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Artificial intelligence (AI) is about imbuing machines with a kind of intelligence that is mainly attributed to humans. Extant literature-coupled with our experiences as practitioners-suggests that while AI may not be ready to completely take over highly creative tasks within the innovation process, it shows promise as a significant support to innovation managers. In this article, we broadly refer to the derivation of computer-enabled, data-driven insights, models, and visualizations within the innovation process as innovation analytics. AI can play a key role in the innovation process by driving multiple aspects of innovation analytics. We present four different case studies of AI in action based on our previous work in the field. We highlight benefits and limitations of using AI in innovation and conclude with strategic implications and additional resources for innovation managers.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) may save money and improve the efficiency of business processes, but these technologies can also destroy business value, sometimes with grave consequences. The inability to identify and manage that risk can lead some managers to delay the adoption of these technologies and thus prevent them from realizing their potential. This article proposes a new framework by which to map the components of an AI solution and to identify and manage the value-destruction potential of AI and ML for businesses. We show how the defining characteristics of AI and ML can threaten the integrity of the AI system's inputs, processes, and outcomes. We then draw from the concepts of value-creation content and value-creation process to show how these risks may hinder value creation or even result in value destruction. Finally, we illustrate the application of our framework with an example of the deployment of an AI-powered chatbot in customer service, and we discuss how to remedy the problems that arise.

Practitioners are seeking information and ethical guidance related to the design and utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) across a variety of applications. Developments at Google illustrate the potential good of AI as well as potential concerns. In this article, we use Google to create a context that demonstrates the relevance of virtue for the ethical design and use of AI. We describe a set of ethical challenges encountered by Google and introduce virtue as a framework for ethical decision making that can be applied broadly to numerous organizations. We also examine support for virtue in ethical decision making as well as its power in attracting and retaining the employees who develop AI and the customers who use it. To conclude, we apply the virtue framework to Google's AI challenges and offer suggestions for its use in other organizations.

Artificial intelligence applications in cognitive computing systems can be found in organizations across every market, including chatbots that help customers navigate websites, predictive analytics systems used for fraud detection, and augmented decision-support systems for knowledge workers. In this article, we share reflections and insights from our experience with AI projects in the public sector that can add value to any organization. We organized our findings into four thematic domains-(1) data, (2) technology, (3) organizational, and (4) environmental-and examine them relative to the phases of AI. We conclude with best practices for capturing value with cognitive computing systems.

AI-enabled recruiting systems have evolved from nice to talk about to necessary to utilize. In this article, we outline the reasons underlying this development. First, as competitive advantages have shifted from tangible to intangible assets, human capital has transitioned from supporting cast to a starring role. Second, as digitalization has redesigned both the business and social landscapes, digital recruiting of human capital has moved from the periphery to center stage. Third, recent and near-future advances in AI-enabled recruiting have improved recruiting efficiency to the point that managers ignore them or procrastinate their utilization at their own peril. In addition to explaining the forces that have pushed AI-enabled recruiting systems from nice to necessary, we outline the key strategic steps managers need to take in order to capture its main benefits.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is at the forefront of a revolution in business and society. AI affords companies a host of ways to better understand, predict, and engage customers. Within marketing, AI's adoption is increasing year-on-year and in varied contexts, from providing service assistance during customer interactions to assisting in the identification of optimal promotions. But just as questions about AI remain with regard to job automation, ethics, and corporate responsibility, the marketing domain faces its own concerns about AI. With this article, we seek to consolidate the growing body of knowledge about AI in marketing. We explain how AI can enhance the marketing function across nine stages of the marketing planning process. We also provide examples of current applications of AI in marketing.

Why are companies still so vulnerable to disruptive threats? The problem isn't that they don't have the right playbook. It's that well-intentioned leaders often downplay disruptive threats or overestimate the difficulty of response. In simple terms, they lie to themselves. This means dealing with disruption is not just an innovation challenge; it is a leadership challenge. Here's how to avoid the delusions about disruption and self-sabotage.

When faced with deep uncertainty, organizations often develop a habit of controlling for internal, known variables and fail to track external factors as potential disrupters. This practice lures decision-makers into a false sense of security, and it forces a narrow framing of the future. As a result, even the most successful businesses become vulnerable to disruptive forces that appear to come out of nowhere.

Technology innovation has created a new ethical paradigm. As companies specialize in delivering single components of complex systems, value chains are being reshaped across industries. Product interfaces are becoming standardized, and companies are profiting by perfecting narrow slices of the value chain. This rapid modularization has magnified the ethical implications of every business decision. As businesses work to delight consumers, they must also protect the public trust.

Finding the best people and paying more for them is, paradoxically, the most cost-effective way to optimize IT output. By adopting a new approach to assessing IT competence, companies can nurture engineering talent, boost productivity, and reduce costs.

Collisions between innovators and established players are forcing leaders of existing companies to reexamine how they do business in settings where new players follow radically different rules. For many, making small or incremental changes won't be enough. They will need to fundamentally alter their operating models, including how they gather and respond to information and how they interact with their customers.

This is an introduction to the special issue of California Management Review on Design Thinking (DT). This special issue joins the growing body of work exploring the idea of DT and whether DT makes a difference in terms enhancing or augmenting the impact of technology-and, as a result, innovation-in a positive way. We have chosen an interesting, relevant, and useful array of papers that provide different approaches, views, and interpretations of applied design thinking. These articles provide both management and scholarly readers with insights in how DT is used, as well as its impact and usefulness in a variety of contexts.

Design thinking is gaining widespread attention in the practitioner and academic literature. Successful implementation has been documented, and its value shown in empirical studies. There is little examination, however, of how design thinking practices fit with other approaches from which firms might choose to frame and solve problems such as agile, lean startup, scientific method, Six Sigma, critical thinking, and systems thinking. By digging into the basic capabilities underlying design thinking, academic researchers might better understand problem framing and solving in general and provide insight for practitioners as to where alternative approaches might be applied.

Design thinking can be a critical facilitator of new technologies, but it is also a technology in its own right-a social technology that encourages more productive innovation conversations that are strategically valuable for dynamic capability building. By overcoming social and psychological barriers in innovation processes, design thinking accelerates progress on critical imperatives: allowing innovators at all levels to sense new opportunities; seize them by overcoming cognitive biases and aligning stakeholders; and transform and reconfigure resources. It accomplishes this through a set of well-recognized practices.

The author was working at a Silicon Valley bank in 2010 when some entrepreneurs pitched him on a "medical-cannabis technology company." He didn't know what to make of it, because he'd never considered cannabis to be a legitimate industry. But he and two friends began researching the issue. They recognized nascent signs that marijuana legalization--first for medical use, and then for recreational use--seemed likely to spread. Kennedy and his cofounders did extensive on-the-ground research in the hills of northern California and southern Oregon, the fields of Colorado and Washington, and the barns of British Columbia. They went to Jamaica, to Israel, and to Amsterdam. Slowly they created an investment thesis and worked to raise money. Then, in 2013, the government of Canada reached out to them for help creating a competitive private-sector supply chain. In response, the three incorporated Tilray, applied for a license, bought land, and built a cultivation facility. By April 2014 they were a licensed producer of medical cannabis products in Canada. Today they spend a lot of time with policy makers, regulators, and doctors around the world, demonstrating why cannabis should be mainstream medicine. Tilray currently exports to 13 countries.

Ask people to explain why women remain so dramatically underrepresented in the senior ranks of most companies, and you will hear from the vast majority a lament that goes something like this: High-level jobs require extremely long hours, women's devotion to family makes it impossible to put in those hours, and so their careers inevitably suffer. Not so, say the authors, who spent 18 months working with a global consulting firm that wanted to know why it had so few women in positions of power. Although virtually every employee the authors interviewed related a form of the standard explanation, the firm's data told a different story. Women weren't being held back because of trouble balancing work and family; men, too, suffered from that problem and nevertheless advanced. Women were held back because they were encouraged to take accommodations, such as going part-time and shifting to internally facing roles, which derailed their careers. The real culprit in women's stalled advancement, the authors conclude, is a general culture of overwork that hurts both sexes and locks gender equality in place. To solve this problem, they argue, we must reconsider what we're willing to allow the workplace to demand of all employees.

CEOs who are hired from outside the company tend to get far more attention, not to mention support with the transition to their new role, than CEOs promoted from the inside do. Leaders who come from within the firm, it's assumed, already know the organization, its strategy, and its management, so they should adjust easily to their new roles. But in reality, they face hurdles that are just as big, albeit different, from the ones outsider CEOs face. In their research and consulting work, the authors have identified insiders' five key challenges: operating in the shadow of their own past; making early decisions that surprise and disappoint supporters; overseeing former peers; pacing change; and managing the outgoing CEO. In this article, they draw on interviews with dozens of internally promoted executives to provide advice for navigating each of those issues. The result is a primer for leaders who step into the top job from within; the management teams, boards, and HR and communication departments that want to offer support; and even leaders lower down in the hierarchy who are dealing with succession issues.

When customers seek out online deals, it seems like a win for everybody: Brands, retailers, dealers, and distributors sell more goods, and buyers get a bargain. What's not to like? Here's the problem: Lured by rock-bottom online prices, customers often end up dealing with disreputable digital resellers that mistreat them, which can erode brand equity and undermine authorized sellers. For brands selling in the United States and Canada, there is a potent countermeasure: crafting and enforcing pricing policies that discourage anyone from advertising or selling a firm's products at an unauthorized discount. This article lays out the four steps essential to designing and enforcing policies with teeth that stay on the right side of antitrust law.

Increasingly, multinational corporations (MNCs) are pledging to procure the materials and services they need from companies committed to fair labor practices and environmental protections. But the reality is that their suppliers--especially those at low levels of the chain--often violate sustainability standards, exposing MNCs to serious financial and social risks. To explore this problem--and identify solutions--the authors studied the supply networks of three MNCs deemed to be sustainability leaders. These companies engage in behaviors that are worth emulating; for example, they have established long-term sustainability goals, and they try to cascade good practices all the way down to lower-tier suppliers, using a combination of direct, indirect, industrywide, and global strategies. But all MNCs have more work to do to develop sustainable supply networks. They must emphasize social and environmental responsibility, along with economic considerations, at every level of the supply chain. They must give their procurement officers better training and incentives to pursue supplier sustainability. And to encourage widespread dissemination of best practices, they need more direct contact with the procurement people at their first-tier suppliers.

PepsiCo is among the few global, established companies that have delivered superior financial performance while meeting the needs of all stakeholders. It has always invested for the long term and delivered results in the short term. The layer that author Indra Nooyi added, first as SVP for corporate strategy and then as CEO, was a focus on sustainability--defined here as satisfying multiple stakeholder interests to ensure the long-term viability of a company. Called Performance with Purpose (PwP), it is based on four pillars: delivering superior financial returns (financial sustainability); transforming the product portfolio by making more-healthful, more-nutritious foods and beverages while reducing the sugar, salt, and fat in PepsiCo products (human sustainability); limiting environmental impact by conserving water and reducing the company's carbon footprint and plastic waste (environmental sustainability); and lifting people up by offering new types of support to women and families inside the company and in the communities it serves (talent sustainability).