In this installment of Organizational Performance, we draw attention to two types of shareholders that tend to push executive decision-making in different directions. Quality shareholders (QSs) invest in a small number of companies and hold their shares over time. QSs offer patient capital that allows executives to focus on building and sustaining competitive advantages. Transient institutional investors (TIIs) hold dispersed shareholdings across .....more

With the enactment of the long-awaited U.S. security-based crowdfunding regulations in May 2016, early-stage private companies can utilize regulatory crowdfunding to raise funds on digital platforms via multiple nonaccredited investors. To protect such small microinvestors and maintain market efficiency, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires extensive disclosure information in filings. However, with many ventures being new, small, .....more

In a recent study of European start-ups, one technique consistently boosted performance: the scientific method, a centuries-old discipline of formulating, testing, and tweaking hypotheses. Ventures employing it generated more revenues than those that didn''t and were also more likely to pivot away from unviable ideas, a necessity for early-stage firms. The key to pivoting is focusing not on your ideas but on the answers to your experiments, .....more

George Mason University''s Lei Gao and his co-researchers-Macquarie University''s Jianlei Han, Zheyao Pan, and Huixuan Zhang-collected birthplace data on 1,777 U.S.-born CEOs and determined how many decades each leader''s hometown had spent on or near the frontier during the country''s westward expansion. Examining accounting and patent databases, they found that firms led by CEOs from longtime frontier counties were .....more

Over the several weeks that Paris will host the Olympic and Paralympic Games this summer, Sodexo will prepare and serve up to 40,000 meals a day to 15,000 athletes, their fans, and organizing committee staffers at 22 venues in and around the city. Catering an event on that level is quite a challenge. But so is the one the company has set for itself around sustainability. As one of the world''s largest food-services companies-managing dining .....more

There''s a widespread understanding that managing corporate culture is key to business success. Yet few companies articulate their culture in such a way that the words become an organizational reality that molds employee behavior as intended. All too often a culture is described as a set of anodyne norms, principles, or values, which do not offer decision-makers guidance on how to make difficult choices when faced with conflicting but equally .....more

Dealing with the negative emotions of employees isn''t easy, but knowing what to do or say can make a huge difference to their well-being, the quality of your relationships with them, and team performance. The trouble is, many leaders fail to respond at all because they think discussing emotions at work is unprofessional or worry they don''t have the right to intervene in personal matters. That''s a mistake. Research shows .....more

In this article, adapted from the forthcoming book Shocks, Crises, and False Alarms, the authors explain how economic analysis works in the real world. They lay out three principles for navigating the rising number of economic risks: (1) Don''t put too much stock in any one economic model. (2) Ignore the doomsayers in the financial press. (3) Cultivate rational optimism and an eclectic form of judgment that draws on multiple sources. That .....more

Marketplaces are the quintessential type of business that can profit from network effects: The greater the number of buyers who join one, the more attractive it becomes to sellers, and vice versa. Indeed, marketplaces such as Amazon, Booking.com, and Apple''s App Store have achieved some of the strongest competitive positions imaginable. That''s why entrepreneurs are seeking to build, and venture capitalists are seeking to invest in, .....more

Today''s software makes it easier to track patterns, trends, and even granular details of how customers use products. This data is collected in systems that support marketing, sales, finance, and operations. But many companies aren''t sure how they can best support employees who are overseeing hundreds of unique relationships. They''re grappling with how to manage and use all their data to improve customer retention. And they''re .....more