Fall 2022

Rotman Management

The Magazine of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management

Rotman Management1 min read
Rotman Management
Published in January, May and September by the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, Rotman Management explores themes of interest to leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs, featuring thought-provoking insights and problem-solving
Rotman Management2 min readIntelligence (AI) & Semantics
The Future-Proof Issue
AS THE WORLD RECOVERS FROM COVID-19, massive changes are afoot — and not all of them are pleasant. Society is polarized and divided. The economy is constantly fluctuating. And our environment is suffering. Add to this massive technology disruptions a
Rotman Management11 min readIntelligence (AI) & Semantics
Power And Prediction: The Anti-discrimination Opportunity
IN RETROSPECT, it was unlikely to turn out well. But in 2016, Microsoft researchers released an AI algorithm called Tay to learn how to interact on Twitter. Within hours, it learned alright, and began to spew out offensive tweets. Tay was not alone i
Rotman Management10 min readMotivational
Thought Leader Interview: Lynda Gratton
Before the pandemic, research showed that the majority of employees were disengaged from their work. Why was that? The fact is, our working habits had barely changed since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Most organizations operated in the
Rotman Management12 min read
The Future Today: TECH TRENDS EVERY LEADER SHOULD KNOW ABOUT
SEEMINGLY EVERY DAY, a new set of signals emerges to challenge our existing mental models. Within the past 12 months alone, DeepMind solved a 50-year-old problem in Biology, opening up new pathways to drug discovery; AI systems proved that they can g
Rotman Management9 min readLeadership
Leadership And The Illusion Of Control
IT’S TUESDAY MORNING and the project report you requested from your subordinate David is late. You needed it yesterday and you still don’t have it. As the leader, it’s your job to be in control, to set expectations and ensure everything runs smoothly
Rotman Management4 min read
The Power of Belonging
Our world has undergone life-altering changes in the last few years, exposing a dire need to transform workplace cultures. In the U.S., more than 19 million workers have quit their jobs since April 2021, disrupting businesses everywhere, and forcing
Rotman Management9 min readPopular Culture & Media Studies
Navigating the Metaverse: WHAT LEADERS NEED TO KNOW
WHAT, MANY READERS WILL ASK, IS THE METAVERSE? It’s a simple enough question. However, explaining it has the same elusive quality as describing the Internet to our grandparents. A quick Google search for ‘What is the metaverse?’ will take you on a jo
Rotman Management9 min read
Leadership Forum: Lessons That Stand the Test of Time
President and CEO, lululemon IN THE EARLIEST DAYS OF COVID-19, we asked ourselves a fundamental question: What is the most important asset that we must protect above all else? It became immediately clear that our overarching priority would be protect
Rotman Management10 min read
Building Value That Lasts: A Playbook
IN RECENT YEARS, investors have become increasingly dissatisfied with the ESG [environmental, social, governance] risk information they receive from businesses. Our research shows that 86 per cent of institutional investors believe companies with str
Rotman Management3 min read
Re-Framing Climate Change: From Threat to Opportunity
According to the latest report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate, the world still isn’t doing enough to combat human-induced climate change. We shouldn’t be surprised. This is part of a pattern. A top-down approach that asks people to ma
Rotman Management10 min read
Redesigning the World: AN INTERVIEW WITH SAM PITRODA
Partha Mohanram: What led you to start thinking about redesigning the world? Sam Pitroda: About five years ago, I decided to write a book about my life lessons and the vast changes the world has seen since I was a child. I was born in 1942 in British
Rotman Management10 min read
Achieving Net-zero Emissions Are Banks Walking The Talk?
BANKS AND OTHER FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS have a central role to play in decarbonizing the planet. Through their role in capital formation and the creation of credit and innovative financial instruments, they can help accelerate the transition by shifti
Rotman Management11 min readPopular Culture & Media Studies
Getting Engaged: GUIDELINES FOR SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS
WITH ADVANCES IN DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY, new organizational forms are emerging that enable business to be conducted in new ways. When people think about digital platforms that enable business, they tend to think of ‘exchange platforms’ such as Uber or Ai
Rotman Management7 min readPopular Culture & Media Studies
Behavioural Science In The Wild: The Digital Nudge
AS EACH DAY PASSES, more and more of our choices and behaviours are occurring online. We work, shop and communicate with the help of platforms like Amazon, Twitter and Zoom. Even daily behaviours such as sleeping, eating and exercising are performed
Rotman Management4 min read
A Laboratory of Behavioural Interventions
Blood transfusions allow medical professionals to address a wide variety of emergencies, from trauma-induced blood loss to blood replacement during surgeries. Population aging and the increase in surgical procedures such as organ transplants are furt
Rotman Management11 min readSmall Business & Entrepreneurs
Is Your Organization Future-ready?
AS LEADERS TAKE STEPS to re-energize their people and organizations for the post-pandemic world, the most forward-looking see a larger opportunity: The chance to build on pandemic-related accomplishments to re-examine (or even reimagine) the organiza
Rotman Management3 min read
The Path to Future-Ready Operations
As we move forward and the pandemic recedes, leaders must ask a fundamental question: What state are our business operations in? We wanted to better understand the connection between business operations maturity and performance. So in 2020, we survey
Rotman Management8 min read
Q & A
How do you define a ‘person of influence’ in today’s world? Whether we realize it or not, we are influencing people all the time, from the time we are very young. Whenever you do or say something that effects a change in someone else’s thinking or be
Rotman Management7 min readIntelligence (AI) & Semantics
Deconstructing Management Analytics
How do you define management analytics? Management analytics involves developing a precise understanding of the factors influencing managerial decisions, and designing analytical solutions to support those decisions. Put simply, it extracts insights
Rotman Management9 min read
How Work Motivation Is Changing
MANY PREDICTIONS about the future of work have not exactly played out as forecast. In 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that continued economic growth over the course of the coming century would reduce the work week to 15 hours. Nikola Tesla echoed
Rotman Management7 min read
The Data-Empowered Organization
A FEW YEARS BACK, the media was full of articles about how Big Data would solve a perrennial challenge: gaining valuable customer insights. Today, it is everywhere because of the growth of devices recording data and the connectivity between those dev
Rotman Management5 min read
How Trusted Leaders Can Impact Climate Change
AS CANADA CONTINUES TO GRAPPLE with pandemic fatigue, political divisions and associated public frustration, the risks of climate change are lurking in the wings. United Nations research shows that the world is unprepared for the effects of climate c
Rotman Management6 min read
Innovation: The Right Questions at the Right Time
IMAGINE THIS SCENE: A team is pitching an innovation project to leaders of your company using a slide deck with five-year revenue projections, an execution road map and assumptions that are being presented as facts. After the presentation, the leader
Rotman Management6 min read
Q & A
How do you define ‘social learning,’ and why is it so fundamental to our success? Social learning simply means that we learn different kinds of social behaviour by observing and imitating other people. A classic example is kids. They learn from watch
Rotman Management8 min read
Q & A
You have been called a trailblazer in the emerging field of ‘precision medicine’. How do you define that term? Precision medicine is becoming more commonplace and better defined. It’s a scientific approach to creating a personalized health action pla
Rotman Management6 min read
Q &A
Why is it so important to expedite the Circular Economy? Most of us are aware by now that there is an urgent need to protect the world’s ecosystems and reduce the carbon emissions that come from the creation, distribution and disposal of waste. Accor
Rotman Management9 min readDiscrimination & Race Relations
How Pay Gaps Lead to Durable Inequality
THE SOCIAL CLASS PAY GAP — the difference in earnings between people from lower-class versus upper-class origins — is a persistent issue that has been widely studied. A common theme in the findings to date is that because people growing up with upper
Rotman Management6 min readPopular Culture & Media Studies
Investing As A Social Activity
Nobel Laureate Robert Schiller has referred to investing as ‘a social activity.’ Why is that, and do you agree with him? Yes, although ‘active investing’ is more prone to social influence than ‘passive investing.’ Passive investing is typified by a b
Rotman Management6 min read
Navigating Ambiguity: A Toolkit
LET’S BE HONEST. The world is in flux. Massive changes are afoot, and not all of them are pleasant. Change and uncertainty are normal parts of work and life, too. Our lives no longer follow a strictly linear path (if they ever did). Career transition
Rotman Management12 min read
Creating Value In The Care Economy
THE CARE ECONOMY — the economic sectors that involve paid and unpaid care, including childcare, elder care and long-term care — is one of the fastest expanding economic sectors globally. A 2015 study of 45 countries by the International Labour Organi

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