Private Innovation in the Public Interest

Jaksot

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  122: Tom Lyon. We’re going backwards on corporate environmentalism 17.09.2026 25min

  Professor Tom Lyon has been studying corporate environmentalism for decades, and he thinks that, unambiguously, we’re going backwards.   The blast of greenwashing over the past five to seven years was the result of the tremendous incentives and pressures on companies to respond to ESG investing.  Now that the world has awakened to the fact that very few companies are pure-play environmentalism, what’s now vividly clear is that we need better regulations and public policy to resolve marketfailures in pollution, R&D, and experimentation.   The biggest issue is that the barriers to accomplishing this require political reform particularly in the US, particularly around the role of money in elections and lobbying.  
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  121: Michelle Rogan. Are you perceived by your employer as “up to no good” if you take on social-impact work? 10.09.2026 29min

  Professor Michelle Rogan is a pioneer in research on social networks, social impact, and innovation.  In a highly cited paper, she and her co-authors report that companies may more readily retain employees by offering them social-impact project opportunities.  Yet her most recent work with the same collaborators shows that employers may see men who take on social-impact projects as a poor fit for promotion.   In this insightful conversation, Michelle reflects with Anita on how social-impact projects in companies are changing, how networks are changing, and the implications for what we work on together.
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  120: Michael Pirson. How can business and tech get support human dignity and flourishing. 03.09.2026 27min

  Professor Michael Pirson is interested in elevating our sights toward a humanism in management that focuses on enactingancient wisdom in our work with each other.   Why don’t we elevate the intrinsic value of what we create through oursocial systems, communities, services, exchange, and connection with each other.  Let’s tell better stories andcultivate authentic conversations.  Let’s get out of our doom loops and get past limiting our liabilities and stop focusing on domination and exploitation in economic exchange.   You want inspiration?  Michael Pirson has it for you in buckets.
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  119: Valentina Assenova. Silicon Valley can learn from the rest of the world about human actualization 27.08.2026 29min

  ProfessorValentina Assenova studies entrepreneurship at two levels.  First, she looks at what incubators and accelerators do to support aspiring leaders – all the way from Soweto in South Africa to Silicon Valley.    In this line of work, what she finds isthat developing human potential through exposure to business practices and through the cultivation of funding relationships can make a big difference to startup success across the board, although the nature of that development must reflect the needs of those who enroll.   Second, she examines how the formality of institutions reflects acountry’s overall system for achieving internationally competitive economic activity.   In this line, the findingssupport the idea that every country has its own cultural, social, and economic strengths that can serve as the basis of prosperity.  
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  118: Zeke Hernandez. Immigration is good for economic prosperity – but it can take two or three generations to come fully to fruition 20.08.2026 24min

  Professor Zeke Hernandez was born in Uruguay and then lived in Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Argentina before returning to his home country, only to immigrate again – this time to the United States.    Now a Professor at Wharton, heis an internationally renowned expert on the economic impact of immigration.   His award-winning 2024 book pulls together a lifetime of experience and scholarly study showing thatimmigration creates extraordinary benefits for receiving countries, the largest of which is the United States.    Many ofthe benefits are immediate, but the biggest impact unfolds over a few generations.   Concerned about braindrain, diaspora, social adjustment, and job loss?   Listen to this conversation and your worries will be assuaged.
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  117: Vikram Bhargava. New technologies like AI that change how we relate to each other also change our ethics 13.08.2026 34min

  Professor Vikram Bhargava studies business ethics and technology.  His groundbreaking work on technology addiction, hiring algorithms, autonomous vehicles, social media, and AI has changed the way we think about ourresponsibilities to each other and to ourselves.  In this wide-ranging conversation with Anita, Vik describes some of the paradoxes and challenges that we face as technology advances to eliminate previously acceptable risks; to expose gaps in old beliefs; and to raise entirely new questions about justice and the legitimacy of social outrage.
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  116: Sekou Bermiss. Political ideology and diversity influence firm performance in unexpected and subtle ways 06.08.2026 27min

  Professor Sekou Bermiss studies how “strategic human capital” gets deployed in organizations through socialinteractions that have consequences for the organization’s performance.  This means that, if you look at skilledworkers with roughly the same capabilities, what may matter most to their impact on organizational outcomes is the ways in which ideology and diversity shape the social interactions through which those skills are deployed.   If you don’t agree politically, or if there is diversity in identity, then you may get outcomes that are surprisingly different across two equally skilled people.   
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  115: Christos Pitelis. Entrepreneurship in the “praxis” is our chance for global sustainable value creation 30.07.2026 36min

  Professor Christos Pitelis of the University of Southampton and the University of Cambridge is a legendary theorist who,among other things, is the literary executor of the estate of Edith Penrose.  In this talk, he describes the long arc of his interests in how political economy – in the sense of Schumpeterian innovation – drives global sustainable value creation.   He talks with Anita about what truly constitutes the public good and how are systems need to support the alignment among stakeholders of private returns toward the achievement of public value.   One implication: governments and corporations co-create value in complicated ways that we can understand better.
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  114: Wesley Koo. Platforms can be confusing and scary 23.07.2026 27min

  Professor Wesley Koo of Johns Hopkins started his career as an engineer and tech entrepreneur interested in how platforms shape environmental outcomes.   Since studying at Stanford, he turned to the impact of platforms on rural retailers and on vulnerable domestic workers.  In this fascinating conversation, Wes and Anita talk about the instability that ranking algorithms create for rural vendors in China who do not have the knowledge or networks to respond effectively.  Sadly, Wes has also found that domestic workers will de-register themselves from platforms for rating their employers.  Despite the problems, Wes is truly optimistic that tech platforms can improve lives.   Please listen to learn why.
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  113: Audra Wormald. How David overshadowed Goliath to create a new way of banking in low-income settings 16.07.2026 24min

  Professor Audra Wormald of the University of North Carolina’s Keenan-Flagler Business School left a promising career in intellectual-property analysis and consulting to study innovation in the business of banking.  She wrote her PhD thesis on the ways in which local companies in developing markets were more effective than multinational banks in serving low-income customers, particularly in Tanzania.   In this conversation with Anita, Audra discusses how entrepreneurs in low-income settings respond with resilience and insight to the opportunities before them.  This is about more than only economics.  It’s about the psychological benefits to the entrepreneur of self-efficacy.A
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  112: Rachelle Sampson. How can executives overcome short-term pressures to invest for the long term? 09.07.2026 28min

  Professor Rachelle Sampson has long studied the challenges that executives face to increase short-term earnings by cutting investments with longer-term investments.   After decades of research on technology adoption, alliances, corporate social responsibility, and ESG investing, Rachelle is now thinking as well about the effects of personal consciousness-raising on executive decision-making.  In this thoughtful conversation, she draws a straight line between short-term pressures, survival instincts, investment incentives, and the conscious ways in which executives can escape their fight-or-flight instincts to make better decisions for the long run.
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  111: Shaz Ansari. Don’t surrender your cognition to AI 02.07.2026 23min

  Professor Shaz Ansari of the Judge Business School at Cambridge University is renowned for his work on institutional logics, cultural frames, and the effects of ArtificialIntelligence on how we think about what’s important.  In this conversation with Anita, he explains how the logics that reflect our identities both shape and are shaped by newframes.   Shaz ties everything together by describing how AI challenges us by resting on historical understandingsrather than new ways of thinking.  It’s never been more important to avoid cognitive surrender.   Think critically!
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  110: Brent Goldfarb. Great scientists think big, think long-term, and have integrity 25.06.2026 30min

  Professor Brent Goldfarb studies big ideas, arguing that short-term investor pressures can cause firms to innovate less than they might otherwise.   Brent also studies how well-intentioned corporate innovators may pull the plug on their work once they achieve results that are good enough to pass muster – even when breakthroughs are just around the corner.  With training in both economics and computerscience, he brings a long view – an historian’s sensibility – to trajectories of scientific commercialization through corporate action.   Despite all the challenges, Brent remains excited and optimistic that science can deliver the insights we need forprosperity in the face of AI.
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  109: Adam Clark. Authentic organizational commitment is a long game with a big payoff 18.06.2026 28min

  Professor Adam Clark of Chapman University is studying something that is notoriously difficult to assess:  the authenticity of an organization’s commitment.  In this powerful conversation, he talks with Anita about whether and how an organization’s authenticity may evolve over time.  Thestakes are high, with firm survival turning on getting authenticity right.
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  108: Herman Aguinis. Know your tools. And use them for impact 11.06.2026 29min

  Professor Herman Aguinis is a pre-eminent scholar, educator, and leader in the field of Management.  With more citations, accolades, and leadership responsibilities than just about anyone else in our field, Herman remains lighthearted, optimistic, and incredibly productive.    In this engaging talk, he characterizes research methodologies as tools that must be mastered to achieve the impact to which we all aspire.
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  107: Felipe Csaszar. Just as computers replaced human elevator operators, AI may replace Strategy executives 04.06.2026 24min

  Professor Felipe Csaszar of the University of Michigan is an eminent scholar with extensive publications on managerialcognition, organizational decision-making, and the ways in which AI is reshaping the process of strategizing.  In this conversation, he explains how the hard-core analytical work of strategizing may be much more effectively done by AI than by human analysts.   Yet in the end, this will be a balancing act in which human prosperity stays squarely in our sights as thecentral goal of strategizing.
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  106: Aparajita Agarwal. The local agents delivering mobile money in low-income communities aren’t in it to maximize their incomes 28.05.2026 28min

  Professor Aparajita Agarwal of INSEAD was a successful executive in consulting and digital tech firm when she decided to step away from her top-flight career and enter into a PhD program in Strategy.  Fast forward fifteen years, and her research now shows how large firms – like those she once advised – cannot succeed by taking for granted that high-powered financial incentives will motivate local agents to deliver profitable banking products in low-incomecommunities.   It turns out that, like Aparajita herself, money is not the main motivator for the work that these agents do.
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  105: Hyunjin Kim. Sure, AI is widely available, but organizations vary a lot in their capabilities for using it 21.05.2026 30min

  Professor Hyunjin Kim is at the frontier on understanding how organizations – and particularly entrepreneurial companies – build the capabilities to use AI to improve their performance.   Her research demonstrates that, at this early stage, there’s a great deal of variation even in AI uptake to improve workflows.  But what really excites her is how organizations can be designed from scratch to use AI in entirely unprecedented ways.  
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  104: Mabel Abraham. Let’s talk about how inequality gets produced inadvertently by unbiased people 14.05.2026 27min

  Professor Mabel Abraham has built her career around understanding how inequality in employment practices getsproduced by people who want to do the right thing but end up with biased outcomes.   Mabel has studied how biasesemerge unintentionally through interactions between individuals, such as evaluators and job candidates; within triads, such as through referrals; and within networks and systems.    What tends to work depends a great deal on the historical experiences of the people involved, and on the micro-structure of decision processes.   If you want to learn more about what it takes to rout out bias, this episode gives you insight into this eminent scholar’s research findings.
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  103: Chris Yenkey. You cooperate as a driver in profoundly complex ways, yet if you sometimes speed, you’re engaging episodically in corruption. 07.05.2026 30min

  Professor Chris Yenkey studies corruption, political violence, misconduct, and bribery.  In this impassioned conversation with Anita, he gives us deep insight into what constitutes corruption, and how it gets produced by people who want things that are important to them.   Chris describes how this problem is changing on a macro level, and what it’s going to take to address corruption at scale.   In the end, he finds optimism inthe ways in which we cooperate every day on the streets.