It’s well known that people are a company’s greatest asset. But how does interpersonal collaboration make a business successful? And what drives these collaborations? Instead of just valuing individuals, companies must recognize the connections between them, say John Mawdsley and Olivier Chatain of HEC Paris and Philipp Meyer-Doyle of INSEAD. They show how forming work teams depends on client relationships, client status, and resource availability.
By John Mawdsley , Olivier Chatain
How important are individual “star” performers compared to their teams in driving scientific innovation? A recent study by Denisa Mindruta, Janet Bercovitz, Vlad Mares, and Maryann Feldman shows that while “star researchers” contribute significantly, the collaborative synergy between stars and their teams is crucial for success. In management, this research addresses the fundamental question of how to optimize team composition to maximize performance, underscoring the balance between individual brilliance and collective effort. Three main key findings: Star scientists enhance collaboration performance through direct contributions and resource attraction. Diversity in team composition, both in expertise and seniority, fosters innovation. Research shows that collaborative efforts usually surpass individual contributions in scientific discovery.
By Denisa Mindruta
Over the past decades, HEC Paris Professor Bertrand Quélin has investigated public-private partnerships and sustainable cities. These partnerships and initiatives are essential to integrating social, economic, and environmental objectives while ensuring equitable access to resources and services.
By Bertrand Quélin
Despite legislative transformation, the issue of data handling is far from resolved. Since GDPR (the General Data Protection Regulation) came into effect in 2018, the EU has collected over €3 billion in fines from companies who have broken the rules. And with the AI industry ramping up, the question of ethical data handling is more pressing than ever, say Dominique Rouziès, Professor of Marketing, and Michael Segalla, Professor of Management, both at HEC Paris.
By Michael Segalla , Dominique Rouziès
The world we live in is profoundly different to the one we knew four years ago. Disruption to long-established patterns reveal opportunities for developing countries to secure a bigger share of the global economy. A policy paper by Abdelmonim Amachraa, Portfolio Lead at OCP Fondation, and Bertrand Quélin, Strategy and Business Policy at HEC Paris, for the Policy Center for the New South looks at how Morocco can best integrate with global markets, analyzing the challenges and next steps.
By Bertrand Quélin , Abdelmonim Amachraa
Doctor Anicet Fangwa's work on health centers and stillbirths in the Democratic Republic of Congo could save millions of lives by better managing health practices throughout Africa. The PhD graduate from HEC Paris describes the managerial tools he's been using in remote parts of the DRC.
By Anicet Fangwa , Bertrand Quélin , Marieke Huysentruyt
Investing in knowledge diversification or specialization is a topic of interest and debate for employees, managers, and researchers since a long time. In a recent study, Strategy and Management Professors Denisa Mindruta of HEC Paris, Guoli Chen and Philipp Meyer-Doyle of INSEAD and Sterling Huang of the Management University of Singapore, aimed to understand the consequences of corporate decisions of generalist and specialist CEOs on firm performance, by comparing their decisions in all the acquisitions done by U.S. S&P 1500 firms over a ten-year period.
While corporate social responsibility (CSR) is widely viewed as highly strategic, not all firms address all dimensions of CSR equally, either across or within sectors. But how much latitude have they actually got when deciding which dimensions to prioritize? And is it more profitable to follow industry norms and patterns or to craft a unique CSR strategy? Researchers Leandro Nardi of the HEC Paris S&O Institute, Todd Zenger of the David Eccles School of Business, Sergio Lazzarini of the Ivey Business School, and Sandro Cabral of Insper, show how making strategic investment choices of CSR dimensions can build competitive edge and greater financial value.
By Leandro Nardi
Digital content-sharing platforms provide important information to citizens around the world, but they also face enormous challenges, not least those posed by malicious, online information manipulators. Attempts to moderate online content are expensive and are constrained by business models. In addition to investigating the limits of content moderation, this study by HEC Professor of Strategy and Business Policy Olivier Chatain says that government bodies may have a role to play, providing new rules on how to moderate online content while safeguarding freedom of expression.
By Olivier Chatain
A new study of John Mawdsley and Rodolphe Durand of HEC Paris, and Lionel Paolella of the University of Cambridge, indicates that for U.S. law firms, efforts to increase gender diversity aren’t only motivated by a desire for fairness, but instead are driven by the need to take clients away from rival firms. The authors show that when women are increasingly represented in the senior ranks of clients of rivals, law firms strategically boost their own gender diversity to align with the diversity values of those clients. However, when increasing gender diversity is less likely to be successful for taking those clients, law firms reduce their gender diversity efforts in their organization.
By John Mawdsley , Rodolphe Durand
