Faculty Viewpoints

If there’s one way to score a best-selling book, it’s to write about the next big thing in business. For many, design thinking has become that thing. But is it a fad or a reliable tool for building better products, services, and business processes?

In a New York Times op-ed, Professor Robert J. Shiller explains that stock market movements are driven by popular narratives that spread like “thought viruses.” Secular stagnation—the idea that the global economy may languish for years to come—is the current story driving down the stock market. Whether true or false, the idea alone has the potential to erase five years of gains and create a bear market.

Millions of people around the world want to swim in tropical waters and take in unsullied wilderness. Can the Philippines build a productive ecotourism industry around its natural environment? The Asian Institute of Management’s Fernando Y. Roxas talks about the country’s chances of claiming a link in the “tourism supply chain.”

In the introductory lecture of his course Global Financial Crisis, Andrew Metrick describes how the financial panic of 2008 and the ensuing recession have created a new economic reality.

Globalization means that people from different countries are working together more and more. In her research, INSEAD’s Erin Meyer examines the cultural differences that can trip up global business relationships—and proposes methods for avoiding problems.

Over the last few decades, society has started to take on some of the environmental problems caused by industrialization. But sometimes solving one problem creates or aggravates another. Yale environmental chemist Paul Anastas argues that managers who take a systemic approach to sustainability are needed to create lasting solutions.

Somehow ice and cold water have become the social media phenomenon of the summer. Millions of people have shivered and screamed while dumping buckets of ice over their own heads, and a medical charity has tens of millions of dollars raised as a result. Yale Insights spoke with Yale economist Florian Ederer to try to make sense of all of this.

Modeling the economic consequences of climate change is difficult, uncertain work. In addition, any result is sure to be subjected to political attack. For decades, Yale's William Nordhaus has been developing models that can inform policy decisions.

What kinds of motives are most conducive to success? In a New York Times op-ed, Professor Amy Wrzesniewski and coauthor Barry Schwartz discuss their research looking at the motives of new West Point cadets and how they relate to success as Army officers.

Yale SOM’s David Bach finds five key factors behind Germany’s victory at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil—and they’re all about smart management.