the data benefits, and proactively timing the development. Managers who do so will gain a clear focus on organizational and employee well-being.

Executives and organizations seeking to portray an image of competence and integrity should be careful what they wish for, given the state of modern media. Rather than being a passive conduit for one's image, today's media is much more activist and exerts substantial influence over the construction, reconstruction, and destruction of image. In studying the media's rapid transformation of one such glowing image in the wake of a scandal, we identified three key processes by which the media transforms image. These processes are relevant to a wide range of contexts. Perhaps most intriguing is the discovery that the media can leverage an existing, recessive narrative and convert it into a dominant one. This intriguing finding suggests that the pursuit of a glowing image might inadvertently sow the seeds of future destruction. In the heat of a scandal, executives and organizations are likely to struggle with countering the media's image-altering processes. Our findings imply a need for more careful, nuanced, and engaged image management both during a scandal and before scandal hits.

Loneliness is a rampant and modern epidemic that affects the majority of employed adults and shows no signs of subsiding. Loneliness not only contributes to numerous health problems-including anxiety, depression, heart failure, and suicide-but can also cause greater employee stress, cynicism, distrust, and decreased job performance, as well as higher turnover and absenteeism. Loneliness-prompted absenteeism singlehandedly costs employers billions of dollars a year in lost productivity. Consequently, understanding and managing workplace loneliness is of paramount importance for leaders. A review of the causes and outcomes associated with workplace loneliness is provided in this article, as well as three evidence-based interventions that can help reduce workplace loneliness: (1) fostering opportunities for relationship building, (2) increasing support around evolving work contexts, and (3) fortifying a people-focused organizational culture. By presenting research-based guidance, we help leaders combat on-the-job loneliness faced by employees, as well as managers; generate healthier work environments; and cultivate improved individual, team, and organizational performance.

Web3 technology is described as trustless in that interactions and transactions do not require trusted third parties and instead rely on smart contracts and the immutability of the decentralized blockchain. Thus, in contrast to earlier iterations of the web, Web3 users are asked to trust the technology itself rather than the human intermediaries. On its face, this shift to a trustless web calls into question the traditional conceptions of and requirements for trust. However, in this article, we caution against claims that advocate distrusting Web3 on the basis that, despite how quickly Web3 technology is advancing, the psychological processes through which people perceive and make sense of the social world remain fundamentally unchanged. Drawing on the psychology of trust and the evolution of web technologies and associated objects of trust, we argue that Web3 is not so trustless after all. We also highlight opportunities for brands to build trust in Web3 technology, including key considerations in leveraging opportunities and directions for further research. Overall, this article provides critical guidance to brand managers, policy advisors, and academics seeking to understand, build, and trust Web3 technology.

During the summer of 2022, carmaker BMW introduced postpurchase, subscription-based "functions on demand," and the online response was furious. Having purchased a car with functionalities preinstalled, consumers expect to use the functionalities as and when they wish and without additional charges. BMW was changing this norm and so became the object of derision. We live in an age of "x as a service" and amid a subscription economy, and electronics and software are making their way into all kinds of products-products that are connected to the internet at all times, controlled through apps on mobile devices, and subject to the product maker's "off" and "on" instructions. "Preinstalled functionality as a service" is now technologically possible, the economic pull of recurring revenue is enticing, and perhaps BMW should not be blamed: We are possibly at the threshold of a new way of thinking about durable products and their preinstalled bundle of functions. This article introduces the concept of preinstalled functionality as a service and characterizes how this business-model innovation changes the concepts of durable products, product lines, after-purchase add-ons, and functionality usage rights. I conclude by examining whether and how the innovation may be implemented.

White-collar crime continues to be a central challenge for individuals, organizations, and consumers. Due to the substantial social harm caused by white-collar crime, there has been a focus on prevention and detection strategies, including profiling offenders in an effort to understand their motives, targets, and modus operandi. Despite advances in profiling white-collar offenders, these profiles have relied heavily on the same thirty-year-old, federal-level database limited to major urban areas, which may obscure changes in the sociodemographics of white-collar offenders. Based on Utah's more recent White-Collar Crime Registry, this article seeks to better identify the profiles of modern white-collar offenders. Our findings uncovered three distinct types of white-collar criminals: The Tech Scammer, the Ponzi Schemer, and the Insurance Fraudster. Despite the registry's limitations as a database, we offer recommendations regarding the prevention and detection of such offenders. With a more in-depth understanding of the modern white-collar criminal, managers will be better positioned to manage white-collar crime in the workplace.

Research shows that innovators have a poor track record of predicting which of their own ideas will result in breakthroughs. But some ideas that appear to be incremental at first eventually prove to be blockbusters. Carrying more ideas through to incubation gives both the company and the broader market a chance to learn more about them and for unanticipated use cases to emerge.

Lego Group's crowdsourced innovation strategies have long been a model for open innovation. New research into how the company has advanced its practice of integrating customer communities into its idea-generation process yields additional lessons in how to integrate customer input into product development, and how to nurture creative customer communities.

With many knowledge workers working remotely, digital collaboration tools are more important than ever, but how do they affect creativity and innovation? The authors studied the content of communications generated through the use of these tools at a manufacturing company and found that these technologies can support the formation of both loose, open networks and tightly controlled, closed groups with different implications for creative output.

Companies are increasingly embracing the idea of helping nontechnical employees those with deep business-area expertise learn to automate mundane, repetitive, time-consuming processes through minimal training in low-code and no-code technologies. This article describes the benefits and challenges that six companies AT&T, Dentsu, Johnson & Johnson, PwC, Voya Financial, and Wesco experienced in their forays into the citizen automation movement.

Alex Tapscott, business author and alternative investment market professional, explains why he thinks believing in a decentralized future is as deadly practical as Blaise Pascal's wager on God.

When Bill S-211 comes into force next year, businesses need to be prepared for it to have more teeth than critics predict.

Recent research shows that rather than engaging in comprehensive decision-making, CEOs may be better off relying on heuristics simple rules of thumb that require little information and analysis. Often based on direct learning experiences, heuristics are used consciously and deliberately, and frequently result in superior decision outcomes.

In this third article in a series of four, the researchers behind the 2023 MIT Sloan Management Review-BCG Artificial Intelligence and Business Strategy Big Ideas research project explore how using AI to refine KPIs leads to smart KPIs that are forward-looking and encourage organizational alignment. They define three types of smart KPIs and provide practical advice to help leaders use AI-enriched KPIs to increase strategic alignment.