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Is America Inc getting less dynamic, less global and more monopolistic?

We test three prevailing hypotheses about American business Concerns about the health of American business are many and varied. Chief executives are chastised for their apparent short-termism. Their companies are berated for fetishising shareholders over everyone and everything else. Elon Musk, boss of Tesla, a maker of electric cars, grumbles about a surfeit of business-school…

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Return as a muscle: How lessons from COVID-19 can shape a robust operating model for hybrid and beyond

New research shows how resilient organizations thrived through the pandemic. Here’s how to use those lessons to craft a better approach to how work gets done across time (real and asynchronous) and space (digital and physical). In May 2020, we published an article arguing that the return to the workplace was a new muscle that organizations…

Harvard Business Review

To Handle Increased Stress, Build Your Resilience

Wherever you live or work, stress is on the rise. According to the International Labour Organization, workers in developed and developing countries are facing increasing strain at work. The onslaught of mounting stressors include global challenges, such as climate change, terrorism, and political turmoil – as well as personal and professional challenges, such as illnesses, job changes,…

Harvard Business Review

The Challenge of Rebuilding U.S. Domestic Supply Chains

Summery: Massachusetts-based Shawmut scrambled to expand production to meet the soaring demand for N95 masks and hospital gowns during the pandemic. Its experiences illustrates a crucial point that policymakers should take to heart: Once a country loses its industrial commons points — the capabilities needed to support the development and production of many goods —…

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Global supply chains are still a source of strength, not weakness

Resilience comes not from autarky but from diverse sources of supply For the best part of a week, the Suez canal was blocked by a 200,000-tonne metaphor. The Ever Given is not just one of the world’s biggest container ships, it is also the emblem of a backlash that accuses globalisation of going too far….

How Toyota thrives when the chips are down

How Toyota thrives when the chips are down

(Reuters) – Toyota may have pioneered the just-in-time manufacturing strategy but when it comes to chips, its decision to stockpile what have become key components in cars goes back a decade to the Fukushima disaster. After the catastrophe severed Toyota’s supply chains on March 11, 2011, the world’s biggest automaker realised the lead-time for semiconductors…