Darden Ideas to Action: Most Read Stories of 2023

Trends and predictions for the world and AI. The importance of careful communication. Groundbreaking research that uses neuroscience to accurately predict human choices. Employee disengagement and what to do about it. The importance of generalists in a tech-driven working world.

Darden Ideas to Action insights draw from faculty expertise, books, research and cases. Here are the most read stories of the past year.

THE ECONOMICS OF AI

Recent years have seen a dramatic shift in the landscape for the economics of AI. Artificial intelligence has made remarkable progress, and this progress has been faster than many expected. At the beginning of 2023, Anton Korinek shared some facts and his expert opinions on the implications of these developments.

HOW CHANGING THE CONNOTATION OF ‘QUIET QUITTING’ CAN BENEFIT THE WORKPLACE

For more than 50 years, organizational scholars have been documenting why employees are disengaged, why they “quit on the job,” and why they actually do quit. Only 32 percent of employees reported feeling engaged with their work in 2022. James R. Detert suggests one way to improve the trend. Call “quiet quitting” what it often is: “calibrated contributing.”

TOO MANY CHOICES: A MODEL TO PREDICT OPEN-ENDED CONSUMER DECISIONS

New research uses neuroscience to examine how humans make decisions and presents a framework — proven to have startling accuracy — to predict what choices we’ll make under what circumstances. Zhihao Zhang discusses the role memory plays, as well as implications of his groundbreaking research for brand awareness and beyond.

DON’T FLY BY THE SEAT OF YOUR PANTS: THE GOOD WAY TO DELIVER BAD NEWS

Communication strategies: Whether an organization is responding to a complaint, communicating about a crisis, or notifying employees about downsizing or a change in policies, individuals need to know how to deliver bad news to internal and external audiences. June West notes that leaders must focus on three goals: Convey the news, gain acceptance and maintain goodwill.

HYPOTHESIS-DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT AND THE GENERALIST SUPERHERO

The world of business has changed, and “tech” has everything to do with nearly every business role. Alex Cowan explains that whether someone is technical or not, hypothesis-driven development helps workers get reliably good outcomes by working in discrete batches of testable ideas.

About the Expert

Alex Cowan

Batten Fellow and General Faculty

Cowan is an expert in digital innovation, agile and lean methodologies, and entrepreneurship. He teaches multiple courses in Darden’s Technology and Operations Management area, as well as the massive open online course specialization “Agile Development” (one of Coursera’s Top 15 specializations) and “Digital Product Management: Modern Fundamentals.”

Author of the book Starting a Tech Business: A Practical Guide for Anyone Creating or Designing Applications or Software, Cowan is also an experienced entrepreneur and intrapreneur who now divides his time between instructing, advising and consulting. He delves into venture design, his systematic approach to developing new products and businesses, on www.alexandercowan.com.

Cowan studied industrial engineering and economics at Stanford University.

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About the Expert

James R. Detert

John L. Colley Professor of Business Administration

An expert on leadership and ethics, Detert’s research focuses on workplace courage, why people do or don’t speak up, and ethical decision-making and behavior. His research and consulting have been conducted across a variety of global high-technology and service-oriented industries, in addition to public sector institutions, including K–12 education.

Detert has received awards for his teaching in MBA and Executive MBA programs, as well as academic best paper awards for his work, which appears in many online and print media outlets. Prior to coming to Darden, he taught at the Johnson School of Management at Cornell University.

BBA, University of Wisconsin; MBA, University of Minnesota; M.A., Ph.D., Harvard University

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About the Expert

Anton Korinek

Professor of Business Administration

An expert in macroeconomics, artificial intelligence, financial stability and international finance, Korinek currently researches the implications of AI for business, the economy and the future of work. His work has been featured in top journals and the mainstream media, including The Economist, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.

In addition to serving as associate professor at both UVA’s Darden School of Business and Department of Economics, Korinek is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Prior to his UVA appointments, he held positions at the University of Maryland as well as Johns Hopkins University, and he was a visiting scholar at Harvard University, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

M.A., University of Vienna; Ph.D., Columbia University

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About the Expert

June West

Marjorie R. Sands Associate Professor of Business Administration

West is an expert on organizational communication, particularly during times of change.

West was instrumental in the 2003 inception of the Darden/Curry Partnership for Leaders in Education (PLE) to strategically combine the most innovative thinking in business and education to provide education leaders with skills necessary for managing schools. West served as the academic director and continues to be active in the PLE’s School Turnaround Specialist Program, now the most established turnaround program in the country.

She is the university faculty liaison to the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia. West also directs a Darden faculty team that teaches in the summer orientation program for the Secretary of Defense Corporate Fellows program that places active-duty military officers in corporations for a one-year fellowship.

West has consulted for many organizations, including the Louisiana Department of Education and Mississippi State University Colleges of Business and Education.

B.S.Ed., The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; M.Ed., Kent State University; Ed.D., Lehigh University

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About the Expert

Zhihao Zhang

Assistant Professor of Business Administration

Drawing from research and experience from both consumer behavior and cognitive neuroscience, Zhang pursues a diverse and interdisciplinary research agenda revolving around consumer decision-making. In particular, he focuses on understanding the cognitive, computational and neuroscientific mechanisms by which memory and knowledge — of brands, products, services or social interactions — shape decisions. He has a keen interest in using neuroscience to inform real-world problems at the intersection of marketing and law.

Zhang’s work has appeared in leading academic journals, including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature Communications, Current Biology and Science Advances. His past research has been covered by major media outlets such as BBC News, the Los Angeles Times, The Hill, The Times of India and China National Radio.

Before joining Darden, Zhang was a postdoctoral scholar at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

B.S., Tsinghua University; M.Phil., Ph.D., Yale University

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