Delve

Craft business, such as microbreweries and ethical chocolate companies, has seen a rise in the past several years, with many claiming to put values over excessive profit. Meanwhile, larger, economically driven businesses, such as Silicon Valley Bank, have imploded in the wake of questionable decision making. Are craft businesses somehow more ethical or moral than others? Or is business ethics an oxymoron? The answer really depends on values. In this episode of the Delve podcast, On this episode, Jo-Ellen Pozner, a professor at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University, joins Desautels Professor and Delve Editor-in-Chief Saku Mantere in an inspired conversation that asks how ethics affects the ways that businesses fundamentally function, from everyday operations to how leadership and boards make strategic decisions.Delve is the official thought leadership platform of McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management. Delve's Managing Editor, Robyn Fadden, is the host for this episode. You can find out more about Delve at delve.mcgill.ca. Subscribe to the Delve McGill podcast on all major podcast platforms, including Apple podcasts and Spotify, and follow DelveMcGill on: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

Why is being overqualified for a sought-after job at a desirable workplace seen as a drawback? Despite having prestigious educations and impressive work credentials, these candidates get turned down by hiring managers, often before they even get an interview. Desautels Professor Roman Galperin ran experimental studies to figure out what hiring managers really thought about these exceptionally qualified job candidates. They found that the signals that candidates give about their capability for a job are linked to hiring managers’ perceptions of commitment—namely, the concern that overqualified applicants are a flight risk. On the Delve podcast, Galperin discusses why that is, what people can do about it when navigating the labour market, and why prospective employers should think again about these overqualified, highly knowledgeable job seekers—especially in a time when AI technologies are increasingly applied in the workplace.Delve is the official thought leadership platform of McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management. Delve's Managing Editor, Robyn Fadden, is the host for this episode. You can find out more about Delve at delve.mcgill.ca. Subscribe to the Delve McGill podcast on all major podcast platforms, including Apple podcasts and Spotify, and follow DelveMcGill on: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

Logically everyone knows that software doesn’t have feelings, but AI chatbots that express emotion—as well as other advanced artificial intelligence tools like Google AI’s chatbot and ChatGPT—have a sentient quality that places them somewhere between machine and human. Conventional customer service wisdom shows that when human employees express positive emotion, customers give higher evaluations of the service. But when emotionally expressive chatbots enter the equation, people’s reactions change depending on their expectations. Research by Desautels Faculty of Management professor Elizabeth Han investigates the effects of AI-powered chatbots that express positive emotion in customer service interactions. In theory, making software appear more human and emotionally upbeat sounds like a great idea, but in practice, as Han’s research shows, most people aren’t quite ready to make a cognitive leap across the uncanny valley.Delve is the official thought leadership platform of McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management. Delve's Managing Editor, Robyn Fadden, is the host for this episode. You can find out more about Delve at delve.mcgill.ca. Subscribe to the Delve McGill podcast on all major podcast platforms, including Apple podcasts and Spotify, and follow DelveMcGill on: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

What does the business firm of the future look like? In a special episode of the Delve podcast investigating digital platform economies, blurred firm-market boundaries, and shifting bureaucracies, Desautels professor and Delve Editor-in-Chief Saku Mantere speaks with Nobel Prize in Economics winner and Paul A. Samuelson Professor of Economics Emeritus at MIT Bengt Holmström. Their conversation investigates how companies are changing today: What social structures, financial factors, and digital technologies are at play in how contemporary businesses are changing the traditional nature of the firm? And are hierarchical bureaucracies and conventional leadership soon to become a thing of the past?For research-based insights, listen to the Delve podcast interview and read the Q&A article with Bengt Holmström and Saku Mantere in Delve's Spring 2023 digital magazine: Reworking Bureaucracy.Delve is the official thought leadership platform of McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management. Delve's Managing Editor, Robyn Fadden, is the host for this episode. You can find out more about Delve at delve.mcgill.ca. Subscribe to the Delve McGill podcast on all major podcast platforms, including Apple podcasts and Spotify, and follow DelveMcGill on: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

How useful, overhyped, or even detrimental are digital technologies in a crisis? Zoom came in to save the day when work went remote during the COVID-19 pandemic, online shopping and food delivery became even more normalized, even doctors’ appointments went online. What can be learned from experiences of crisis-driven technology use, both on an individual and organizational scale? For many, these digital technologies and even more specialized innovations provided a kind of utopian hope for large-scale societal change. In reality, the acceleration of digital innovation across sectors and the world has disrupted business as usual and exposed systemic challenges and inequalities. This is what Cambridge professor Michael Barrett points out on the Delve podcast as he discusses his latest research examining the possibilities and limits of digital innovation.“Any crisis will disrupt work practices in ways that challenge routines that have a need for new ways of operating,” explains Barrett. “We have seen how at scale, digital platforms allow us to engage in activities, whether it's telemedicine, whether it's learning opportunities or sales meetings through Zoom, many things that we knew were possible, but didn't scale anywhere near that. But we must also always look at the tension and the critical issues that might produce new risks, in that these platforms are becoming increasingly indispensable and overdependence on them raises concerns.”For research-based insights on diversity, equity, and inclusion in job recruitment, listen to the Delve podcast interview and read the article with Michael Barrett on Delve.Delve is the official thought leadership platform of McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management. Delve's Managing Editor, Robyn Fadden, is the host for this episode. You can find out more about Delve at delve.mcgill.ca. Subscribe to the Delve McGill podcast on all major podcast platforms, including Apple podcasts and Spotify, and follow DelveMcGill on: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

In the past few years of the Covid pandemic, many people have left or lost their jobs and sought out new ones. Who has succeeded and who hasn’t depends not only on merit and ability, but on who you know—word-of-mouth is one of the most common ways that people learn about and are encouraged to apply for jobs. And who you know typically reflects your gender, race, and other influential differences that in policy terms are markers of diversity. Examining the role gender plays in job recruitment and hiring can lead to a more diverse workforce that benefits both organizations and society.On the Delve podcast, Desautels Faculty of Management Professor Brian Rubineau discusses new research that shows how gender is a factor in word-of-mouth recruiting, as well as in who actually applies for the job in the first place and who reapplies after they’ve been rejected. Some of his findings surprised him.For research-based insights on diversity, equity, and inclusion in job recruitment, listen to the Delve podcast interview and read the article with professor Rubineau on Delve.Delve is the official thought leadership platform of McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management. Delve's Managing Editor, Robyn Fadden, is the host for this episode. You can find out more about Delve at delve.mcgill.ca. Subscribe to the Delve McGill podcast on all major podcast platforms, including Apple podcasts and Spotify, and follow DelveMcGill on: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

How would definitions of business growth and success change if entrepreneurship ventures decided that instead of scaling up, they would “scale deep”? On the Delve podcast, Desautels Faculty of Management professor Anna Kim and her co-author Johns Hopkins Carey Business School Professor Suntae Kim discuss their eight-year study of two entrepreneurship-nurturing organizations in Detroit, revealing important differences in resourcing modes and venture growth. What they observed in that city is happening in many other places, whether small towns or big cities, rural or urban, where the issue of revitalization is top of mind. “With the scaling deep approach, the more locally embedded approach, because you keep working with local partners, utilizing local resources, and making connections in those local contexts, your services and products become very, very meaningful locally,” explains Anna Kim. “But it doesn't actually mean a lot outside of Detroit or outside of a certain neighborhood. So it actually anchors them even more deeply in the local context.”Read more on Delve.Delve is the official thought leadership platform of McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management. Delve's Managing Editor, Robyn Fadden, is the host for this episode. You can find out more about Delve at delve.mcgill.ca. Subscribe to the Delve McGill podcast on all major podcast platforms, including Apple podcasts and Spotify, and follow DelveMcGill on: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

What regulations are at play when financial institutions, hedge funds, mutual fund managers, and others invest in stocks and businesses in another country—and who do those regulations ultimately benefit? Despite protecting both foreign investors and countries’ domestic markets, regulatory constraints still present certain barriers to foreign investment, especially in times of market stress, inflation, and increased interest rates. Desautels Professor Francesca Carrieri examines the dynamics of global market integration before and after the 2008 financial crisis, asking what level of risk will foreign investors take today in the name of diversification of their portfolios? "What we can do is strengthen the financial system overall, but also make sure that, under certain conditions, institutional investors have the liquidity necessary to strengthen their underlying positions,” says Carrieri.Read more on Delve and read the transcript. Delve is the official thought leadership platform of McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management. Delve's Managing Editor, Robyn Fadden, is the host for this episode. You can find out more about Delve at delve.mcgill.ca. Subscribe to the Delve McGill podcast on all major podcast platforms, including Apple podcasts and Spotify, and follow DelveMcGill on: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.