Delve

What does a military officer, a performer acting as Santa Claus, and a tech employee in Silicon Valley have in common? They all work in fields where their bodies are intentionally governed by organizational systems intent on shaping them into an idealized image of a worker. Indeed, every single body engaged in work is encouraged to undergo body work in order to be employable in their chosen indust...

Could accounting hold the key to successfully implementing climate change initiatives, achieving equality and diversity in the workplace, and contributing towards a more sustainable future? Current research shows that accounting and global regulatory accounting practices are essential for organizations to reach sustainability goals that have a more measurable impact. An accounting perspective can...

What can older generations learn from Millennials and Gen Z about leadership, strategy, and dealing with crisis? And how can these younger generations unlock their professional potential by engaging in meaningful work and taking larger roles in organizational strategy and change? On the Delve podcast, Desautels Professor Karl Moore and Lightspeed and Age of Union Founder Dax Dasilva discuss commun...

What if just doing your job causes you to lose your job? New technologies have constantly replaced old technologies for hundreds of years, but new digital technologies, namely artificial intelligence and other data-driven technologies, are doing more than replacing old tech—they’re replacing the people who create those technologies in the first place. On the Delve podcast, Alain Pinsonneault, Desa...

What does accounting have to do with sustainability? Essentially, everything. In general, accounting isn't the first thing that comes to mind when most people think about sustainability, whether that means climate targets or diversity on boards. But just as research and regulations around sustainability have expanded in recent years, so has sustainability accounting, focusing on activities of an o...

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 o...

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 qual...

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...

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 inv...

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, t...

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 t...

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 i...

When does deviance from the norm propel a career or stop it in its tracks? The enforcement of certain norms and legalities around intellectual property isn’t always up to the law—it’s up to the community. Desautels professor Amandine Ody-Brassier discovered that within the electronic dance music (EDM) community, norms around unlawful activities such as illegal remixes are loose and often garner su...

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, inflat...

Bank loans are the typical first step for most small and medium-sized businesses, but another form of business lending has emerged: FinTech companies that use algorithms to determine whether a business is worth the risk. Desautels Professor Paul Beaumont’s research has found that firms served by FinTech platforms have fewer tangible assets than bank borrowers—yet relative to similar firms that tak...

What if using a ride-hailing app like Uber or Lyft could help decrease a city’s carbon emissions? Combined with public transit use and municipal policy changes, that’s beginning to happen. However, the bigger, less understood question is what motivates people to choose their cars over the bus, or Uber over walking to work. New data-driven research from Desautels Professor Animesh Animesh shows the...

What does the word “entrepreneurship” immediately bring to mind? Risk and reward, innovation and hard work, funding and financial growth, filling gaps in the market? In truth, that answer looks different around the world, in both formal and informal economies, depending on how the local, state, and national economies function and on how the culture views business ownership. On the Delve podcast, D...

How has management thinking changed in the past 50 years and where might management be headed today? In his research and writing, management scholar Henry Mintzberg covers not only the past 50 years but looks toward the future of managing organizations, developing managers, and rebalancing society, from business to politics to higher education. In a big-picture Delve podcast on crucial management,...

While tax policies are complicated and often seem unfair, new global solutions can both simplify how corporations pay their taxes and make payment more equitable for countries owed their share of tax revenue. In episode 10 of the second season of The New Normal podcast series, Desautels Professor Preetika Joshi joins journalist Dave Kaufman to discuss tax avoidance and income shifting by corporati...

Could Artificial Intelligence tools decide who gets hired or fired, who gets a raise, or who’s ready to be a mentor? Some already are, to varying levels of success. Hundreds of AI-based tools already exist for use in Human Resources tasks, including hiring, training, and employee engagement, but it’s often difficult to discern their use value, let alone how to use them effectively and ethically, a...

Artificial Intelligence innovation thrives in an environment where business arenas, fundamental research, and thought leadership overlap. As seen in recent cross-sector AI initiatives in Montreal, determining the capacities of AI and related data analytics applications is essential to understanding how they will play out in the wider world, whether analyzing healthcare data or implementing predict...

What do Cirque du Soleil, American Airlines, and Canadian Tire have in common? They’ve all shifted their perspective on the value of Information Technology. On the Delve podcast, Desautels Faculty of Management Professor Alain Pinsonneault discusses how the overall mindset towards Information Technology’s value is changing, especially in times of broader turbulence like the COVID pandemic. His res...

Fast fashion is a rapidly expanding subsection of an already environmentally problematic industry. What does a truly sustainable fashion industry model look like—and will customers buy it? In episode 9 of the second season of The "New Normal" podcast series, Professor Javad Nasiry from the Desautels Faculty of Management joins journalist Dave Kaufman to discuss the environmental impact of the fast...

What can be done when healthcare leaders say that they simply can't work anymore? On The "New Normal" podcast series, Dr. Martin A. Koyle, Former Chief of the Division of Urology at The Hospital for Sick Children, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Surgery and the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto, and a graduate of Desautels’ International Mas...

The complex issue of authenticity at work isn’t only about people within an organization—it’s connected to the organization’s own integrity, including policies on equity, diversity, and inclusion. The value of authenticity for employees, customers and clients, and management is linked to a diversity of people and innovative ideas suited to today’s world. Desautels Professor Patricia Hewlin discuss...