The nonprofit Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI), a global leader in lean thinking and practice, announced the appointment of Peter Ward, a professor at Fisher College of Business who has developed graduate-level programs in lean management, as its chairman.

Research prowess by members of Fisher’s Department of Marketing and Logistics recently garnered national recognition from the American Marketing Association (AMA) and affiliated groups. Individual papers and cumulative work by Rebecca Walker Reczek and Greg Allenby were honored for advancing the field of marketing.

Our business environment is becoming much more complicated as a result of the connected global economy. In thinking about the road ahead in 2020, The Risk Institute has focused on what it believes to be the top five risks facing organizations.

As the popularity of Bitcoin, XRP and Ethereum rise, scammers may take advantage of investors looking to buy, sell and "mine" cryptocurrencies. One problem is market manipulation. Large holders of a cryptocurrency, called “whales,” can bid up the price of, say, Bitcoin, drawing in new investors eager to get in on the action. As the currency rises, the whales take their profits and leave new investors with losses, according to University of Texas professor John Griffin and Fisher's Amin Shams.

A new bill introduced in Ohio would strengthen Ohio's laws regarding the use of wireless devices, including smartphones, while driving. The Hands-Free Ohio bill, which was drafted based, in part, on research from The Risk Institute, would, with limited exceptions, make driving while handling any electronic wireless device a primary offense. 

As part of the “There’s a Better Way” podcast, Aravind Chandrasekaran, associate director of the Center for Operational Excellence, talks with Dr. David Cohn, physician and chief medical officer at The James Cancer Center at The Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, about best practices involved with designing, sustainable empathetical care. Cohn further explains how enrollment in Fisher's Executive MBA program is helping him understand how to build effective healthcare strategies.

Two and a half years since Walmart began testing Jet black, its white-glove concierge shopping service dubbed, the retail giant said it will end the service. Fisher's Annibal Sodero says data sets gleaned from a Jet black venture would be rich for a retailer like Walmart.

According to the National Center for the Middle Market, hackers cost the global economy a staggering $350 billion each year. Three areas of focus can provide companies with a layered defense and help contribute to a strong cybersecurity strategy for a business.

Because of globalization, many Ohio companies rely on China, either for products or sales. If the Chinese economy is impaired long enough, Ohio’s economy could suffer too said Oded Shenkar, a global business management professor and expert on China at Fisher.

As part of the “There’s a Better Way” podcast, Aravind Chandrasekaran, associate director of the Center for Operational Excellence, talks with former Ohio State and NFL football player, and recent MBOE graduate. Doss discusses his journey through sports, family, and education and places an emphasis on the importance of not only pressing on towards personal goals, but pushing others to pursue theirs as well.

How assertive should you be? Research by Fisher's Jasmine Hu showed that informal leaders were more liked and respected when they had “a moderate amount of assertiveness and warmth.”

Annibal Sodero, an assistant professor of marketing, says different strategies among the top e-commerce companies explains why a few of them seem to be gaining on Amazon, the industry leader.

The proliferation of Offices of Patient Experience at some of the nation’s top facilities and leading healthcare networks is designed to improve delivery of care and patient outcomes. But do these offices actually improve patient experience? Are there certain conditions that make these offices more important in some hospital settings, and less so in others? Research by Fisher's Elliot Bendoly, Aravind Chandrasekaran and a colleague provide some answers.

Follow these steps to run today’s businesses better while preparing for a changed tomorrow, says Thomas A. Stewart, executive director of the National Center for the Middle Market.

As part of the “There’s a Better Way” podcast, Aravind Chandrasekaran, associate director of the Center for Operational Excellence, talks with Dr. Bernadette Melnyk, vice president for health promotion, university chief wellness officer, and professor and dean of the College of Nursing at The Ohio State University, to discuss prioritizing health and wellness within an organization. 

Tanya Menon urges us in her TED Talk to change our “habitual daily footpath,” which exposes us to the same daily physical environments, people and ideas.” A loss of efficiency and convenience will likely mean a gain of diversity. “A simple change in planning, a huge difference in the traffic of people and the accidental bumps in the [social] network,” she explains.

How can we truly maximize relaxation and not feel the need to be in a busy mindset? Selin Malkoc discusses hobbies and strategies to get the most out of leisure time.

Research by Fisher's Kate Keeler and her colleagues reveals the best types of music to listen to at work, and why the task at hand matters.

Preparation is the key to getting any business or community back on track after a natural disaster, and when it comes to hurricane preparation, the old adage that “failing to prepare is preparing to fail” rings very true. The Risk Institute encourages businesses to study a particular event –

Not all free time is the same. An hour seems shorter when you have another task looming and has important implications for getting things done, according to research by Fisher's Selin Malkoc and her colleagues.

The correlation between CEO turnover and gross domestic product is robust, and research from Assistant Professor of Finance Jack Liebersohn and his colleague, Heidi Packard, of the University of Michigan, demonstrates the relationship.

For many employers, taking on a leadership role in workforce development will require changes to prior practice. A recent report from The Brookings Institution and The National Center for the Middle Market helps to illustrate the types of changes that employers should consider.

As part of the “There’s a Better Way” podcast, Elliot Bendoly, distinguished professor of management sciences at Fisher, sits down to harmonize the tension between structured and creative approaches to give managers a framework for high-performance problem solving.

Selin A. Malkoc, a marketing professor at Fisher who studies how leisure can contribute to our overall happiness, says the problem with finding a hobby is compounded when so many of us “do yoga because we want to be a yoga master.” Instead, Malkoc says, it’s perfectly fine to do it just because we want to relax.

The U.S. government has begun recognizing just how much power big tech companies have quietly amassed. “The law has not yet caught up with big data analytics and so mere compliance with the law is not sufficient to protect people in the big data era,” says Dennis Hirsch, a fellow at The Risk Institute. “Data ethics is about going beyond what the law requires in order to mitigate risks to individuals, and so to the company itself."