AI has grown from an obscure Dutch study in 1987 into a tool that shapes business, society, and consulting. Through the career of Jan-Willem Gefken, we see how AI evolved from abstract theory to practical problem-solving and why consultants must balance data, trust, and human judgment when using it. c

When companies open up their strategy process to a wider audience—inviting employees, customers, or even the public to contribute—it’s tempting to think the benefits are automatic. More brains, more ideas, better results, right? Not quite.

What if difficulties weren’t the end of the story but just the beginning of a new chapter in your career? Our study shows that people don’t have to end up with regret when things go sideways. Instead, many found ways to reclaim, enrich, or mobilize their careers and thereby responding to difficulties and turning setbacks into springboards. What helped? Courage and a mindset that sees careers as something you can shape.

Today’s careers are anything but predictable. Professionals now frequently explore new opportunities—and sometimes circle back. In fact, one of the fastest-growing hiring trends is the return of former employees, also known as “boomerang hires.” Once viewed with skepticism, these returns are increasingly welcomed as strategic rehires. Our recent study in Applied Psychology unpacks why professionals boomerang, how the process unfolds over time, and what individuals and managers can do to turn these double moves into win-wins.

People avoid negative feedback despite knowing it drives performance. Our study reveals that there are two ways that shape whether employees view negative feedback as an unpleasant, but a necessary practice, namely organizational authorization and individual imprinting. The latter suggests that prior exposure to feedback-rich environments can empower individuals to persist in giving negative feedback and create structures to sustain it even in unsupportive settings.

The Coopetitive Circular Business Model (CCBM) merges coopetition and circular economy principles to drive sustainable innovation. By collaborating with competitors, companies can enhance resource efficiency, reduce costs, and meet regulatory demands. CCBM offers a strategic, practical framework for achieving sustainability and competitive advantage across industries.

As opposed to urban entrepreneurship, rural ventures are often viewed through a narrow stereotypical lens, either as struggling against economic hardships or as quaint operations with limited innovation and impact. This blog challenges these stereotypes and presents a fresh approach to understanding and supporting the diversity of rural entrepreneurship.

How do you create surprising new creative output together with others while still staying within a specific tradition or genre? We show that this happens through power, exercised by many different people to reinforce uniqueness while also emphasizing similarities.

Assessing a job candidate’s willingness and ability to provide managerial leadership is hard. While good managers are critical to a company’s success, individuals build their managerial skills inside a given organization … so they are difficult for a hiring firm to assess from outside that organization. The good news is that a candidate’s prior career outcomes communicate important information about these important managerial capacities.