All Briefs

At the outset of 2017, many economists were concerned by the possibility that tighter labor markets would act to slow employment growth. Perhaps labor shortages will trigger the next recession as firms will cut back production in reaction to rising costs. Right now though the LEI is still signaling good economic times ahead. A long period of frustration with talent shortages and rising labor costs would likely be required for labor alone to be the next black swan.

Socially responsible investors have become a bigger part of a company’s ownership. Large funds, such as Vanguard, BlackRock, pension funds and others are exerting their influence for better ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) performance. Various nonprofits are also flexing their muscles. Will the increased scrutiny lead to more proposals on charitable contributions?

Two-thirds of the CMOs polled in the 2017 Marketing Performance Management Benchmark study said the pressure to measure value, impact, and contribution is growing. Enterprise marketers plan to ramp up their spending on analytics technology a stunning 83 percent over the next three years, according to the latest CMO Survey out of Duke University.

When I explain to people what I do for work, they are often surprised and caught off guard. You would assume that my work isn’t great “party conversation,” but I find that people like to talk about human rights and protecting childhood. As the director of private sector engagement for ECPAT-USA, I work with companies to understand how human traffickers (with a focus on child sex traffickers) may use their infrastructure to exploit people.

Despite the rise of corporate sustainability, few CEOs discuss these initiatives with shareholders. But that is changing. Companies and shareholders are beginning to use the term Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) to represent the more focused area of the overlap between financials and environmental/social issues, resulting in risk mitigation.

The moment when a sequence of small incidents and changes triggers a larger, more significant change is usually called a tipping point. In the triangular relationship between social media platforms, their users, and advertisers, it feels like we are experiencing that tipping point.

Without a sustainable revenue model to support a compelling mission, nonprofits’ funding will dry out. Sadly, many nonprofits today face this dilemma. Gina Gibney, artistic director and CEO of Gibney Dance, based in Lower Manhattan, has a story that has a number of valuable lessons for foundations and the nonprofits in which they invest.

The Conference Board China Center has been tracking US-China trade relations very carefully over the past 18 months, and we recommend that our members review several key pieces that we sent out previously which anticipated the events now transpiring and outlined a range of important planning assumptions for MNCs.

This blog describes some of the trends and recent developments that may impact the prevalence of nontraditional workers in the future. Most trends point to a growing share of nontraditional workers, but some developments are likely to have a negative impact. Even when the direction of the impact is clear, there is a lot of uncertainty about the magnitude of the impact.

In today’s remote business world, video conference calls and internal business Skype networks have become as common as landline phones in American corporate offices. But, does having such technology mean corporate management and boards should replace in-person annual shareholder meetings with virtual ones? Or should hybrid (in-person/virtual) meetings be adopted?