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This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Many people in the information technology world believe that "big data"will give companies new capabilities and value. But companies have been dealing with an exponentially increasing amount of data, and much of it in forms that are impossible to manage by traditional analytics. "Big data"includes information such as call center voice data, social media content and video entertainment, as well as clickstream data from the web. The authors posit that organizations that are learning to take advantage of big data are beginning to understand their business environments at a more granular level, are creating new products and services, and are responding more quickly to change as it occurs. These companies stand apart from those with traditional data analysis environments in three critical ways. First, rather than looking at data to assess what happened in the past, these organizations consider data in terms of flows and processes, and make decisions and take actions quickly. In addition, organizations already involved with big data are taking a lead on hiring -and training -data scientists and product and process developers as opposed to data analysts. And finally, advanced organizations are moving analytics from IT into their core business and operational functions. As big data evolves, a new information ecosystem is also evolving, a network that is continuously sharing information, optimizing decisions, communicating results and generating new insights for businesses.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. In this article, the authors show that although the use of social media can be an extremely valuable way to enrich a company's culture and enhance its productivity, it isn't a sure thing. Based on a survey of 1,060 executives about their experience with social media and a number of indepth qualitative case studies, the authors argue that the main reason some social media initiatives fail to bring benefits to companies is because the initiatives don't create emotional capital, which they define as a strong emotional connection between stakeholders and the company. In the end, social media is still media -that is, mediums of communication -and those new mediums can be used as badly and counterproductively as any traditional mode. To show how companies can create a winning strategy, the authors contrast the experiences of two companies -an unnamed technology company and Tupperware Nordic, the Scandinavian branch of the kitchenware company. The technology company focused on software to facilitate social networking, not on using those new tools to build communities. It also tended to communicate in ways employees found insincere. Between insincere messages from the executive team and easier communication with other disgruntled employees, the initiative had no real positive effects for the company. Tupperware, by contrast, used the technology to help the company convey community spirit to its sales associates and took advantage of social media's unique ability to foster better vertical and horizontal communication.The authors conclude that although social media can help create closer and more dynamic stakeholder relationships, success with an online community requires a leader who can build emotional capital and who values community building as a means of creating economic value.

With the growth of social media, influencing consumer preferences and purchase decisions through online social networks and word of mouth is an increasingly important part of every marketer's job. Companies such as Geico, Dell and eBay are adapting the traditional one-way advertising message and using it as a stepping-stone to begin a two-way dialogue with consumers via social media. Marketers know that theoretically, social media should be a powerful way to generate sustainable, positive word-of-mouth marketing. If marketers can only select the right social media platform, design the right message and engage the right users to spread that message, their campaign should be a success. But until now, that's been a big if. The authors propose a seven-step framework for success in social media marketing campaigns. Their framework involves identifying social media users who are not only influential but also particularly interested in the company's product or service category and then recruiting and incentivizing those influencers to talk about the company's product or service. The authors describe the implementation of their seven-step framework at Hokey Pokey Ice Cream Creations, an upscale ice-cream retailer with more than a dozen outlets across India. Hokey Pokey's social media campaign resulted in substantial increases in brand awareness, social media ROI and sales revenue growth rate for the company. The authors also explain three new metrics they developed for use in social media marketing campaigns: the Customer Influence Effect, which measures the influence a social media user has on other users in the network; the Stickiness Index, which helps identify social media users who actively discuss the company's product or service category; and Customer Influence Value, which helps measure the monetary gain or loss realized by a company in social marketing campaigns by accounting for an individual's influence on purchases by other customers and prospects.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. In a recent data and analytics survey conducted by MIT Sloan Management Review in partnership with SAS Institute Inc., the authors found a strong correlation between the value companies say they generate using analytics and the amount of data they use. Combining the responses to several survey questions, they identified five levels of analytics sophistication, with those at Level 5 being most sophisticated and innovative. These analytical innovators in Level 5 had several defining characteristics. First, they tended to use more data than other groups. In fact, they were three times more likely than the 8% of those respondents who fell into the Level 1 category to say they used a great deal or all of their data. Second, there was a strong correlation between driving competitive advantage and innovation with analytics and how effective a company is at managing what the authors term "the information transformation cycle."This cycle refers to the process of capturing data, analyzing information, aggregating and integrating data, using insights to guide future strategy and disseminating information and insights. Respondents who fell into the Level 5 category also had a stronger need for speed than other survey respondents. Eighty-seven percent reported that the ability to process and analyze data more quickly was very important. Utilizing speed fell into three separate areas: customer experience, pricing strategy and innovation. Another intriguing finding from the survey involved the cultural impact on organizations. Some respondents reported that the use of analytics is shifting the power structure within their organizations. Analytical innovators, as a group, tended to be more likely than other groups to say that analytics has started to shift the power structure in their organizations.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Planning for post-merger integration typically focuses on operational issues, such as harmonizing product lines and financial and human resource information systems, and determining which employees are retained and which ones are let go. Attention is also paid to the identity of the merged enterprise in a superficial sense. The name of the acquirer may be retained, or a new logo may be created or a new name found. But for organizations to achieve the psychological synergies required to realize economic synergies from mergers and acquisitions, the authors argue that executives need to attend to a more complex, deeper set of identity issues. These issues define the essence of the entity and give employees a clear answer to the question "Who are we?"and external stakeholders a clear answer to the question "Who are they?"The first question refers to an organization's members'view of what makes it unique among all other organizations. The second question captures what external audiences believe is the essence of the organization. Left unattended, these deeper identity issues will diminish engagement and will inevitably affect the performance of the merged entity. Operational integration post-merger is a necessary but not sufficient condition for successful performance. Careful attention to identity integration is also essential for success. The authors argue that there is no "one best way"and that in fact there are four distinct paths that can be followed to achieve identity integration: assimilation, federation, confederation and metamorphosis. Each of these paths represents a particular combination of the answers to two questions that managers must confront in anticipation of a merger or acquisition: What should be done with the identities that the parties to the merger bring with them (in other words, their historical identities)? And how should a common identity for the future be built?

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article.

Social science research shows that people are heavily influenced by a desire to conform with the group. Businesses and other organizations are beginning to understand the power of "social norms"--for example, the British government used this insight in letters to delinquent taxpayers, and its National Health Service has drawn on it to reduce missed clinic appointments. Five guidelines for companies looking to use this powerful tool.

New research refines a theory from the 1990s, demonstrating that equity pay can both encourage and discourage executive risk taking. It depends on the mix of a CEO's potential gains and losses, and boards can manage this mix to encourage the risk-taking behavior that's best for their company.

Media companies have traditionally delayed product availability in low-margin channels to maximize revenue in high-margin ones. New research on books, movies, TV, and music suggests that digital markets make this strategy much less effective. Three strategies companies can use to reduce piracy of their content.

New research on effective leaders shows that the most brilliant ones tend to be people without a great deal of experience. The only trouble is, the same is true of the very worst leaders.

The joint stock company, limited liability, and the principle of linking managers' rewards to those of shareholders were all good ideas that spurred economic growth. But they also have had some dangerous consequences.

Game designer Jane McGonigal on how engaging in some activities we assume are nonproductive--as tiny exercises--may actually be a smart way to spend time, especially at work.

The internet's size and impact on the global economy will only increase over the next few years, according to projections from the Boston Consulting Group. In the United States it already accounts for a larger slice of GDP than the federal government. In China it's among the top six industry sectors, and in South Korea it's among the top five.

At least a decade ago, researchers recognized the importance of leaders being able to effectively execute interventions in teams. Now, advances in collaboration technologies have changed the way teams work together in addition to the challenges they face with regard to technology and collaboration. Due to these changes, it is important to take a look at interventions and how they can be technology driven or administered. Advances in technology-driven interventions can have a substantial impact on virtual project management and online education. In this article, we explore the role of interventions in improving technology choice in a virtual setting. We argue that both proactive and reactive interventions can be used to address virtual team challenges when it comes to technology choice. We identify six interventions (proactive and reactive) that were used to lead seven global offshore development teams, as well as the findings from their use. We also advise managers and online educators on ways to effectively identify and use interventions in virtual settings

Taking advantage of Web 2.0's user-participation and social networking capabilities, social shopping intermediaries have emerged as a promising online liaison between merchants and consumers by offering group discount deals to price-sensitive customers and early technology adopters. Our study compares the two most popular types of social merchants-restaurants and healthcare services-in terms of seven key factors that influence a merchant's sales using a Groupon promotion. We find that these two types of social merchants show significantly different characteristics for successful promotions. Based on a new proposed lifetime value model for social shopping promotions, this study also discusses its applicability with an illustration of the model and presents guidelines for social merchants who want to achieve the maximum lifetime value from a social shopping promotion. Finally, we discuss implications of our study for social merchants and social shopping intermediaries.

Although Western economies have not yet transitioned out of crisis, the luxury sector is growing again, especially at the high end. In emerging countries, the luxury sector's expansion has reached double digits. However, as luxury products continue to penetrate global markets, the prestige of brands like Louis Vuitton has not declined at all. This seems at odds with the concept of luxury being tied to rarity and exclusivity. Thus, how can we reconcile these facts with theory? In order to capture mounting demands-not only from extraordinary people, but also from ordinary individuals-luxury brands enact virtual rarity tactics, construct themselves as art, and adopt a fashion business model while deemphasizing exceptional quality and country of origin. Rarity of ingredients or craft has been replaced by qualitative rarity. Further, the cult of the designer is a potent tool in building emotional connections with a vast number of clients. Today, brands in the luxury sector are actually selling symbolic and magic power to the masses. There exists a culture gap between Asia and the West; namely Asian consumers feel safer buying prestigious Western brands with which individuals around them are familiar. The insights offered herein provide clues for entrepreneurs attempting to launch luxury brands.

This article examines the substantial growth of foreign direct investment into the United States by international (i.e., non-domestic) automotive firms over the past quarter century. Global macro-environmental factors influencing this investment are examined, as are the resulting impacts on numerous stakeholders including global automotive firms, consumers, and regional and state economies. The findings illustrate effective adaptive strategies that both automotive firms and economic development stakeholders follow in an increasingly global environment, resulting in significant economic, market, and quality-of-life benefits. The stakeholder perspective affords a more comprehensive view of globalization, forwarding a position counter to the protectionist viewpoint often espoused in business and popular culture.

It is clear that customer-to-customer contact through informal social networking and more formal company-sponsored platforms, such as discussion forums, is an increasingly integral element in building brand communities. There are many benefits to this interaction, such as nurturing brand champions and 'super users,' and reduced service costs through customer-to-customer solutions for product problems. However, there are also hazards inherent in these largely unregulated communities, such as the potential damage of widely spread negative information, which may be based on fact or on malicious intent. Herein, we summarize the results of several years of research examining these communities in an attempt to understand why they succeed, what benefits can be extracted from them, and-in particular-how negative information emerging in these environments can be strategically managed. Based on a series of quantitative and qualitative studies, we identified several key drivers of online brand community success (i.e., intervention, conversion, value creation, and harvesting) and the different combinations of community players who must collaborate to achieve such success. Delving more deeply into the issue of negative information management, we find that the topic being discussed (i.e., core versus augmented product) and the validity of the claim greatly influence a firm's appropriate strategic response. Throughout this article, we offer managerial guidance on the most effective ways to develop primary brand communities that encourage loyalty, purchases, and positive word of mouth.

Given the great potential of developing marketing campaigns delivered via mobile devices and the evolution of near-field communication technologies, this study examines factors influencing consumers' acceptance of untethered, or mobile, marketing across three influential markets: the United States, China, and Europe. We examine the extent to which the usefulness of mobile information/programs and individual characteristics-namely innovativeness, personal attachment, and risk avoidance-jointly influence attitudes toward mobile marketing, and how the latter influences consumers' mobile marketing activity across three large and influential markets. We found perceived usefulness, consumer innovativeness, and personal attachment to directly influence attitudes toward mobile marketing in all three markets. In China and Europe, risk avoidance also negatively influences attitudes toward mobile marketing. Marketers seeking to build and maintain customer relationships via mobile platforms should view these individual characteristics as levers brands can push to amplify consumers' acceptance of mobile marketing.