Algorithms that measure influence and motivation are part of a new group of analytic tools — from pre-employment analytics to on-the-job assessments — that can help a company determine an employee’s value throughout her career.

Representatives of 15 organizations on the leading edge of sustainability in Canada explain why businesses don’t take action on social and environmental issues.

Research in creativity shows that giving employees unstructured time — on company time — is a concrete way to reward innovative activity.

An article in the new Spring 2009 issue of MIT Sloan Management Review examines Daniel Halgin’s research into the role that professional social networks play in the career moves of college basketball coaches.

People aren’t stupid – they just often act that way. Noted behavioral economist Dan Ariely explains what that should mean for strategists.

Employees with deep motivation, strong commitment, unquestioned loyalty and widely shared values can have drawbacks. Much has been written about the upside of deep commitment, but employers need to be wary of workers who identify too much with the company. Overidentification, says the author, may lead to an ends-justifies-the-means outlook, unethical actions, substitution of personal needs for company goals and resentment when the company doesn’t meet employees’ expectations.

Four types of organizational energy can either stimulate or handicap competitiveness. Companies are learning to identify and focus the kind best suited to their culture and goals.

Why do motivated managers often fail to follow through? Because taking sustained action in the workplace requires more than motivation. It requires the deep commitment that comes from activating willpower.

Three new studies suggest that the most effective leaders admit they don’t have all the answers — and are willing to ask their employees for help.

Commitment and competence are embedded in how each employee thinks about and does his or her work and in how a company is organized to accomplish work. This intellectual capital is, according to the author, a firm’s only appreciable asset. He outlines three ways to build employee commitment and five tools for increasing competence in a firm, site, business and plant.