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Ahead of his inaugural lecture on the power of networks in technological innovation, Anne ter Wal, Professor of Technology & Innovation Management, explores why innovation demands more than sequential workflows.

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Tobias Kretschmer on research in strategy and technological change

Shamita Harsh — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 12:14:02 +0000

Tobias Kretschmer on research in strategy and technological change

Shamita Harsh Wed, 15/01/2025 - 12:14

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Tobias Kretschmer has joined 91��ɫ Business School as Professor of Strategy, Technology & Organisation at the Department of Management & Entrepreneurship. With a research career spanning global leading institutions, his work examines how technology and organisation design interact to drive competitive advantage in the digital economy.

Professor Kretschmer’s research focuses on platform markets and the digital transformation of firms, investigating how technology reshapes strategic decision-making, value creation, and organisational performance. His recent work explores how increasingly large and influential complementors are challenging long-held assumptions about dominance in digital ecosystems.

Professor Kretschmer also contributes to the field through several editorial and leadership roles, serving as Senior Editor at Strategy Science, Vice Chair of the Organization Design Community, and as part of the leadership team for the Academy of Management’s Technology & Innovation Management Division. He was Panel Chair for the European 91��ɫ Council’s SH1 Starting Grants in 2024 and is currently a 91��ɫ Fellow in Organisational Economics at the Centre for Economic Policy 91��ɫ, London.

How technology reshapes competition and collaboration

Across his research portfolio, Professor Kretschmer combines theory and empirical evidence to explore how digital change impacts organisations and markets. In his paper “Anonymity and Peer Feedback in Crowdsourcing”, he studies how anonymity affects the quality and tone of feedback in digital collaboration environments, offering insights into the design of more effective crowdsourcing systems.

In “First-Party Complements in Platform Markets: The Role of Competition”, he investigates how platform owners decide whether to release their own complementary products, uncovering strategic patterns that depend on the intensity of user and complementor competition.

His paper “Protected but Punished?”, examines how whistleblower protection laws influence wage dynamics—revealing that while stronger protections enhance transparency, they can also trigger unintended wage adjustments within firms.

Other recent journal publications include analyses of news aggregators and media competition, game wikis and community-driven innovation (both Strategic Management Journal), and the impact of GDPR on data-driven business models (Marketing Science).

His research has been published in Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, Management Science, American Economic Review and Information Systems 91��ɫ.

Prior to joining 91��ɫ, he was Professor of Strategy, Technology & Organisation at LMU Munich School of Management, where he led the Institute for Strategy, Technology & Organisation. He holds a PhD in Economics from London Business School and an MSc in Strategy from the University of St. Gallen. Professor Kretschmer has also held full-time positions at London School of Economics and Political Science and INSEAD, and visiting positions at Bocconi University, University College London and NOVA School of Business & Economics.

Discussing his move to 91��ɫ, Professor Kretschmer said: “I’ve been studying new technologies for my entire career. Being at 91��ɫ gives me a chance to learn in depth how these technologies work and to understand the strategic implications of technological change (and vice versa).”

At 91��ɫ, he looks forward to deepening cross-disciplinary collaboration. He is eager to work with scholars in strategy, technology and data science to better understand how firms can navigate digital disruption and design organisations that thrive in it.

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Exploring how firms adapt and thrive through digital transformation

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Professor Jeffery S. McMullen on rethinking entrepreneurship in a changing world

Shamita Harsh — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 12:14:02 +0000

Professor Jeffery S. McMullen on rethinking entrepreneurship in a changing world

Shamita Harsh Wed, 15/01/2025 - 12:14

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Entrepreneurship is often viewed through the lens of opportunity – spotting gaps in the market and creating ventures to fill them. But for Professor Jeffery S. McMullen, entrepreneurship is also a process of discovery, responsibility and social change. His work has reshaped how researchers and practitioners think about the ethics of entrepreneurial action.

Now joining 91��ɫ Business School as Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Department of Management & Entrepreneurship, he brings a career defined by both scholarly leadership and deep engagement with the practice of entrepreneurship. With awards at undergraduate, MBA, and doctoral levels, Professor McMullen has received recognition for innovative course design in social and sustainable entrepreneurship.

As a committed mentor, his work has been inspiring new generations of entrepreneurs and academics alike. He has guided many doctoral students and emerging scholars, earning the Academy of Management’s Mentor & Dedication to Entrepreneurship awards.

As he joins the robust faculty network of the Business School, he is eager to contribute to 91��ɫ's community of practice. “I am excited to explore the potential of entrepreneurship at a world-class STEM university that is dedicated to serving humanity,” he says. “And to do so in the middle of one of the most vibrant cities the world has ever known.”

Exploring entrepreneurial agency and uncertainty

At the heart of Professor McMullen’s research is a concern with entrepreneurial agency – whether individuals have the power to act under uncertainty to create value and the consequences of those actions for society. His work spans commercial, social, and sustainable entrepreneurship.

In 2018, his paper "Entrepreneurial Action and the Role of Uncertainty in the Theory of the Entrepreneur" received the Foundational Paper Award from the Academy of Management’s Entrepreneurship Division, cementing his influence on the field’s theoretical direction.

He continues to push boundaries with work that draws inspiration from literature and cinema. For instance, his recent article in the Academy of Management Review uses Andy Weir’s The Martian to examine the ethics of profit-seeking and illustrate the conditions under which the entrepreneur’s pursuit of profit can lead to sustainable development.

Another paper "‘Fake it ‘til You Make it’: The Power and Peril of Implied Social Validation in the Entrepreneurial Journey" in Academy of Management Perspectives examines the allure and dangers of the “fake it ’til you make it” mentality. Tracing how implied validation can both fuel and undermine entrepreneurial journeys. Comparing scenes from Pygmalion, Harry Potter, Schindler’s List and The Godfather, he warns society of the ease with which confidence can be mistaken for accomplishment and how this can tempt entrepreneurs to behave like charlatans, despite noble intentions at the beginning of their journey.

By weaving together cultural references and empirical insight that backs rigorous theory, his research connects abstract concepts to everyday entrepreneurial experiences, resonating with peers.

A global leader in entrepreneurship scholarship

Professor McMullen’s influence extends beyond his publications. He has authored more than 100 scholarly works, with over 24,000 citations, and has served on multiple editorial boards. As Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Business Venturing, he has shaped the trajectory of entrepreneurship research worldwide, setting standards for methodological rigour and conceptual innovation.

Beyond academia, Professor McMullen has served as a consultant, venture creator, a Certified Public Accountant in the Information, Communications, and Entertainment division of KPMG, Denver, and is deeply involved in community leadership, including as an elder in his church.

At 91��ɫ, he looks forward to working with students from across disciplines, integrating entrepreneurship into the broader STEM ecosystem. Looking ahead, he sees 91��ɫ as the ideal platform for the next phase of his work and says, “91��ɫ’s position at the intersection of science, technology, and business creates extraordinary opportunities for entrepreneurship research and practice. It’s a place where we can ask not only how entrepreneurs create value, but also for whom and to what end.”

With his combination of scholarly leadership, teaching excellence, and commitment to service, Professor McMullen embodies the kind of entrepreneurial mindset he studies paired with one that seeks impact and balances opportunity with responsibility. His arrival at 91��ɫ Business School signals an exciting new chapter in the School’s ambition to redefine entrepreneurship for the next generation.

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The hidden cost of startup buzz: how founders and investors can avoid a culture of hubris

Christian Hampel — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 12:14:02 +0000

The hidden cost of startup buzz: how founders and investors can avoid a culture of hubris

Christian Hampel Wed, 15/01/2025 - 12:14

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It’s the dream of many startups: grow aggressively to chase the hype and become a unicorn. However, trying to pull this off all too often turns into a nightmare for founders, employees and their stakeholders alike. Our recent study found that growth-chasing startups risk ingraining a damaging “hubristic culture” – characterised by the sense of being entitled to break rules without caring about consequences.

A hubristic culture often looks exciting to employees but actually damages the company. It leads employees to believe they can do no wrong in the pursuit of growth. This is a recipe for disaster. A report by debtors of failed crypto exchange FTX Trading, for example, blamed its collapse on “hubris, incompetence and greed” (the company’s founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, is appealing his conviction).

Together with Elena Dalpiaz, I have studied hubristic culture in a tech startup that initially achieved hypergrowth for a few years. However, this culture led the startup to adopt harmful behaviours that hurt stakeholders and threatened its very survival until the company embarked on a major reform process. While this turnaround was a success at the time of our study’s conclusion, the company, like many others in the sector, later exited the market due to new regulatory changes. This has helped make the case for broader volatility of the industry rather than undermining the impact of cultural reform.

Red flags in startup culture

We found that one major red flag for a hubristic culture is when startups pursue growth at all costs. This is problematic because employees believe it does not matter how their growth-chasing actions affect stakeholders. Consequences of this can include: regularly letting customers down during the hypergrowth; getting ever more regulatory fines; and receiving increasingly hostile coverage on key (social) media channels.

Another major red flag for a hubristic culture is a specific type of excitement shared among the startup’s employees: what we call “antagonistic excitement”. This is the enthusiasm to operate in opposition to outside norms. For example, an employee of the tech company we studied was thrilled when masses protested the company’s rule-breaking: “we were getting attacked […] You live off that adrenaline”.

Getting excited about breaking rules and about receiving external criticism is dangerous because employees risk losing moral awareness, i.e. the ability to care about (not harming) the outside world.

How to build a sustainable startup culture

How do startups avoid the trap of a hubristic culture? First, by focusing the team on pursuing growth that can be sustained over the long-term, rather than seeking growth at all costs. This forces employees to pursue growth that fits with society because only this is sustainable over time.

Second, it’s important to banish antagonistic excitement. Whereas excitement about the startup’s mission and about any constructive plans can be very positive, what stores up trouble is fostering excitement about breaking rules and getting criticised. It’s important for startups to emphasise that, amid all the excitement, the pursuit of growth should not endanger the well-being of others.

Hubristic cultures in startups are initially intoxicating for employees but they are ultimately toxic for everyone. When startups collapse, founders, investors, employees and stakeholders are all harmed. It’s important that hyped companies fix a hubristic culture before it’s too late. This gives them the chance to build a company that will last, rather than becoming a cautionary tale for the next excitable startup.

This article draws on findings from the Journal of Business Venturing article “When Hype Collides with Morality: How Entrepreneurial Framing Affects the Behavior and Legitimacy of Hyped Ventures” by Christian E. Hampel (91��ɫ) and Elena Dalpiaz (USI Lugano).

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Grounded in new research, this article reveals the warning signs of “hubristic culture” and offers practical strategies to foster sustainable growth

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How AI can guide educators in embedding sustainability into curriculum

Esther Canonico-Martin — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 12:14:02 +0000

How AI can guide educators in embedding sustainability into curriculum

Esther Canonic… Wed, 15/01/2025 - 12:14

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9 June 2025

As educators and as a university, we have an overarching responsibility to equip students to become responsible members of society, who can contribute to a healthier, more inclusive world. Achieving this requires us to embed sustainability meaningfully into our learning and teaching.

However, academics often face significant barriers to achieving this, including time pressures, limited guidance on how to go about it, uncertainty about how sustainability relates to their discipline, or a narrow understanding of what sustainability entails.

And it’s important to note, in relation to this last point, that the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) make it clear that sustainability is a broad and interconnected concept. It extends beyond climate and biodiversity to include quality education, gender equality, reduction of inequalities, and more.

Beyond box-ticking: creating ‘aha’ moments

So, how can we truly integrate sustainability into learning and teaching at 91��ɫ Business School? One starting point is through direct messaging – at student inductions or in programme introductions, for example – positioning sustainability as a core university value.

While useful, however, this approach can fall flat in a world saturated with sustainability messaging, where students may experience ‘sustainability fatigue’. For this reason, instead of focusing on overt principles, we may actually be able to achieve greater impact by guiding students towards making their own realisations – those ‘aha’ moments where a deeper understanding of sustainability clicks into place through the learning experience itself.

For example, in my own teaching, I ask management students to complete personality tests and explore different conflict management styles. These activities expose students to a range of valid approaches to work, helping them appreciate perspectives different from their own.

This kind of experiential learning fosters a deeper understanding of the value of individual differences in the workplace, highlighting how inclusion can enhance performance. It is an essential step towards reducing inequalities and promoting inclusion, which is directly related to sustainability.

To help educators to work in this way, however, we need to link sustainability with our learning outcomes. UNESCO offers a framework that maps the UN SDGs to learning outcomes, suggesting how to integrate them across programmes. But, even with this support, embedding a holistic approach to sustainability takes time and effort, particularly at the outset.

A framework for deeper integration

This is where generative AI tools can be useful, enabling academics to map and audit programme content for alignment with the UN SDGs. That said, generative AI has its limits. It can only interpret what's explicitly stated in the content, often missing subtler connections.

In the teaching situation I discussed earlier, for example, activities such as completing personality assessments and exploring different conflict management styles can help students develop awareness of individual differences, which is a crucial step towards inclusion and reducing inequalities. However, AI platforms would likely not flag them as sustainability-related, in spite of the fact that they absolutely are, aligning directly with UN SDGs focused on equality and inclusion.

To address this, as the UNESCO framework suggests, we should consider learning outcomes at three levels: cognitive, socio-emotional and behavioural. In other words, students must first understand sustainability concepts, then connect with them personally, and ultimately apply them in practice.

In my own practice, I still use generative AI platforms as a support tool. I begin by identifying key areas of my module with shared learning goals. Then, I ask the AI to suggest relevant UN SDGs and map them to learning outcomes across the cognitive, emotional and behavioural domains. This produces a more accurate, nuanced audit of sustainability in my teaching, helping to reinforce a broader, more integrated view of what sustainability really means.

This approach is, hopefully, a first step toward a future where sustainability is an intrinsic part of all teaching at 91��ɫ Business School, supported by technology and grounded in deeper understanding. It may require incentives, such as recognition for good practice, but momentum is already growing towards making sustainability a natural part of how we teach and learn.

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The first step in integrating UN SDGs in education at 91��ɫ Business School

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AI-powered rental fashion: Smarter recommendations for a sustainable future

Gah-Yi Ban — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 12:14:02 +0000

AI-powered rental fashion: Smarter recommendations for a sustainable future

Gah-Yi Ban Wed, 15/01/2025 - 12:14

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6 May 2025

Fashion is one of the most polluting industries in modern times. It produces about 10 per cent of the UK's annual carbon footprint – more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. 91��ɫ from Climatetrade, 2023, shows it also consumes vast amounts of water and generates millions of tons of waste. According to Fashion Transparency Index 2023, the constant demand for cheap clothing has made the industry a "key driver of human rights abuses". One of the largest study into clothing habits ever undertaken by climate action NGO WRAP shows the UK's wardrobes hold 1.6 billion items of unworn clothes.

To address some of these challenges, a new business model of subscription rental fashion has sprung up in recent years. Established brands like LK Bennett and Ann Taylor, along with startups such as Hurr, My Wardrobe HQ, nuuly, and Armoire, now offer rental services that allow multiple customers to “share” a much larger wardrobe, reducing the need for constant new purchases. These companies operate on a monthly subscription model, enabling members to rent and swap garments within each period. Returned garments are inspected, cleaned, and recirculated, ensuring efficient inventory use. The rental fashion business model has potential for reducing waste, lowering emissions, and extending the lifecycle of clothing, all the while keeping customers stylish and satisfied.

The challenge of keeping customers engaged

As operations researchers, my colleagues and I, together with a PhD student, Jiannan Xu, were drawn to rental fashion because of the operational complexity it presents. We partnered with a rental fashion startup and analysed its customer data. One issue stood out from the analysis: customers were not staying on the platform long enough. Many left after the initial discounted trial period, citing dissatisfaction with the style or fit of their rented items.

To improve retention and enhance the customer experience, we developed a novel approach to optimising personalised recommendations for rental fashion businesses. Our work focused on two key challenges:

Encouraging customers to subscribe – many companies offer discounted trials, yet potential subscribers hesitate because they’re unsure whether they’ll find styles they like.
Retaining customers beyond the trial period – a large percentage of cancellations stem from product fit uncertainty. Customers may select items based on images and descriptions, only to find that they don’t meet expectations in person. This mismatch leads to frustration, increased returns, and lower renewal rates.

Smarter assortment optimisation with AI

To tackle these issues, we developed an AI-powered algorithm that improves how rental companies curate product recommendations. Instead of relying on generic recommendation engines or brute-force optimisation, our model develops and optimises a stochastic decision model to account for the unique structure of rental fashion businesses. Specifically, it considers:

Initial selection uncertainty – predicting which items are most likely to encourage customers to subscribe.
Renewal uncertainty – identifying which items will maximise customer retention after the first rental cycle.

By carefully balancing these factors and using smart mathematical approximations, we developed a fast, scalable, and personalized ranking algorithm—one of the simplest and quickest methods for optimising the assortment curation process. Essentially, our algorithm gives a personalised score to each garment, whereby the score weighs in the expected consumer surplus (“signal”) and the uncertainties regarding the customer’s initial and post-wear valuations (“noise”). It thus has parallels with finance and engineering applications where good decisions are made by balancing signal-to-noise ratios.

Alternative methods to our algorithm would be either too slow for real-time use, or ineffective as they do not optimise the business objective. In extensive numerical simulations, we show our algorithm ranks and refines product assortments in milliseconds, compared to minutes using brute-force optimisation. We further show that, even under stress-testing scenarios, our algorithm can achieve results within 6.5 per cent of the best possible profit outcomes, making it both effective and scalable.

Practical benefits for rental fashion companies

Beyond technical advancements, our research has real-world implications for the rental fashion industry. By ensuring that customers receive better-matched recommendations, businesses can reduce unnecessary returns and improve overall satisfaction. This leads to:

Fewer shipments and exchanges, reducing logistics costs.
Better use of inventory, maximising item circulation.
Higher customer retention rates, strengthening long-term profitability.

The future of AI in subscription-based rentals

Beyond rental fashion, the principles behind our AI-powered optimisation model extend to subscription-based rentals of experience goods in general. This includes electronics rentals, furniture subscriptions, and toy libraries, where selecting the right assortment is key to customer satisfaction and retention. By refining product recommendations, businesses can optimise customer engagement, reduce churn, and improve profitability.

Our research is among the first to explore assortment optimisation in this space, setting the stage for further studies in inventory and subscription management. While rental businesses may not solve all the environmental challenges, smarter, AI-powered recommendations can significantly enhance business viability and the overall customer experience—paving the way for a smarter, more efficient future in rental commerce.

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Can AI optimise rental fashion sustainably while boosting retention?

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What business leaders can learn from challenging the notions of luck and success

Chengwei Liu — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 12:14:02 +0000

What business leaders can learn from challenging the notions of luck and success

Chengwei Liu Wed, 15/01/2025 - 12:14

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One curious finding from my research, a normative theory of luck, is more often than not, successes are random and short-lived. The underdogs, on the other hand, may do better in the long term.

And this prompts a deeper question: could our traditional understanding of talent, merit, and success be fundamentally flawed? Does this fresh perspective make us reassess how we define and determines success? Is it more down to being in the right place at the right time than innate genius?

We are of course, talking here about luck. This puzzling finding begins to make sense when considered alongside the role of chance and its impact upon success. For more than a decade I’ve tried to measure how luck plays its hand in the fortunes of business and individuals – and this has revealed a more nuanced – and often unpopular - view of success and failure.

Is success misattributed to luck?

Not everyone will welcome these findings – namely that luck plays a large part in making the competent appear successful, while also masking talent. If someone is lucky, they may perform better than those who are truly gifted, because of the fortunes of circumstance.

My most recent study delves into the academic world to explore how this dynamic unfolds. We asked nearly 950 psychology scholars and 680 management scholars to evaluate pairs of academic papers, selecting the ones they believed to have the most impact.

We compared the votes – according to our study – with how these papers fared in real life – namely how many citations they received from other academics. In academia, citations are a sign of success and can ultimately determine academic careers.

What we found was this: highly cited papers – the top of the crop - also performed well in our study and they were chosen by our participants. But this didn’t follow all the way through. The moderately successful papers didn’t replicate that moderate success in our tailored study, and they were judged as inferior.

What does this reveal?

Some individuals may be enjoying a status that doesn’t reflect their true ability. Other talented individuals may not achieve what they deserve, because chance hasn’t thrown opportunities their way. Papers without the benefit of early luck will only get so far up the rankings even if they are of better quality.

Some academic papers start with a leg up – the dice are loaded in their favour. These authors may have a head start as they benefit from existing recognition and a pool of healthy professional networks. So then, does conformity and social influence mean their work is more likely to be recognised and cited? It’s a different take on privilege and how the rich get richer – the more you start out with the better you do.

Academics whose work scored more highly in our experiment experienced lower career progress in the real world due to the biased citation counts. Their professional status didn’t do justice to their skill.

The luck you start out with – your network, your profile, your ‘clique’ – can lift or limit your fortunes.

Rethinking how we define and reward success

There are dangers of failing to acknowledge the role of luck in business. There is a risk that women and people from minorities may be underestimated by their managers because they don’t conform to the norms of success. Luck doesn’t throw so many chances their way. And there’s a risk that any success they have may be dismissed as a fluke – they’re seen as a lucky outlier - rather than a reflection of their ability.

The flipside of this is that we give disproportionate attention to the achievements of exceptionally successful companies and superstar chief executives – their strategies and behaviour are studied in order to determine a replicable formula for their achievements. They give the illusion of being in control.

But are they really that talented – or did they get a lucky break? I’ve studied the subsequent fortunes of 50 companies featured in the aspirational business books Good to Great, In Search of Excellence, and Built to Last. Within five years of publication, 16 of these lauded companies had failed, 23 were underperforming and just five of the remainder sustained any kind of excellence. Overall, they have performed worse than the norm. Could it be they were never that good?

Often when a feted business leader underperforms, this is attributed to hubris and over confidence. But my work shows that their previous performance may have had more to do with luck than talent, and their failures are also down to chance – and the fact they may not have been that talented in the first place.

Trying to emulate the extreme successes of others is a risky business. It’s dangerous to ignore how much a hand luck plays in the fortunes of the extremely successful – the stock market darlings and the superstar chief executives – they’re probably there because of a lucky break or two.

My work shows that longer lasting talent often lies on the second tiers – the competent but apparently less exceptional businesses and individuals.

And this challenges managers and institutions to rethink how they evaluate and reward talent. What if opportunities were granted more randomly within a qualified pool, allowing hidden stars to shine? What if businesses reconsidered their reliance on early success as a predictor of long-term potential? We underestimate the role of luck in success at our peril – and at the expense of fairness.

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New research from 91��ɫ Business School reveals how recognising the role of luck in success can boost smarter business decisions

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How to survive as an entrepreneur: insights from Steve Blank

Evie Burrows-Taylor — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 11:47:09 +0000

How to survive as an entrepreneur: insights from Steve Blank

Evie Burrows-Taylor Tue, 13/02/2024 - 11:47

15 July 2026

We sat down with world-renowned entrepreneur Steve Blank to talk about the significance of the lean startup movement, how generative AI will revolutionise the business landscape and what leaders need to do to survive the changes ahead

Famed for his founding role in the lean startup movement, Steve Blank, now an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at Stanford, has also co-created the 91��ɫ Wicked Module at 91��ɫ Business School. The class teaches students to use lean startup tools to address “wicked” problems that have multiple moving parts and no obvious solution, such as insurgencies, disinformation and climate change.

We spoke to Steve about the significance of his work and the biggest challenges and opportunities facing today’s entrepreneurs.

Why was the lean startup movement such a widespread sensation?

Lean’s biggest insight was observing that startups are not smaller versions of large companies and, while large companies execute business models, startups search for them. For the business world, it was like discovering an entirely new continent.

We had built tools for executing an existing business model, but we had absolutely nothing when it came to searching for them, including the understanding that it needed to be done.

My work, along with that of Eric Ries and Alexander Osterwalder, formed the beginnings of the Lean Movement. I remember going to some of the best business schools in the world and people saying: “How hard can [running a company made up of] six people in a garage be?” But I deeply understood just how hard the startup setup was.

How will generative AI impact entrepreneurship?

The impact on entrepreneurs will be enormous: they’ll be able to use data to look at what people in certain demographics want and use generative AI to come up with product ideas, websites and even pivots.

Now, if I’m in healthcare and the NHS decides they want to make money, I could take all the health data I have about everybody in the UK and start figuring out how to do it using AI models. If I was an entrepreneur today, I would be working on a piece of enterprise software to create an end-to-end platform for using AI in building startups.

What innovation challenges are unique to today’s businesses?

Large organisations are designed for repeatable and scalable processes. This works well when your business environment is relatively stable, or your competitors have the same resources as you.

These days, you’re competing with smaller companies designed to move rapidly and take risks, and that’s hard to sustain. Companies adopting startup methods often end up with innovation “theatre”, rather than innovation delivered. Carving out an innovative path requires committed leadership, culture and process change.

What is the most common mistake you see startups making?

Entrepreneurs have the passion to come up with an idea, execute it and then expect to stand back and see all the orders rolling in. That almost never happens.

The phrase I keep repeating after two decades: there are no facts inside the building, so get the heck out. When I taught the 91��ɫ Wicked Module at 91��ɫ, I told students how important it is to talk to customers and listen to the data.

How do you think large corporations can overcome challenges with agility?

It really starts with the leadership team agreeing that execution pays your salary, but innovation pays your pension. Then deciding whether they're willing to make the changes necessary to provide a parallel pathway for innovation.

However, the worst thing you could do is make the entire company about innovation and put the core business at risk. My first mantra to CEOs is: whatever you do, protect the core.

How can leaders ensure they stay relevant?

If I was a CEO, I'd ensure I was thoroughly educating myself about the changes in my sector. If you don’t understand the relevant technology, supply chain, manufacturing et al and its implications, it would be like a CEO at the turn of the century not understanding manufacturing in China.

Lifelong learning plays a large role in figuring out how to keep CEOs continually engaged in new methods, tech, challenges, as well as global opportunities and threats.

Steve Blank returns to 91��ɫ Business School as a featured speaker at the 6th International Wicked Symposium in July 2026.

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Wicked Problems, System Dynamics & Entrepreneurial Innovation: 11 June – 12 July, 2024

The 91��ɫ Wicked Module is a one-month programme for 91��ɫ Business School students, where we will introduce participants to a unique set of frameworks, approaches, and tools curated to address 'wicked problems".

Experimentation in business: 3 ways to avoid the hidden risks

Experimentation is key to platforms improving their services – but this is often carried out in secret and can have disastrous unintended consequences.

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Humourbragging: using humour for success in business

Jieun Pai — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 14:08:51 +0000

Humourbragging: using humour for success in business

Jieun Pai Tue, 12/12/2023 - 14:08

1 February 2024

A new study from 91��ɫ Business School reveals how self-promotion and self-enhancing humour are the route to acing your interview or pitch

There is an inherent tension in pitch situations – whether interviewing for a new job or seeking funding as an entrepreneur – between the need to promote your personal accomplishments on the one hand, and the need to avoid seeming arrogant on the other.

For instance, a job candidate who refrains from sharing information about their achievements (or attributes them to fortunate circumstances) may be passed up for a coveted position because they seem to lack the necessary agency and competence to succeed in the job. However, a candidate who claims credit for successes may come across as braggy and boastful and therefore be passed up for the same coveted position because they seem to lack warmth and morality.

Paradoxically, candidates and presenters are therefore damned if they do (self-promote) and damned if they don’t (self-promote). Humourbragging overcomes this dilemma by employing a specific type of humour to connect with recipients, conveying competence without alienating the audience.

How to balance competence and warmth

Competence and warmth both play a key role in an interview or pitch situation, but getting the balance right can be difficult. Many people downplay competence in order to project warmth (particularly when relating to someone more vulnerable or subordinate) and downplay warmth in order to appear more competent (particularly to a superior, or in an interview situation). There is a significant body of research that explores strategies to cope with this apparent trade-off. However, we propose that both can be achieved if the right form of humour is employed as a key tool of impression management.

Engaging in self-enhancing humourbragging significantly increased the chances of securing funding

To explore our hypothesis, we posed the research question: “How can individuals appear competent and likeable at the same time?"

This requires a strategy that avoids a person appearing arrogant and over-confident, and instead makes them approachable and personable, yet reassuringly credible and competent. We tend to use various tactics to present ourselves in the best light without alienating our audience, for example appearing to exhibit modesty and humility when in fact it is a cover for self-promotion (for example: "I don't know why everyone likes my stupid book so much"). Humourbragging attempts to use self-enhancing humour to better effect.

Self-enhancing humour, or humourbragging

There are innate dangers in using humour in an interview or pitch situation. Humour can be conflated with excessive confidence. It can land in a way that wasn't predicted or intended, or it may undermine the truth behind an accomplishment. It can also be seen as flippant and inappropriate in a high-stakes situation like an interview or funding pitch. Getting humourbragging right is therefore crucial.

Candidates and presenters are therefore damned if they do (self-promote) and damned if they don’t (self-promote)

Self-enhancing humour or humourbragging involves promoting yourself by drawing attention to your positive qualities, achievements, or abilities, while simultaneously raising a smile or laugh in a way that is contextually appropriate. For example: "During my last project, I was so efficient that the coffee machine started taking breaks to keep up with me. It’s not just that I meet deadlines, I give them a head start!"

It is often used subconsciously as a social tool to subtly boost one's image or standing in the eyes of others, while also entertaining them, yet not employed in an interview or pitch scenario. Humourbragging can therefore be deployed as an intentional communicative strategy to impress an audience. There is a bonus to this too – because it disrupts the norm in these contexts, it conveys power and confidence, and thus fuels perceptions of competence.

A proven strategy for success

We tested our hypothesis via four studies. In one study we created two different resumes for job applicants looking for sales representative positions, the only key differentiator being a single humourbragging line in the career objective section of the resumes alongside their accomplishments: "The more coffee you can provide, the more output I will produce."

These were sent out in response to a live advertisement, with recruiters' responses across all channels logged over a two-week period. Significantly, the candidates using humourbragging in their resume were contacted by 1.2 more companies than the other candidates.

Humourbragging overcomes this dilemma by employing a specific type of humour to connect with recipients

Another study focused on the US TV show Shark Tank (based on the international Dragons’ Den format). We sampled 154 pitches over a three-year period, coding the type of humour employed and found that the odds of receiving a funding offer were almost five times higher when entrepreneurs used self-enhancing humour, compared to when they did not. In other words, engaging in self-enhancing humourbragging significantly increased the chances of securing funding, compared to not engaging in this type of humour. Further studies examined that it is only self-enhancing humour that is effective. Other forms of humour and the degree of humour (ie. how funny it is) have little impact.

Across all four studies, we found consistent support for the positive consequences of humourbragging. We are delighted to report that our research results were so conclusive that all our fictional candidates are doing well in their new roles.

This article draws on findings from "The Humor Advantage: Humorous Bragging Benefits Job Candidates and Entrepreneurs" by Jieun Pai (91��ɫ), Eileen Y. Chou (University of Virginia) and Nir Halevy (Stanford University).

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Why businesses should take humour seriously

Getting a laugh out of people when the subject is finance is no easy task. But there are major benefits for businesses if they can use humour to their advantage.

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Experimentation in business: 3 ways to avoid the hidden risks

Tim Weiss — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 10:56:57 +0000

Experimentation in business: 3 ways to avoid the hidden risks

Tim Weiss Fri, 02/06/2023 - 10:56

2 June 2023

Experimentation is key to platforms improving their services – but this is often carried out in secret and can have disastrous unintended consequences

How many of us know when we are the subjects of digital experimentation? Probably very few. But if you use platforms such as LinkedIn, Uber or Zoom, it is highly likely you have been part of digital experiments to improve their products and services.

In 2018, Uber’s data science and engineering team publicly announced: “Experimentation is at the core of how Uber improves the customer experience... There are over 1,000 experiments running on our platform at any given time.”

Experimentation is a practice that has developed alongside digital technologies and platforms. Although in some ways it mirrors more traditional face-to-face market research with consumers, users or employees, digital technologies such as data analytics and machine learning now make the process of testing improvements or new offerings easier, quicker and cheaper, particularly on sophisticated platforms with large volumes of users.

By removing worker consent and making experimentation hidden, undesirable consequences can emerge

Experimentation has increased exponentially over the past decade, with entrepreneurs using it to guide their value creation, and digital platforms deploying thousands of experiments at any given time to optimise their algorithms. A case in point is LinkedIn, which subjected 20 million workers to thousands of experiments without their knowledge over a five-year period, impacting their ability to get a job.

We now know a lot about how to design experiments, and their benefit to the organisations that employ them, but what do we know about their impact on platform users? Experimentation and testing can be beneficial if users consent to experiments and platforms take their feedback seriously, by subsequently improving platform features and processes. But is this always the case? Is it always beneficial to both platform and user, or do both parties face hidden risks?

To explore this further, we looked at one of the world’s largest labour platforms over more than a decade of operation. We found that the platform experimented in three different ways. They first allowed users to consent and opt-in to experiments. They then switched to concealing experimentation, assigning users to experiment and control conditions without their knowledge and consent. In the final iteration, they began to consistently experiment on a wide variety of platform features at the same time, without user consent or knowledge.

It is very easy for experimentation to become more covert and concealed

Concealed experimentation had far-reaching effects on users. They witnessed constant changes that affected their employment and income opportunities on the platform, reducing the freedom they had in structuring their own work. What's more, concealed and consistent experimentation led to significant frustration and feelings of apathy because users had no agency in their exposure to experiments. There was often no redress when features and processes changed without notice.

We also found that workers’ wellbeing was negatively impacted as they started to believe that the platform no longer treated them as valued constituents or stakeholders, but as lab rats or guinea pigs. This is particularly concerning, not least because the ethics that might apply in more traditional testing methodologies seem to be largely absent in these circumstances. Although wide-scale experimentation is currently confined to platforms where it is an extremely cost-effective means of optimising algorithms, it is reasonable to assume the practice will extend beyond this as digital transformation continues in more conventional organisations.

Many organisations, participating in experimentation as a core feature to optimise value creation, may be unaware of these hidden risks. We recommend three actions:

1. Be transparent

It is very easy for experimentation to become more covert and concealed. Often, it is a well-intended practice to improve the design of experiments. But by removing worker consent and making experimentation hidden, undesirable consequences can emerge, whether a negative impact on user welfare or a potentially damaged relationship between the user and the platform. This is especially problematic in a competitive market where the cost of switching is low and users can vote with their feet.

2. Create internal mechanisms to build ethics into experimentation

There is precedent that internal audit units can enable experimentation without exposing users to unwanted side effects. Organisations such as Microsoft have created internal ethics, audit and compliance boards to oversee the implementation of new practices. These internal units provide the opportunity for a diverse group of stakeholders to routinely interact, exchange experiences and voice concerns. Crucially this requires users and platform managers and designers to come together and make their positions known, negotiating outcomes that are mutually beneficial.

3. Help to create "best practice" industry standards

It is in the interests of digital platforms, think tanks and research centres to lead the creation of best practice standards. This would allow platforms to enhance value creation through experimentation whilst simultaneously safeguarding user rights and avoiding adverse side effects. Shedding light on the grey zone of experimentation will help set industry standards and create a broader conversation about optimal experimentation practices that would also enable auditing of external oversight bodies.

This article draws on findings from "The Experimental Hand: How Platform-Based Experimentation Reconfigures Worker Autonomy" by Hatim A. Rahman (Kellogg School of Management), Tim Weiss (91��ɫ) and Arvind Karunakaran (Stanford University).

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The dark side of startups: when "fake it till you make it" goes wrong

Does startup culture make these ventures more vulnerable to misconduct and fraud? Dr Tim Weiss asks whether more oversight may be required

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