News

Sekou Bermiss, Associate Professor of Strategy & Entrepreneurship, UNC Kenon-Flagler
 

What is the worst case scenario for a budding entrepreneur’s new business? If your answer is business closure, you might also blame their fate on negative performance or trends like economic downturns or problems with demand and production of items. However, research from Jessica Santana (Assistant Professor, Technology Management at UCSB) shows that more stable, often immutable factors like gender and region, which come into play even before a business has started, can contribute just as heavily to the causes and effects of that business’ eventual closure. 

Wanda Orlikowski, Professor of Information Technologies & Organization Studies, Sloan School of Management at MIT
 

It might seem counterintuitive that some cities would ban ridesharing when, from an outside perspective, it seems to widely benefit the general public. Research from within the last decade has even shown that policymakers and ridesharing firms hold similar goals. Why, then, do some cities crack down so hard on ridesharing services like Lyft and Uber, while others don’t? The answer could lie in a study from our own Sukhun Kang (Department of Technology Management at UCSB), along with his co-writers Yongwook Paik (KAIST College of Business) and Robert Seamans (Stern School of Business).

At the mention of tests of machine intelligence, it’s natural to think of the Turing Test. However, what might come up less is the fact that the Turing Test, created at the dawn of the technological age, has actually been successfully passed by modern AI systems. Research from Nelson Phillips (Distinguished Professor of Technology Management at UCSB) and collaborator Mark Thomas Kennedy (Imperial College London) argues that the Turing Test is already out of date, and that it’s time to find new ways to approach the analysis of the intelligence of AI to account for its current knowledge and abilities. 

Violina Rindova, Associate Dean of Research & PhD Programs, Dean's Leadership Circle Chair, and Professor of Strategy at Merage School of Business, UC Irvine

The skills gap between junior and senior occupational members has become more pronounced with the introduction of new technology. Senior experts, who are used to previous tools, struggle to keep up with the technological expertise they need to succeed, while their newer counterparts often race ahead to new frontiers. Research from Matt Beane (Department of Technology Management at UCSB) and Callen Anthony (NYU Stern School of Business) is now showing that senior experts fix this imbalance through “inverted apprenticeships”—a previously unstudied relationship between seniors and juniors that enables senior learning.

When implementing new technology, decades of research show that managers and employees often bring their full and immediate attention to ensuring the technology is installed and useful in as little time as possible. This is primarily to allow for new possibilities but also to secure their return on investment (ROI). However, according to a recent study by Matt Beane (Department of Technology Management at UCSB), this preoccupation with rolling out new technology drives counterproductive allocation of resources across the entire portfolio of technology in a firm.

The pandemic has shown the world the benefits of working from home, including more flexible schedules and additional time with family. From this perspective, lack of communication when working from home might seem like a necessary side effect of these benefits. However, a recent study from Paul Leonardi (Department of Technology Management at UCSB) and Samantha Keppler (University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross School of Business) is showing that social media—widely available in remote work—can fill the role of, or even improve on, traditional types of communication. 

Lindsey Cameron, Assistant Professor of Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Dev Jennings, Coordinator of the Interpretive Data Science (IDeaS) Group, the Canadian Center for CSR Coordinator at the Alberta School of Business, and Co-PI in the Future Energy System (FES) Research Consortium

Arvind Karunakaran, Assistant Professor of Management Science; Engineering at Stanford University