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How Organic Wine Finally Caught On

Harvard Business Review

Since the advent of agricultural chemicals in the nineteenth century, a variety of people have warned of risks to public health and the environment, but these people largely struggled to attract an audience until the late 1960s, when organic farming, natural food stores and organic food start-ups started to gain traction. Early Struggles.

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The Time to Think About the 3D-Printed Future Is Now

Harvard Business Review

Since I prepared that article, new developments have only strengthened the case for a 3-D future – and heightened the urgency for management teams to adjust their strategies. Many of the new developments have to do with broadening the science underpinning additive manufacturing. Another promising development is multi-jet fusion.

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Innovation Should Be a Top Priority for Boards. So Why Isn’t It?

Harvard Business Review

Only 13% of directors in the energy and utilities industry consider innovation to be a major strategic challenge, but the swift growth of renewable energy companies and such developments as the use of drones for monitoring oil and gas production suggest that no industry is impervious to the forces of innovation.

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Can Index Funds Be a Force for Sustainable Capitalism?

Harvard Business Review

Just look at Uber to understand the importance of diversity and product safety or at car manufacturers scrambling to develop a competitive advantage in electric cars as countries seek to decarbonize their economics and fight pollution. In both cases, social and environmental metrics matter for the business’s financial success.

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We Need to Ask How We Can Make Economic Growth More Inclusive

Harvard Business Review

That is, they do for creative problem-solving what catalysts do in chemical processes: they dissolve barriers and accelerate progress down more productive pathways. ” A top prizewinner for 2016 was a company not too far from MIT geographically — but in an industry that seems 100 years distant.

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The Political Issues Board Directors Care Most About

Harvard Business Review

With the 2016 U.S. However, outside North America they tend to be more optimistic about emerging economies: 36% of directors in Asia, 24% of directors in Australia and New Zealand, and 23% of directors in Africa predict faster growth in emerging economies than in developed countries in the next three years.

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Growth Needs to Come from the Entire Company

Harvard Business Review

Its goals are extremely ambitious; it is not just a pioneer in developing new fabrics for active wear, but in developing wearable electronics. Starbucks, for example, has a strong presence because CEO Howard Schultz, deliberately developed a growth plan grounded in its capabilities. In April 2016, it filed for bankruptcy.