General Management

- 2021
- Chapter
Taking Leadership to a New Place: Outside-the-Building Thinking to Improve the World

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

BOOK ABSTRACT: Twenty-nine leading scholars and executives provide a visionary look at the future of business, propelling past damaging industrial-age values to uncover the key ingredients of humanistic, ecologically sustainable, and intergenerational prosperity.
- 2021
- Chapter
Taking Leadership to a New Place: Outside-the-Building Thinking to Improve the World

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

BOOK ABSTRACT: Twenty-nine leading scholars and executives provide a visionary look at the future of business, propelling past damaging industrial-age values to uncover the key ingredients of humanistic, ecologically sustainable, and intergenerational prosperity.
- October 14, 2021
- Article
How to Build a Life: To Be Happy, Hide From the Spotlight

By: Arthur C. Brooks
- October 14, 2021
- Article
How to Build a Life: To Be Happy, Hide From the Spotlight

By: Arthur C. Brooks
- 2021
- Working Paper
The Business of K-12 Education in China

By: Geoffrey Jones and Yuhai Wu

This working paper examines the evolution of K-12 education in China, especially between 1985 and the present day, drawing extensive interviews with participants in the educational sector. China has been hugely successful in reaching almost 100 percent literacy, overcoming gender inequality in educational provision, and performing well in harmonized test scores. However, the model is not readily transferable to other emerging markets as it rested on a complex intermeshing of public and private interests seen in the “walking on two legs strategy.” This sanctioned the provision of K-12 education both by the Central Government and by “social forces,” including local governments, state-owned enterprises and the private sector. The paper describes how three different types of capital – political, financial and educational – became involved in the industry with their relative importance fluctuating over time. The resulting marketization of educational provision after 1985 led to excessive profit-driven strategies symbolized by heavy investments by the real estate sector in K-12 education. There were major quality issues, including in the vast private supplemental tutoring industry. The level of dysfunctionality was exacerbated by a rigid examination system in China that determined future life opportunities. The score in the gaokao examination determined which college a student could attend, which in turn fundamentally shaped their future careers. This encouraged parents to spend heavily on children’s education, which became a form of conspicuous consumption, often undertaken at the cost of the happiness of the children themselves. Since 2016, the Central Government has sought to address some of the major challenges through radical policy shifts. In 2021, it was ruled that core parts of tutoring company business had to be conducted on a non-profit basis. This caused stunning losses in value of leading Chinese private tutoring and edtech companies, who were listed in the United States. However in the absence of a modification of the gaokao system, it is unlikely that parental demand for educational services will decline, suggesting that new forms of excessive profit-making and dysfunctionality may arise going forward, despite the radical shifts in public policy.
- 2021
- Working Paper
The Business of K-12 Education in China

By: Geoffrey Jones and Yuhai Wu

This working paper examines the evolution of K-12 education in China, especially between 1985 and the present day, drawing extensive interviews with participants in the educational sector. China has been hugely successful in reaching almost 100 percent literacy, overcoming gender inequality in educational provision, and performing well in...

About the Unit

The General Management Unit is concerned with the leadership and management of the enterprise as a whole. This concern encompasses:

the personal values and qualities of effective general managers and enterprise leaders;
the philosophies, values, and strategies that inform successful enterprises; and
the relation of enterprise to the broader community and other external constituencies.

The Unit's work is conceived and carried out principally in four interest groups, each of which has its own leadership, research agenda, and teaching programs:

Management Policy and Process
Management Information Systems
Society and Enterprise
Leadership, Values, and Corporate Responsibility

Recent Publications

Taking Leadership to a New Place: Outside-the-Building Thinking to Improve the World

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

2021 |
Chapter |
Faculty Research

BOOK ABSTRACT: Twenty-nine leading scholars and executives provide a visionary look at the future of business, propelling past damaging industrial-age values to uncover the key ingredients of humanistic, ecologically sustainable, and intergenerational prosperity.

Citation

Purchase

How to Build a Life: To Be Happy, Hide From the Spotlight

By: Arthur C. Brooks

October 14, 2021 |
Article |
The Atlantic

Citation

The Business of K-12 Education in China

By: Geoffrey Jones and Yuhai Wu

2021 |
Working Paper |
Faculty Research

This working paper examines the evolution of K-12 education in China, especially between 1985 and the present day, drawing extensive interviews with participants in the educational sector. China has been hugely successful in reaching almost 100 percent literacy, overcoming gender inequality in educational provision, and performing well in harmonized test scores. However, the model is not readily transferable to other emerging markets as it rested on a complex intermeshing of public and private interests seen in the “walking on two legs strategy.” This sanctioned the provision of K-12 education both by the Central Government and by “social forces,” including local governments, state-owned enterprises and the private sector. The paper describes how three different types of capital – political, financial and educational – became involved in the industry with their relative importance fluctuating over time. The resulting marketization of educational provision after 1985 led to excessive profit-driven strategies symbolized by heavy investments by the real estate sector in K-12 education. There were major quality issues, including in the vast private supplemental tutoring industry. The level of dysfunctionality was exacerbated by a rigid examination system in China that determined future life opportunities. The score in the gaokao examination determined which college a student could attend, which in turn fundamentally shaped their future careers. This encouraged parents to spend heavily on children’s education, which became a form of conspicuous consumption, often undertaken at the cost of the happiness of the children themselves. Since 2016, the Central Government has sought to address some of the major challenges through radical policy shifts. In 2021, it was ruled that core parts of tutoring company business had to be conducted on a non-profit basis. This caused stunning losses in value of leading Chinese private tutoring and edtech companies, who were listed in the United States. However in the absence of a modification of the gaokao system, it is unlikely that parental demand for educational services will decline, suggesting that new forms of excessive profit-making and dysfunctionality may arise going forward, despite the radical shifts in public policy.

Keywords: K-12 Education; China; Real Estate

Citation

Read Now

How to Build a Life: How to Break a Phone Addiction

By: Arthur C. Brooks

October 7, 2021 |
Article |
The Atlantic

Citation

Deficits and Debt: The U.S. Current Account

By: Laura Alfaro and Richard Vietor

October 2021 |
Case |
Faculty Research

Citation

Educators

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Janet Ames (D)

By: Brian Trelstad

October 2021 |
Exercise |
Faculty Research

The final case in the series of Janet Ames, looks at the challenges of managing a nonprofit and what to do in the instance of suspected fraud.

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Management; Crime and Corruption

Citation

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Building Small Business Utopia: How Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Can Increase Small Business Success

By: Karen G. Mills and Annie Dang

2021 |
Chapter |
Faculty Research

Small business lending has remained unchanged for decades, laden with frictions and barriers that prevent many small businesses from accessing the capital they need to succeed. Financial technology, or “fintech,” promises to change this trajectory. In 2010, new fintech firms emerged to combat the market gaps in small business lending. These firms rely on Big Data and artificial intelligence to build automated underwriting processes and create a more streamlined customer experience. Since the initial fintech boom, incumbent banks and Big Tech platforms have followed suit and developed new products and services to better support small business customers. The data-driven technology used to optimize underwriting can also power a dashboard for small business owners—one that offers visibility into their cash flows and helps them run their businesses. This product-service ecosystem, which we call “Small Business Utopia,” has the potential to transform the world of small business by providing capital and insights to ensure these businesses can prosper and contribute to economic growth, productivity, and innovation.

Keywords: Big Data; Fintech; Artificial Intelligence; Small Business; Financing and Loans; Capital; Success

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