MIT Sloan Management Review

Online crowdsourcing platforms are growing at double-digit rates and are starting to attract the attention of large companies. Just as cloud computing offers unconstrained access to processing capacity and storage, the “human cloud” promises to connect businesses to millions of workers on tap, ready to perform tasks and solve problems that range from the simple to the complex. The article explores four new human cloud models: The Facilitator model, The Arbitrator, The Aggregator, The Governor.

Viviane Reding, vp of the European Commission, is spearheading a push to require that women make up at least 40 percent of board seats in large EU public companies.

At too many large companies, corporate functions like HR and IT don’t get enough strategic direction from the CEO. Four basic steps can help.

An on-site, full-service health-care center staffed by physicians, nurse practitioners and support staff has saved SAS more than $1.50 on every $1 spent. And, with staff able to stay at work and still see a doctor, the company had an estimated $3.6 million in productivity savings.

Motivated by rising health-care costs and commitment to their staff’s health and productivity, many companies are taking matters into their own hands.

In a Spring 2006 MIT Sloan Management Review article, “Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration,” Andrew McAfee first started to popularize the term “Enterprise 2.0” to describe the use of Web 2.0 collaboration technologies such as wikis and blogs within organizations.

Managers have been inundated with advice on the dos and don’ts of laying off employees. But the truth is that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to downsizing.

As increasing numbers of employees work remotely, companies need to find effective ways to manage internal communication and social interaction, and also to provide these employees with opportunities to become more visible.

The editors of the MIT Sloan Management Review are pleased to announce the winners of this year’s Richard Beckhard Memorial Prize, awarded to the authors of the most outstanding MIT SMR article on planned change and organizational development published from Fall 2007 to Fall 2008.

We're used to thinking about innovation in technology, in products or services, or even in management methods or business models. But in a recent article in strategy+business, Marjorie Kelly highlights a type of innovation that is less commonly discussed: innovation in corporate structure, ownership and governance.�

This could be the second most important question you ever ask about your business. Here”s how to answer it.

At top companies, where the inspired use of metrics helps to identify potential leaders and develop their skills, the answer is yes.

A comprehensive analytic framework can provide a common language for discussing decisions and values with colleagues, helping to build a culture that better integrates the organization’s values into staff decision making.

At many companies, intellectual property has become an area of focus. Research shows that top-management involvement in IP strategy is associated with better IP performance.

Executives are set up to fail when they are given one leadership mandate while others in the organization operate under a different, conflicting set of directives.

Corporate culture has long been a vital, if elusive, element of a company’s success. Cost-cutting and entrepreneurial cultures, for example, have been credited for the long-term success of many companies. Conversely, culture clashes have been blamed for merger and acquisition failures and incompatible employees.

Companies have a number of internal and external conflict-resolution resources at their disposal. In addition, they should consider creating the new role of board ombudsman to mediate disagreements.

Many executives talk about the need for greater flexibility and adaptability from their companies. But the truth is that most businesses have organized themselves in ways that inherently discourage change.

Departing employees leave with more than what they know; they also take with them critical knowledge about who they know. That information needs to be a part of any knowledge-retention strategy.

The modern corporation can be traced back four centuries to the formation of the Dutch East India Company, considered the first joint-stock company. On the other hand, democracy has been employed in different parts of the world for millennia.