An interview with Margherita Pagani and Renaud Champion, editors of the book Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Value Creation, in which they talk about how AI impacts sustainable value creation, human-centric AI, and more. ******* 🔺 About SKEMA Business School 🔻…
The United States has the highest prison population rate in the world with 655 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants – nearly six times more than China – and is home to a quarter of the world’s convicts. Might the land of the free also be the land of freedom deprivation? Undoubtedly, but it is also the land of business opportunity, where half of inmates work in prison, sometimes for the private sector. A business that generates several billion dollars in profit each year…
In 1989, in a prophetic article, Edward Luttwak heralded the advent of geoeconomics. He believed that in the dual context of globalisation and the end of the Cold War, power relationships would be governed more by economics than by military might. The EU’s unprecedented sanctions against Moscow following the invasion of Ukraine have made this revolution in the expression of power strikingly relevant once again. But are sanctions truly effective?
Government interacts with private businesses in a number of ways: it regulates them, it taxes them but it also purchases goods and services from them and it provides financial help to them – which in particular in times of pandemic can be substantial. There is hence clearly an incentive for firms to establish close connections to politicians. What are the economic effects of such connections? And how do they affect corporate transparency?
The recent EYES (Emerging Youth Early Signs) 2021 report published by SKEMA PUBLIKA used Twitter information to uncover shared sentiments among young people of different countries. Should we trust social media analysis ?
Welcome in this new podcast of ThinkForward. Join the discussion about a new pedagogical experience that has just been carried out: a No-code computer development course run as a Hackathon. To highlight and share the benefits of this experience we…
In the aftermath of the pandemic crisis, a number of already weak countries will fall in deep economic and social distress. That raises the question of the efficiency of official development aid coupled with debt relief to pull countries out of poverty when bad governance is endemic ...
Since the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic, several studies and reports have highlighted the need to change the way organisations are designed, particularly in terms of structural configuration and work organisation, to models favouring agility and resilience in order to better withstand this crisis and prepare for the next ones.
In the midst of the economic war between China and the United States, a new, more discreet front has opened up: filmmaking. In a bid for influence, China has launched a bold strategy to develop its film industry. Is Chinawood supplanting Hollywood?
The simultaneous and in some cases competing development of new payment methods, the rise of cryptoassets and the emergence of private and/or central bank digital money. These new solutions pose numerous questions and will have fundamental macroeconomic, political and ecological impacts...
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg took everyone by surprise on 29 October last year when he announced not only the parent company’s change of name to “Meta”, but also the imminent creation of a virtual world, the “Metaverse”, to exist beyond…
Warren Buffett is generally considered to be one of the world’s most talented investors. His recurrent impressive performances over a forty-year period have made him a legend, contradicting the efficient market hypothesis.
Does his performance demonstrate a special talent, or is it all down to luck?
Revolutionary in its time, steel has become a material of vital importance to our modern economies. The list of steel-using industries is long, ranging from construction to transport and leading-edge technology. Yet, the extraction and refining processes involved in steelmaking produce 5 to 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions....
The digital transformation has already been taking place significantly in the field of finance over the last ten years, focusing on the new issues and the new needs with the aim of increasing the company's performance. Yet the COVID crisis has strongly accelerated this transformation and has made possible the practices which were previously considered impossible. In this podcast, our guests discuss about how digital transformation has been impacting jobs, skills and operational management.
In the book "Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy" Raghuram Rajan asks why, during the 2006 crisis, the banks whose share prices had risen the furthest were in fact the worst performers. Given that all public information is reflected into the stock prices, shouldn’t they reflect the quality of the balance sheet and the potential for profit? Is this proof of market inefficiency?
In this video, Prof. Mary-Jane Michaelides gives an inside perspective into the specialised programme on sustainable development, offered in the second semester of the Master in Management (PGE) programme.
It was 45 years ago, but it seems like yesterday: in 1976, the horror film Carrie told the story of a young girl exhibiting supernatural powers which her mother associated with the start of menstruation. This story has its roots in ancient beliefs linking menstrual cycles, lunar cycles and magic. It is also a reminder of the extent to which, even today, menstrual bleeding can be taboo.
Understanding the NGO business model requires a paradigm shift, because the indicators used in the models of for-profit organisations (profitability to finance investments that will generate economic growth and more profit) do not apply to non-profit organisations.
Auctions are commonly used in many different situations (art, fish, flowers, etc). But at the same time, many products are sold through posted prices or negotiations. In the joint article with Dan Bernhardt and Tingjun Liu, published in Journal of Economic Theory, we identified the "value discovery" as the merit and the "participation cost" as the demerit of auctions in order to study the most profitable way to sell.
Last year when I was asked to teach a course of AI & Data analytics in Marketing to non-technical students I really wanted to make sure that my students would understand the outstanding extra-value of applying AI to business....
On 9 August 2021, the IPCC published its latest report. It presents troubling possible climate futures, highlighting in particular an alarming rise in temperatures despite the commitments made by governments. It is clearer than ever that the action, or inaction, of States is pivotal in this matter.
On my personal journey, I have often wondered how I could look out for others and the planet, without losing sight of my own interests. When I met Theory U by MIT’s Otto Scharmer, it changed my life. This theory offers a framework and steps to build action-confidence in the face of uncertainty....
Interview with Margherita Pagani, Professor of Artificial Intelligence at SKEMA Business School and Renaud Champion, Primnext CEO, co-editors of the new released book Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Value Creation (Edward Elgar Publishing). This book intend to open up the debate…
Numerous players are being invited to change their perspectives to accelerate the transition to the circular economy. The role of the academic sector in this transition will also require a paradigm shift.
The pharmaceutical industry, faces a paradox: the Covid-19 vaccine was created in just one year, compared to the usual ten years, even though the financialisation of the pharmaceutical industry has caused R&D spend as a proportion of turnover to dip in many countries....
Incumbent utilities are central players in the decarbonization process of the energy industry, but how do they transform their business models reliant on fossil fuels to more sustainable ones?
Topic: Digitalization in higher education: How I redesigned design thinking by creating app prototypes with my students "When I was asked to teach a design thinking course, I wanted to make sure that my students maximised the value of the…
After 60 years of setbacks and negotiations, months of engineering studies and weeks of execution, Christo’s final posthumous work, L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped, is now on public display for two weeks. While its artistic value may be a matter for debate, its financing is exemplary since no public funding was needed.
Faced with the conjunction of the financial, health and ecological crises, economic thought is in disarray. A deep-rooted idea remains that these crises are mere digressions, from which we should be able to return at the previous state. However, there are grounds for believing the hypothesis that our economic model is undergoing a profound transformation....
Skin lightening is an age-old practice dating back to the end of the Middle Ages in Europe. It spread from Asia to the American continent. According to the WHO, 40% of African women currently engage in this practice. But using chemical substances in an attempt to whiten the skin can cause irreversible damage. This article examines this fantasy that is as timeworn as it is hazardous to health.
Interview with Dr Bernard Sinclair-Desgagné, professor of economics and corporate social responsibility. Abstract: Ethics can be defined as the reasoned consideration of an issue in order to do what is ‘right’. It brings us to think about the values and…
During the COVID-19 pandemic, citizens of the land of Louis Pasteur, the father of immunization, showed a marked unwillingness to be vaccinated. Rather than being limited to France, might this distrust be the symptom of an ailment affecting high-income countries?
Can a business firm be lead to foster social and environmental goals while striving for shareholder value? This video present SKEMA professor Bernard Sinclair-Desgagné's explanation of this question. More information at: —————– About ThinkForward SKEMA ThinkForward is a knowledge-sharing…
After a $900bn package approved in late December 2020, in March 2021 the Biden administration launched a second stimulus worth $1,900 billion, mainly to support households and increase public spending. Shortly afterwards, President Biden announced an investment plan aiming to boost economic growth, together with a plan for families and education.
Economists then asked the effects of such an enormous stimulus on the US economy, wondering whether it would cause it to overheat. They also began to question the global consequences of these two plans.
Where are the most innovative employees within organizations? What is their position in the informal knowledge-sharing network and the formal organizational structure? What is the relationship between formal and informal dimensions?
It is difficult to convey the challenges of managing innovation without fully immersing students in a practical environment. So when Covid 19 locked everyone behind a screen, we needed to act fast to rethink the Innovation course in our International Marketing and Business Development program.
Many claims are made for fintech as a potentially disruptive force – but does it really help firms raise funds and provide new opportunities for investors?
Last March, Joe Biden's first economic recovery plan was adopted by Congress. With a budget of 1900 billion dollars, it is intended to directly help millions of American households. A second $2.3 trillion "Build Back Better" investment plan will invest in infrastructure, education and health care to create millions of jobs and combat climate change. These plans contain fiscal provisions that bring them closer to Keynesian policies.
Populism is a complex ideology that first appeared in Russia in the late 19th century. At the time, it was a movement started within the progressist, democratic and demophilic intelligentsia, which advocated genuine concern for the populace with the aim of helping and educating them, but also of maintaining contact between the social elite and the common people. Since then, the nature of populism has changed and there is a strong possibility that the political actions of its representatives, carried out on behalf of the people, are now turning against the latter and risk pushing them further into poverty.
In this forth Interview of the ThinkForward Conferences cycle SKEMA Business School is pleased to welcome Professor Gerd Gigerenzer to discuss about decision making under uncertainty.
It is relatively understudied what happens if a Merger and Acquisition (M&A) deal combines with an activist investor campaign on the deal itself. In theory, there could be situations where activist investors aim to change the outcome of a M&A through a campaign. Do we observe such cases in reality?
In the recent article published by Journal of Risk Management in Financial Institutions, we observe that the pandemic crisis has revived the issue of debt cancellation for developing countries, placing debt relief on the front burner of multinational institutions and OECD governments. Most often the argument is that social justice should lead to forgiving debts to break the subordination of poor countries with the purpose to ‘reset the counters’....
Often a hostage to ideological bias, the ties between religion and economic development are a sensitive issue. In adopting a consilience approach, we can cool the debate by demonstrating the complexity of the links, and the sometimes unexpected effects of religion in the socio-economic sphere.
COVID-19, quels scenarios et perspectives de rebond pour l’économie mondiale ? Dans cette première masterclass de 35 minutes, il sera question de détailler les différents scénarios possibles de rebond pour l’économie mondiale suite à la crise sanitaire. Pour en savoir…
The covid 19 crisis has led to a huge bike boom in urban areas around the world.
However, will leading cities really “Copenhagenize”?
Contestability is a term often used by economists to mean that a market is competitive simply because players can enter and leave freely. This concept has been used to justify deregulation policies implemented to reduce legal barriers in various sectors such as air transport and ride-hailing services.
In the Learning Differently series, SKEMA professors will share their experiences of learning and teaching. Being well-versed in the complexity that comes with globalisation, innovation and digitalisation in higher education, they successfully tackle the current challenges in education (millennials, continuing…
American GDP figures published on 28 January 2021 show that the country’s economy continued to grow in Q4 2020 at an annualised rate of 4% compared to the previous quarter. This figure follows on from Q3 2020’s mechanically highly elevated…
Freakonomics is a word for an original way to view the world, by uncovering the influence of economic prompts and cognitive biases in particular on our choices. This type of research purports to reveal unconscious or unexpected factors that are confirmed by scientific studies, and this makes it even more intriguing. But as the astronomer Carl Sagan highlighted, the problem is that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. And such evidence does not always exist, as we will see.
What is Modern Slavery?
What has it got to do with business?
What is being done about it in business and management education and research?
