MIT Sloan Management Review

IN TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY, PEOPLE seek the comfort of control. Compensatory control theory, developed by researchers in 2009, suggests that when people feel a lack of control in their environment, they often try to restore it “by imbuing their social, physical, and metaphysical environments with order and structure.” We see this playing out in organizations today as many leaders gravitate toward more automation, return-to-office mandates, monitoring systems, and other strict controls. It’s tempting to lean more heavily on technology and systematic approaches to workforce management and the promise of “objective,” datadriven decisions. Yet research indicates that effective leadership requires more human engagement, not less. As Marylène Gagné and Rebecca Hewett explain in their examination of employee motivation, when leaders default to rules, monitoring, and rewards — a “carrots and sticks”…

BY THE NUMBERS The Ebbing of Employee Engagement U.S. EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT FELL TO THE lowest level in a decade last year, according to a Gallup survey of nearly 80,000 working adults. Only 31% of employees reported being engaged, and 17% indicated that they were actively disengaged. Underlying factors included a lack of clarity of expectations from managers, not feeling cared for by coworkers, and a lack of organizational encouragement for career development, according to survey respondents. Disengagement was especially high among workers under the age of 35. Such data may prompt some leaders to push for return-to-office policies, believing that in-person work will result in more engaged employees. But in the American Psychological Association’s 2024 Work in America Survey, employees whose organizations let them work remotely reported higher levels of…

Vendors of software-infused goods have increasingly used digital control over their products to capture additional post-sales value in recent years, such as when they require subscriptions to keep appliances operable or when they remotely limit owners’ ability to fix products when they break. You fixed your broken smartphone with a noncertified screen? The manufacturer disabled it. You wanted to keep using features of the smart bassinet you bought for your newborn? You had to subscribe to a monthly service plan. Consumers have paid for technology-enhanced goods but do not always enjoy what most consider to be full rights of ownership. And they are becoming increasingly unhappy about it. Deere & Co.’s use of software in its tractors to boost post-sales revenue has won the regard of business strategists. But in…

Companies today must manage an increasingly complex array of risks, including cybersecurity threats, the impact of geopolitical tensions and major weather events on supply chains, and economic volatility — among others. Many businesses are challenged to marshal sufficient resources, personnel, and advanced technology to fully understand potential threats. But few recognize that their efforts are also hindered by the silos within their risk management functions that leave their teams with visibility into only select pieces of the overall threat matrix. Lack of collaboration among risk management teams is pervasive across industries. More than 86% of audit and risk professionals believe that data silos affect their team’s ability to manage risk effectively, according to new data from AuditBoard. When teams and data are disconnected, efforts are duplicated and gaps in risk…

The image and meaning a brand conveys have never been entirely within the owner’s control; they have always been in dialogue with the world around them. While marketers painstakingly craft brand messages and creative campaigns intended to appeal to their target customers, it’s the customers who actually make meaning and, consequently, shape a brand’s reputation. In the social media age, that meaning has become ever more freighted with cultural and political implications, not only for brand image but also for customers’ own identities and reputations. This newly mediated discourse between consumers and brands has created new challenges for contemporary brand managers to not merely steward a brand’s communication and intellectual property but also manage the brand’s meaning as consumers themselves shape the meaning of the brand to relate to their…

Few would expect that adding resources to a critical operational area could compromise its effectiveness. But as organizations beef up their cybersecurity teams in response to the growing threat and cost of cybercrime, they may be inadvertently blunting their ability to accurately assess their own exposure to risk. Businesses’ natural response to growing cyber risk has been to invest in and grow their cybersecurity capabilities, including creating new leadership roles for safeguarding the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of organizational data. However, our research uncovered a surprising paradox that can render such expansion counterproductive. We found that experienced security teams can exhibit a collective overconfidence that makes responses to cyberthreats less effective. While leaders might expect that adding senior-level positions to a cybersecurity team will improve its capabilities, doing so can…