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The sharing economy has emerged in recent years as a disruptive approach to traditional business models. Drawing on a multi-year research program and a design-based methodology, this article introduces a framework and generative tool called the Sharing Business Model Compass. As an actionable framework, the Compass helps elucidate the multiple, innovative forms sharing economy businesses are adopting. As a generative tool, it enables entrepreneurs, investors, incubators, and incumbents interested in entering the sharing economy to create, present, and evolve a compelling sharing business model as well as evaluate its extent of robustness.

The popular perception of Twitter as a social media "echo chamber" where people only receive and retweet opinions that match their own, does not reflect the data about users' actual engagement. The average Twitter user propagates more mainstream content and follows a diverse group of users - and this has implications for social media marketing.

Many B2B companies seek to grow beyond traditional product lines by venturing into new services. Yet they often overlook the opportunity to capture sales from free services they provide. This article outlines the free-to-fee, or F2F, service transition. It shows how to inventory free services (categorizing them as profit drains, distributor delights, competitive weapons, or gold nuggets) and lays out a path for profitably generating revenues.

Digital customer service is becoming more widely adopted, but one place it falls short is in the language and phrases it uses. Many digital service platforms use words that alienate customers rather than engage them; selecting customer-centric language for chatbots and service platforms can make a significant difference in customer satisfaction.

When he was a law student at Cambridge University, the author sat in a classic British pub one evening wondering whether to have a too-fizzy lager or a too-heavy ale. He longed to create a more balanced beer that would pair well with food, especially the spicy curries from his native India. Something cold and refreshing but also smooth. He started experimenting, mixing brews that were then on the market to find the right blend. While on tour in India with his Cambridge polo team, he saw an opportunity to gain some business experience: He could sell Indian-made polo sticks in the UK. After being introduced by chance to India's largest independent brewer, he collaborated with its brewmaster to find the right recipe--and then drove around the UK in a battered old Citroen to market his beer to Indian restaurants. Eventually the Indian brewery could no longer cope with increasing sales, so Cobra moved production to the UK. Then, after the company weathered what the author calls three "existential" crises, Molson Coors agreed in 2009 to a joint venture with Cobra, which now exports to nearly every European country along with Japan, Canada, and Australia.

While most business leaders recognize that bureaucracy squashes initiative, risk taking, and creativity, it continues to thrive. In a complex global environment, it's seen as a necessary coping mechanism. Many look to start-ups for an answer. But the most promising solution may have emerged in an unlikely place: the world's largest appliance maker, Haier. Under a renegade CEO, it has been divided into 4,000 self-managing microenterprises. About 250 are market facing ("users"), and the rest ("nodes") supply them with components and services like IT and HR support. Users can hire and fire nodes--or contract with outside providers--as they see fit, and nodes' revenues are tied to their users' success. Ultimately, everyone is accountable to the company's customers. Everyone is also encouraged to be an entrepreneur. All targets are ambitious, and rewards are tiered, performance based, and potentially hefty. So far that formula seems to be working beautifully, producing 18% yearly revenue growth for a decade and $2 billion in market value from new ventures.

Disruptive change poses existential challenges to leadership teams, raising foundational questions about aspirations, identity, and the very soul of a company. So it is no surprise that leadership teams often struggle to achieve alignment on what degree of growth is needed and what markets and types of innovations to invest in. This article provides a novel and practical road map for achieving leadership alignment. It offers tools to help executive teams establish a foundation of common understanding, expose misalignment, and catalyze decision making through physical exercises. The approach is illustrated through the example of Swisscom, a global telecom facing stagnation and decline in a mature industry. Using the program, it converged on a clear long-term growth strategy, launching a set of innovative ventures, creating a VC-like group to oversee new innovation investments, and locking in a schedule of annually increasing funding.

Lately, people analytics--using statistical insights from employee data to manage talent--has gotten a lot of hype and even won mainstream acceptance. Yet most firms lack an understanding of which talent dimensions drive performance in their organizations. Why? Their analytics examine only the "attributes" of employees, when people's "interactions" are equally, if not more, telling. Research shows that a lot of employees' success can be explained by their relationships--something that's the focus of a new discipline, "relational analytics." The key is finding "structural signatures": patterns in social networks that predict who will have good ideas, which employees have the most influence (it's not senior leaders), which teams will be efficient, which will innovate best, where silos exist, and which employees firms can't afford to lose. This article describes what indicators to watch for and how most firms already have the raw material they need to build relational analytics models: the "digital exhaust" from their internal communications.

Customer service jobs are notoriously joyless, and callers' experiences with reps can be just as unsatisfying. But T-Mobile has a new operating model that's making both employees and customers happier. There are no rows of service agents robotically responding to random calls as quickly as possible. Instead, T-Mobile relies on colocated, collaborative teams of reps who manage specific accounts in a given locale, with a focus on autonomous problem solving. Reps get more-comprehensive training, managers get more time for coaching, and team members are evaluated on group performance as well as individual performance. Additionally, teams are authorized and expected to manage their own P&L statements. The results are impressive: In three years, T-Mobile has dramatically reduced its customer churn rate, cost to serve, and employee attrition and absenteeism. Its Net Promoter Score is way up too. Other companies might likewise benefit from similar efforts to rethink standard industry practices.

Senior leaders have great confidence in their ability to develop innovations, say the authors, but not in their ability to commercialize them. This may result from a lack of formal processes and effective talent-management strategies. Steenburgh and Ahearne suggest a new approach: Assess the skills of your salespeople systematically. Train them for knowledge and resilience rather than focusing on a product's bells and whistles. Create a psychological profile of the ideal buyer. And assign strategic account managers to your most important customers. When new products are launched, the authors write, the best companies are strategically aligned, from the sales force to the C-suite. HR creates competency maps and works with sales managers to establish training and coaching programs. Frontline sales managers support the learning process that their reps go through in the field. And top leaders make sure that pressure to meet earnings targets doesn't stand in the way of future growth.

Digital advances in the past two decades have enabled more people than ever before to express creative intelligence. Yet apart from the transformation of services powered by mobile apps and the internet, few sectors have seen spectacular surges of innovation--and only 43% of companies have what experts consider a well-defined process for it. In this article the authors present a five-part framework to guide the development and ensure the survival of breakthrough ideas: Focus attention closely and with fresh eyes, step back to gain perspective, imagine unorthodox combinations, experiment quickly and smartly, and navigate potentially hostile environments outside and within the organization. The elements of this framework are not unique, but collectively they capture the critical role of reflection in conceiving opportunities, the ways in which digital tools can advance them, and the level of organizational reinvention needed in the final push to market.

How many companies in Africa earn annual revenues of $1 billion or more? Most global executives guess there are fewer than a hundred; many answer "zero." The reality? Four hundred such companies exist--and they are, on average, faster growing and more profitable than their global peers. There's an unexpected side effect of this growth burst: Africa has become a test lab for global innovation. If your offering is cost-effective and robust enough to succeed on the continent, chances are it will be competitive elsewhere. The authors offer a taxonomy of six innovation types: moves to build financial inclusion; partnerships for infrastructure development; smart approaches to industrialization; new models of food production; consumer products aimed at the low end of the market; and future-focused capability building, from job-readiness boot camps to world-class universities. Technology is the golden thread running throughout: Africa has become a proving ground for digitally enabled breakthroughs that can leapfrog entrenched barriers and unlock exponential progress.

In many stories we hear about workplace courage, the people who fight for positive change end up ostracized or lose their jobs. Most acts of courage don't come from whistle-blowers or organizational martyrs, however. They come from respected insiders at all levels who take action because they believe it's the right thing to do. And when they manage the process well, they don't necessarily pay a high price; indeed, they may see their status rise. People who succeed in their courageous acts, or suffer fewer negative consequences, tend to exhibit certain behaviors: They lay the groundwork for action; they carefully choose their battles; they manage messaging and emotions; and they follow up afterward.

Motivating yourself is one of the main things that sets high achievers apart, and it's hard. How do you keep pushing onward when your heart isn't in it? In her research, Fishbach has identified some simple tactics: Set goals that are intrinsically rewarding, and make them very specific. If a task isn't satisfying, focus on aspects of it that are or combine it with pleasant activities. Reward yourself in the right way for getting things done. To avoid slumps, break objectives into subgoals; look at how much you've accomplished until you're halfway there; and then count down what you have left to do. And use social influence: Let high performers inspire you, boost your get-up-and-go by giving advice, and keep the people you want to succeed for front of mind.

The former U.S. senator and secretary of state talks about a leader's first day on the job, finding common ground to fix problems, assembling effective teams, and more.

Managers have long been obsessed with improving business processes, and a host of initiatives, such as lean production and Six Sigma, have gained traction in recent years. But a new study shows that the gains from such initiatives often fade quickly. Examining 204 lean projects launched at a European bank, the researchers found that just one-third held on to their gains after two years, and only about the same number were still showing continuous improvement. They identify several factors that can lead to sustained improvements: visible support from the board and senior leadership; consistent measuring and monitoring; communication in a clear narrative that aligns with organizational purpose; directing efforts toward pain points whose easing would clearly benefit employees; and ensuring that senior leaders act as coaches. Includes a Q&A with Helen Bevan who oversees change initiatives at England's National Health Service.

Employers used to take a dim view of job candidates with body art. But times have changed. New research shows that there's no longer any labor-market penalty for tattoos--even if they're large, visible, and offensive.

Blockchain is poised to help media and entertainment companies build innovative business models that offer new monetization strategies for their digital assets and streamline critical business activities.

If you think sophisticated communication technologies are the ticket to your virtual team's success, think again. It's not the tech that matters -it's how people use it. New research reveals five strategies for conquering distance and improving communication and performance in dispersed teams. The same strategies can help co-located teams, which depend increasingly on virtual [...]

Organizations need to focus on how blockchain can be used to support their unique strategies. Without this focus, they risk investing in initiatives that don't provide meaningful value.