This week’s must-reads for managing in the digital age: how vigilant companies stay ahead, Disney launches into the streaming wars, how businesses can engage on LGBTQ issues, and mindful meditation.

The corporate sector is becoming increasingly outspoken on LGBTQ rights. As more companies publicize their efforts, pressure is building on others to state their positions as well. Companies that approach LGBTQ issues thoughtfully with policies, culture, and activism can reduce some of the economic risks involved — while affecting public opinion.

The left-right political divide is strangling democracies. In many countries, the left has moved even further to the left and demonized the institution of business, while the right has moved further to the right and embraced a narrow view of business. We need a manifesto to create a middle — both a political and an economic one.

It’s known as flight shaming: Everyone from Prince Harry to CEOs heading to Davos are being asked how they can care about carbon emissions and still climb aboard an aircraft. So should we all stop flying? The answer is a definitive “maybe”: There are good reasons to keep flying, especially in the service of tackling climate change, and for deeper reasons like connecting humankind when we need global cooperation.

How do we talk about the state of our planet when the news is so scary? And how do we have those discussions with the people we love, when our instincts are to protect them from nightmares? It helps to break the conversation into three distinct questions: What do we really know about climate change? Why am I worried and feel it’s so serious? And how do I — and all of us — cope with that knowledge and move forward?

Traditionally, businesses act politically only when they feel they are under attack, and they act by writing op-ed pieces, lobbying, and cultivating relationships with policy makers. But to the generation preparing to move into business leadership, this seems inadequate at best and corrupt at worst. Business is embedded in society, and it’s time for business leaders to care as much about democratic freedom as they do their own organizations.

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.

Political struggles for control and decision-making often result in blocking or slowing down progress on digital initiatives. In this webinar, digital strategist Jane McConnell discusses her research findings on digital maturity and shares her guidelines for preventing politics from upending digital initiatives.

We can choose not to engage in improving the world. We can seize on every advantage available to us and our companies without thought to the consequences. We can act as if the planet and the global economy are not among our most critical stakeholders. We can join the crush of others who are just hoping to play out the string: keep our heads down, meet our numbers, collect our bonuses, and abdicate long-term responsibility to the next generation. But when we make those choices, we do violence against the future.

Consumers and employees increasingly expect companies to engage with social, environmental, and economic issues. But business leaders can find themselves between a rock and a hard place, especially when corporate political activism is framed as “take a stand or be silent.” The reality is that companies need a more nuanced set of options.

Democracy is fundamental to business interests — yet business leaders have been mostly silent when it comes to the recent cyberattacks on elections in the U.S. and other western democracies. This needs to change, and fast.

Some of the thorniest obstacles to achieving digital maturity aren’t technological — they’re political. Most internal political conflicts, however, can be mitigated by a careful, systematic approach to defining, structuring, and deploying large-scale initiatives.

Nate Silver, the New York Times’ FiveThirtyEight blogger, used a database of polling statistics to accurately predict the winner of all 50 states on the night of the U.S. presidential election.

On Facebook, President Obama has over 27 million followers to Republican challenger Mitt Romney’s 1.9 million, giving the President an edge in digital campaigning.

The BBC’s free web-based game Climate Challenge lets you to take a shot at cutting down on green house gases while growing the economy, staying on budget, and keeping the public happy. Play it too aggressively and you’ll get voted out of office. You may even be told, “You were a deeply unpopular leader who cared nothing for the happiness of the population.”

MIT professor and workplace relations guru Thomas Kochan says no industry can afford to keep workers and managers at odds.

What has led to the development of Japan’s particular method of subcontracting? Theories that have attempted to explain Japanese subcontracting have critical shortcomings. A combination of political, economic, technological, and strategic factors has resulted in subcontracting’s growth and survival.

Electric utility companies will have to reinvent themselves to change from vertical to “virtual” integration based on value networks segmented into six areas: generation, transmission, distribution, energy services, power markets, and IT products and services.