A new study by Prof. Jared Curhan finds that there are positive benefits to pausing during negotiations, reports Monica Torres for HuffPost. “There is often this romantic view that great negotiators are these very slick people and they always know exactly what to say,” Curhan says. “But in fact, if someone uses a difficult tactic on you ... oftentimes it’s better to say, ‘I’ll get back to you on that.’”
Writing for The New York Times, senior lecturer Robert Pozen and Alexandra Samuel explore how to create a hybrid workplace. “There is no single right way to design a hybrid workplace. But asking the right questions can help each team shape what we call the Goldilocks plan — with not too much or too little remote work,” they write.
Profs. Elsa Olivetti and Christopher Knittel speak with J.D. Allen of WSHU about the future of renewable energy in New England. Olivetti notes that the MIT Climate & Sustainability Consortium is aimed at “looking at the role of industry in helping to accelerate the transition to reduce carbon emissions, and the idea is that by convening a set of cross economy, leading companies with the MIT community, we can identify pathways towards decarbonization particularly focused on those industries outside of the energy producing sector.”
Senior lecturer Robert Pozen writes for Fortune about how businesses need to implement new methods for measuring employee productivity and performance. Pozen recommends an approach he developed called “success metrics,” noting that “under this approach, the manager sets objectives for their team as part of the effort to fulfill the organization’s goals. Then the manager and team members discuss how they will know at the end of the relevant period whether they have been successful in achieving these objectives.”
Prof. Thomas Kochan speaks with Reuters reporter Timothy Appell about how the decision to support a union campaign can often become a risk assessment for employees. When it comes to individual campaigns in a workplace, “the reality sets in - when the employer campaigns so hard that you think you’re putting your job at risk,” says Kochan.
Bloomberg reporter Benjamin Bain writes that Prof. Gary Gensler has been confirmed as the new head of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Bain writes that Gensler is “poised to confront everything from the fallout of the GameStop Corp. trading frenzy to the deluge of special purpose acquisition companies and the collapse of Archegos Capital Management.”
Prof. Gary Gensler has been approved to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, reports Marcy Gordon for the AP. The appointment signals “an emphasis on investor protection for the Wall Street watchdog agency after a deregulatory stretch during the Trump administration,” writes Gordon.
In an article for Politico, Professor of the practice Zeynep Ton explores how pay disclosures could help shed led on whether workers are earning enough money to support their families. “Building an economy founded on good jobs will require deep, structural transformation, but you can only manage change if you measure," writes Ton and her co-author Katie Bach. “The best way to spur movement towards creating good jobs may be to start requiring that companies publish take-home pay data.”
Prof. Basima Tewfik speaks with BBC reporter Peter Rubinstein about imposter syndrome. Tewfik has found that “by leaning into the feelings of inadequacy – rather than trying to resist or overcome them – and putting extra effort into communication, imposters can actually outperform their non-imposter peers in interpersonal skills,” writes Rubinstein.
Writing for The New York Times, visiting scientist Mark Trusheim and Peter Bach of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center explore how to lower the cost of biologic drugs. “Prices of new drugs will continue to make headlines, as well they should,” they write. “But we must fix the problem that older biologic drugs have perpetually high prices, and do so by passing a law that ensures that at the appropriate time their prices fall fast, and they fall far.”
A new study by MIT researchers finds that using credit cards stimulates the brain’s rewards system and can stimulate cravings for further spending, writes Cory Stieg for CNBC. The researchers found “people were more willing to buy more expensive items with credit than cash and spent more overall when using a credit card,” Steig explains.
"You remember when we go to election polls, the voting booth, during elections, we get a little sticker that says 'I Voted'" says Prof. Sinan Aral of a new study that finds hearing about people who have received the Covid-19 vaccine can increase vaccine acceptance rates. "You should think of this as a very similar type of strategy. The reason we get that sticker that says 'I Voted' is that social proof motivates people to join in. And so if we got a sticker or put out a video or put out a message that said, 'I got vaccinated,' it would have the same effect for the same reasons."
Bloomberg reporters Georgina McKay and Tracy Alloway spotlight a new working paper on income inequality by MIT researchers that finds that highly-paying jobs are now more likely to be located within highly-paid companies. The findings suggest that “a government looking to reduce inequality might want to target sectors where bifurcation between ‘high-paying’ and ‘low-paying’ has been most extreme.”
New Yorker reporter Benjamin Wallace-Wells spotlights new research from the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, which shows “just telling people the accurate immunization rates in their country increased, by five per cent, the number who said that they would get the vaccine.”
Boston Globe reporter Dan McGowan speaks with graduate student Aiyah Josiah-Faeduwor about his family’s restaurant, Bintimani, which is relocating to Providence, Rhode Island. Josiah-Faeduwor “has spent a lot of time in recent years studying the question of how to make retail spaces more usable for small businesses,” writes McGowan. “While his dad focuses on the restaurant, he envisions using the location to offer event space or a yoga studio at different times.” Josiah-Faeduwor says, “we want it to be a platform for other entrepreneurs, other businesses.”