MIT Sloan Management Review Sustainable Innovation
- When Compliance Workarounds Backfireby Laura Reijnders and Bilgehan Uzunca. <p>Laura Reijnders is a project manager and researcher at the Esade Center for Social Impact. Bilgehan Uzunca is an associate professor in Esade’s Department of Strategy and General Management.</p> on October 7, 2026 at 11:00 am
John Holcroft/Ikon Images In 2021, Barcelona-based delivery platform Glovo was faced with a law that threatened its business model. Spain had passed the Rider Law, which introduced a presumption of employment when a digital platform organizes, directs, or controls couriers’ work, including through algorithmic management. Glovo came up with what seemed like a clever fix
- The Real Reasons Why Digital Projects Failby Curtis A. Merriweather Jr.. <p>Curtis A. Merriweather Jr. is a researcher at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. He is the author of <cite>Demystifying Government Contracting: A Practical Guide to Building and Scaling Businesses in the Federal Marketplace</cite> (Bloomsbury Academic), which will be released in March 2027.</p> on October 6, 2026 at 11:00 am
Danae Diaz/Ikon Images It’s a familiar scenario: An organization implements digital tools intended to improve a particular process but fails to obtain the desired result. Employees who are meant to use them complain that the tools don’t solve the problem or that they add inefficiencies. Managers who investigate problems with the tools chalk the failure
- Rehearsal Intelligence: Using Digital Twins for Crisis Readinessby Massimo Pani. <p>Massimo Pani is a senior officer in the Italian Carabinieri Corps, currently serving as a security expert at the Italian Embassy in Skopje, North Macedonia. He advises ambassadors, ministers, and heads of international organizations on security, resilience, and crisis management.</p> on October 5, 2026 at 11:00 am
Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images In July 2024, the cybersecurity software company CrowdStrike pushed a routine but buggy software update to its platform. In the ensuing 78 minutes, before a patch was deployed, IT systems worldwide crashed. Microsoft estimated that 8.5 million Windows devices were affected. As blue screens of death cascaded across the
- Turn Energy Efficiency Into Strategic Advantageby Ina M. Sebastian, Thomas Haskamp, Daniel Woerner, Lukas Falcke, and Stephanie L. Woerner. <p>Ina M. Sebastian is a research scientist at the MIT Center for Information Systems Research (CISR). Thomas Haskamp is an assistant professor in the Department of Information Systems at the University of Münster in Germany. Daniel Wörner is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of St. Gallen’s Institute for Production and Supply Chain Management and a visiting researcher at ETH Zurich. Lukas Falcke is an associate professor for digital strategy and innovation at the KIN Center for Digital Innovation at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Stephanie L. Woerner is a principal research scientist at MIT CISR and its director.</p> on September 30, 2026 at 11:00 am
Grundini/Ikon Images The Research The authors interviewed 39 executives representing 10 countries and multiple industries and hosted an online workshop with 36 executives responsible for enterprise data to learn how their companies were using digital technologies and data to address their sustainability challenges. In addition, they surveyed 360 respondents in Swiss manufacturing companies twice to
- How to Outcompete Your Client’s AIby José Parra-Moyano, Karl Schmedders, Olivier Laplace, and Benjamin Torben-Nielsen. <p>José Parra-Moyano is a professor of digital strategy at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland. Karl Schmedders is a professor of finance at IMD in Lausanne. Olivier Laplace is a partner at Vi Partners. Benjamin Torben-Nielsen is a strategy and portfolio leader at Roche.</p> on September 29, 2026 at 11:00 am
Andy Carter/Ikon Images The in-house lawyers at real estate investment firm Alturas Capital Partners used to rely on outside counsel for much of its lease work. Thanks to generative AI, it can now do that work internally, saving the firm hundreds of thousands of dollars in spending and compressing lease work that once stalled for
- Why Design Thinking Needs a Responsibility Rebootby Pietro Micheli, Jatinder Jit (J.J.) Singh, Minu Kumar, and Neil Goldberg. <p>Pietro Micheli is a professor of business performance and innovation at the University of Warwick’s Warwick Business School. Jatinder Jit (J.J.) Singh is a research professor in the department of marketing and business intelligence at EGADE Business School at the Monterrey Institute of Technology. Minu Kumar is a professor of marketing at the Lam Family College of Business at San Francisco State University. Neil Goldberg is a principal at Praxis Design.</p> on September 23, 2026 at 11:00 am
Marie Montocchio/Ikon Images For years, social media companies have come under fire for promoting divisive, false, and dangerous content in order to monetize user engagement. But in March, when a jury in Los Angeles Superior Court found Meta and Google liable for causing harm to users due to the addictive nature of their products, the
- Five Urgent Priorities for CMOs in 2027by Kimberly A. Whitler. <p>Kimberly A. Whitler is the Frank M. Sands Senior Professor of Business at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, a board member, a former general manager and CMO, and the author of <cite>Positioning for Advantage: Techniques and Strategies to Grow Brand Value</cite> (Columbia Business School Publishing, 2021).</p> on September 22, 2026 at 11:00 am
Matt Harrison Clough/Ikon Images In an unpredictable economy and fractured media landscape, marketing leaders are navigating a period of profound transformation and disruption — and as AI technologies evolve, the pace of change will only increase. In response, the highest priorities of chief marketing officers today are shifting, and understanding their concerns is essential to
- How Sustainability Transformations Quietly Lose Their Edgeby Manuel Reppmann and Eduard Esau. <p>Manuel Reppmann is a senior researcher at the University of Hamburg. Eduard Esau is an assistant professor of innovation ecosystems and new product development at Eindhoven University of Technology.</p> on September 21, 2026 at 11:00 am
Gillian Blease/Ikon Images Corporate sustainability is facing headwinds. Net-zero pledges are being quietly walked back. Regulatory pressure is loosening in some parts of the world. Shareholders are demanding stronger business cases. Inside companies, sustainability leaders sometimes spend more time defending their function than expanding it. The familiar question “Where is the value?” has returned with
- How B2B Marketers Misunderstand Their Customersby Marcus Collins. <p>Marcus Collins is a clinical assistant professor of marketing at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and the author of <cite>For the Culture: The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do, and Who We Want to Be</cite> (PublicAffairs, 2023).</p> on September 15, 2026 at 11:00 am
Nick Lowndes/Ikon Images Businesses are striving to adapt ever faster to keep pace with rapid change, and yet B2B marketing practices have remained surprisingly static. Sure, the tactics have shifted to digital executions, and the use of data has made targeting B2B buyers more precise, but marketers remain rooted in fundamentally flawed assumptions about the
- How AI Creates a Capability Mirageby Melissa Swift, Teryluz Andreu, and Dolores Hernandez. <p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/swiftmelissa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Melissa Swift</a> is the founder and CEO of organizational consulting firm Anthrome Insight. She is also the author of <cite>Work Here Now: Think Like a Human and Build a Powerhouse Workplace</cite> (Wiley, 2023) and <cite>Effective: How to do Great Work in a Fast-Changing World</cite> (Wiley, 2026). <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/teryluz-andreu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Teryluz Andreu</a> is a partner at Axialent, specializing in culture transformation and leadership development. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dolores-hernandez-49801522/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Dolores Hernandez</a> is content and culture practice lead at Axialent, specializing in leadership development and culture diagnostics and design.</p> on September 14, 2026 at 11:00 am
PPaint/Ikon Images Dry rot. A Potemkin village. The Wizard of Oz. What do those things have in common? In each case, they may look good on the surface, but it’s only an illusion. Wood afflicted with dry rot looks just fine until the tree it’s in topples down. Grigory Potemkin is said to have tried
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