Sky Blog
Artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a general purpose technology (GPT) with the potential to transform industries. As a result, the potential benefits of AI give firms strong reasons to adopt it – but also provides opportunities to exaggerate their …
A notable trend has emerged: outsourcing non-monetary sanctions to firms that enforce penalties internally and more efficiently for employee misconduct. In a new paper, we examine this trend, focusing on the deterrence and policy implications of transforming corporations into self-policing …
In a public meeting Tuesday, a divided Federal Trade Commission voted along party lines to issue a final rule prohibiting non-compete clauses for nearly all U.S. workers. The FTC previously published the proposed ban in January 2023, drawing thousands of …
Plaintiffs bringing retaliation claims under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act do not have to prove their employers’ “retaliatory intent,” only that their whistleblowing activity contributed to their termination, according to a recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. In a unanimous opinion …
While environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives undeniably shape corporate reputations and stakeholder perspectives, a crucial question arises: Does the modern workforce truly value these efforts? At one end of the spectrum, critics argue that employees might prioritize job security, …
Employees at U.S. public corporations have increasingly demanded that their concerns be heard at the very senior levels of management. If current trends continue, boards of directors could also be challenged to accommodate “worker voice” more formally. Rather than being …
Over the past decade, ESG has morphed from a fringe concern into one of the most prominent topics in corporate governance – and a flourishing research area as well.[1] Nevertheless, some notable blindspots remain. Based on a recent survey, …
Codetermination is a system of shared corporate governance between workers and shareholders. While such a system has long been a staple of the European business world, it has been generally ignored by U.S. corporate governance scholars. When it has made …
American workers are more productive than ever, but they take home the same pay they did 40 years ago. While firms have enjoyed blockbuster profits—and the U.S. gross domestic product has tripled—most American households have not shared in this increasing …
Hedge fund activism is a topic on which most law professors have closed their minds. They learned in student days that activist hedge funds are excellent agents of change that efficiently discipline managements at targeted firms and increase shareholder wealth. …
The most vital and deeply practical argument for more broadly understanding corporate purpose comes from the management literature and the data on how to motivate people in organizations. Put simply, people in organizations do not work as hard or come …
Companies will not survive Covid-19 unless they communicate with their stakeholders. As the world around them transforms, corporate leaders must welcome input from those on the front lines of corporate activity – primarily employees and consumers, but also local communities, …
In a recent paper, we use new and proprietary micro-data from company-ratings site Glassdoor for the period between 2008 and 2016 to investigate changes in employees’ perception of firms and managers during periods of financial misconduct and after the public …
In corporate law, the U.S. academic elite stubbornly clings to shareholder primacy as the foundational principle of the field. The concept is simple, even elegant: Shareholders should be given ultimate control of the corporation because they are entitled to the …
Equity compensation is a beneficial tool when it motivates employees to engage more intensely in performance-enhancing activities. One negative consequence of equity compensation, however, is that it provides incentives to manage earnings (i.e., to strategically present financial reports or structure …
How will artificial intelligence (AI) influence the workplace of the future and thereby the human working condition? The focus of this discussion has been on the rather tautological conclusion that many current jobs will eventually be performed by machines. In …
Gig workers, who are hired to complete a project, or “gig,” constitute a significant portion of the workforce. The McKinsey Global Institute states that gig workers make up between 20 and 30 percent of all workers in the U.S. and …
The fluidity of labor markets depends on the ease with which one side of the market can fulfill the needs of the other: whether workers can find employment that suits their skills and firms can find adequate substitutes for workers …
There is a longstanding and growing public debate about the costs and benefits of automation. Earlier this year, Bill Gates argued that robots who take human jobs should pay taxes. Mark Zuckerberg recently warned the graduating class at Harvard University …
Time and time again, experience has shown how important it is, to business and society, for individuals to speak up when they encounter problems or wrongdoing in the workplace. The scandal at WorldCom broke only after employees publicly blew the …