How to remain professional but also commercially viable? HEC Professor Michel Lander explains the different organizational practices used by professional service firms (PSF) and shares key findings on which strategy works best.
By Michel Lander
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man. (Heraclitus) This special online issue of Knowledge@HEC invites you to reflect upon change, and how individuals, firms, institutions, and the broader society deal with it.
Transformation is a difficult challenge for companies. How can the art of storytelling guide companies through transformative change? Researchers Giada Di Stefano and Elena Dalpiaz turn to Italian houseware and kitchen utensil company — and master storyteller — Alessi to understand the narrative practices for successful change.
By Giada Di Stefano
On Thursday 19th January, Alberto Alemanno, Jean Monnet Professor of Law at HEC Paris will be at the Davos World Economic Forum. He will be leading a workshop on leadership and advising members from the Young Global Leaders Community on what the best practices for being a strong leader are. In this article, he identifies the 10 personal qualities that leaders of today may all have but too often lack.
HEC Paris professor Alberto Alemanno says civic movements like ‘Nuit Debout’ are good for democracy but, in order to have their voice truly heard, need a professional leg-up in the form of citizen lobbying. An organization he is involved in and a book he is writing aim to pair up experts with NGOs to help them act as a counterweight to big business lobbying.
Does the progress of management techniques and ideas result primarily from an accumulation of experience and some common sense, or does it also require systematic research?
In her most recent work, Leading with Sense: The Intuitive Power of Savoir-Relier (Stanford University Press), Valérie Gauthier, Professor at HEC Paris and holder of the HEC-Pernod Ricard Leadership Chair, describes how a switch from top-down leadership, with the emphasis on authority, to open leadership based on trust and sense, can revolutionize management modes.
Across the globe, Michael Segalla was surprised to find that business managers trust strangers considerably more than they trust their bosses. Trust levels nonetheless vary significantly according to national culture, as do firing practices, and firm trust increases somewhat with hierarchical rank and age.
By Michael Segalla
