Management’s Digital Future Has Arrived
The ongoing digital revolution has created a new set of questions about technology and management.
Volume 58, Issue #1
Fall 2016 Issue
In our debut of Frontiers, we asked 15 leading lights from academia and industry to answer this question: “Within the next five years, how will technology change the practice of management in a way we have not yet witnessed?”
Business Models
Harnessing the Best of Globalization
Companies entering global markets should identify an approach that best suits their business model.
William R. Kerr
Automation
A New Approach to Automating Services
Instead of replacing human workers, software robots are an opportunity to augment their skills.
Mary C. Lacity and Leslie P. Willcocks
Collaboration
Executive Assistants for Everyone
Digital assistants are taking over repetitive tasks, leaving managers free to manage.
Hal R. Varian
Automation
Why Digital Transformation Needs a Heart
Digital transformation has been positive in many ways, but some long-term trends are troubling.
George Westerman
Leading Change
Creating Management Processes Built for Change
Your business may have processes that work now. Does it have agile processes to help it change?
Christopher G. Worley, Thomas Williams, and Edward E. Lawler III
Collaboration
The Three New Skills Managers Need
As technology evolves, managers and organizations will need new skill sets.
Monideepa Tarafdar
Analytics & Business Intelligence
Designing and Developing Analytics-Based Data Products
The information economy is giving way to an economy focused on analytics-based data products.
Thomas H. Davenport and Stephan Kudyba
AI & Machine Learning
Predicting a Future Where the Future Is Routinely Predicted
AI’s value for managers lies in its ability to predict equipment failures and assess human emotions.
Andrew W. Moore
Collaboration
A New Era of Corporate Conversation
Communication has changed thanks to social media — with long-term impacts on how companies work.
Catherine J. Turco
Innovation Strategy
Unleashing Creativity With Digital Technology
Digital technology makes the creative process faster — and cheaper. And that’s great for business.
Robert D. Austin
AI & Machine Learning
Digital Today, Cognitive Tomorrow
Digital transformation is just a step in the journey toward a cognitive technology revolution.
Ginni Rometty
Business Models
The Hard Truth About Business Model Innovation
Successful business model innovation requires an understanding of how business models evolve.
Clayton M. Christensen, Thomas Bartman, and Derek van Bever
Developing Strategy
When Strategy Walks Out the Door
Companies that overlook their employees as sources of strategic insight may find themselves losing talent — and key ideas.
Teppo Felin
AI & Machine Learning
Rise of the Strategy Machines
While humans may be ahead of computers in the ability to create strategy today, we shouldn’t be complacent about our dominance.
Thomas H. Davenport
Executing Strategy
How to Manage Alliances Strategically
A strategic framework that eliminates faulty assumptions can help make alliances successful.
Ha Hoang and Frank T. Rothaermel
Collaboration
The 2016 Richard Beckhard Memorial Prize
This year’s winning article is “Accelerating Projects by Encouraging Help,” by Fabian J. Sting, Christoph H. Loch, and Dirk Stempfhuber.
MIT Sloan Management Review
Corporate Social Responsibility
Tackling the World’s Challenges With Technology
The power and responsibility of companies to help build a thriving, resilient world has never been greater.
Andrew S. Winston
Leadership Skills
Rethinking the Manager’s Role
No, software will not render managers obsolete, but you will need to be more skilled than ever before.
Lynda Gratton
Executing Strategy
Leading in an Unpredictable World
Accenture’s chief executive on the challenges of leading in a world that’s almost impossible to predict.
Pierre Nanterme (Accenture), interviewed by Paul Michelman
Corporate Social Responsibility
Ethics and the Algorithm
Behind every piece of code that drives our decisions is a human making human judgments about what matters and what does not.
Bidhan L. Parmar and R. Edward Freeman
Leadership Skills
Is Your Company Ready to Operate as a Market?
Traditional hierarchies are giving way to market forms of organizing that will recast the role of management.
Rita Gunther McGrath
AI & Machine Learning
Using Artificial Intelligence to Set Information Free
We are on the cusp of a major breakthrough in how organizations collect, analyze, and act on knowledge.
Reid Hoffman
AI & Machine Learning
Managing the Bots That Are Managing the Business
Algorithms are fundamentally redefining the roles of worker and manager.