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Seeing the everyday entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurship researchers love studying tech founders, but maybe it’s time to widen the lens. High-tech companies only account for a fraction of all entrepreneurs in the world. Meanwhile, we don’t know much about the everyday entrepreneurs – the hairdressers, musicians, electricians – that make our economy hum. Here’s what we’re missing.

Food equity starts everywhere

Food equity means everyone, regardless of socioeconomic status or geographic location, has access to healthy, sustainable food. But despite international efforts, billions of people continue to experience hunger and food insecurity worldwide. Professors Laurette Dubé and Jeroen Struben recently published a paper in Nature Communications examining the market mechanisms connected to this problem. They found that, for market actors to be part of the solution, everything needs to change – and everyone needs a seat at the table, rethinking in fundamental ways how business and society operate.

Bridging the linguistic divide for more inclusive workplaces

Language is often a basis for exclusion, discrimination, and conflict. And yet, managers often treat it only as a skill to be learned rather than an important marker of diversity. In their study of a bank in Kazakhstan, Professors Anna Kim and EunJoo Koo show the social and cultural impacts of language at work, why we should pay attention to them, and how employees can bridge the linguistic divide for better inclusion at work.

Bad government is about bad organisational design, not bad people

“When we ignore design flaws in government organisations, we misattribute bad government to incompetent and corrupt workers instead of the bad design that fails to support their efforts,” writes Diana Dakhlallah, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behaviour at McGill University.

Supply chain food waste is a ‘people’ problem

For all of their efficiency and innovation, modern fruit and vegetable supply chains are responsible for around 42 per cent of food waste globally. And this is a problem. Global shipping is already a carbon-intensive activity, which is only compounded by the greenhouse gases generated by rotting produce. Professors Javad Nasiry and Rob Glew explored blockchain technology as a potential solution to the food waste problem. While it showed promise, conflicting interests are preventing it from making an impact.

How unions impact financial reporting

How do companies react when their employees unionise? We usually hear about high-profile cases in the news, such as when a company shuts down a warehouse in response to labour organising efforts. But Vivek Astvansh, associate professor of Quantitative Marketing and Analytics at McGill University, discovered a subtler impact in a recent study. In response to a newly formed union, companies attempt to downplay their financial health. Find out why.

Using AI to put the best plate forward

When you last ate at a restaurant, did you Google it and review some photos before going? User-submitted photos are critical to restaurants’ success on online review platforms. But when hundreds of people submit their savoury snaps, they won’t all look equally appetising. So how can restaurants use these photos to put their best plate forward? According to recent research by Hyunji So, assistant professor of Information Systems, AI can help.

Design thinking is disciplined creativity

Design thinking forces organizations to adopt a human-centred approach to solving problems. But what does that mean? And how can it create opportunities for innovation? Jared Lee is a Faculty Lecturer of Strategy and Organization at McGill University. He explains the power of design thinking and how it can create solutions rooted in empathy and understanding.

Should users be moderators?

Social media companies are outsourcing content moderation to their users. But is this a good idea? Sameer Borwankar is an assistant professor of Information Systems at McGill University. He and his co-authors published two papers studying the impact of crowd-based content moderation on Twitter. They found that community moderation can tone down discourse on social media, but it fails to address other important issues.