Innholdsfortegnelse for November/December 2025 i The European Business Review

Q It's great to have you with us today, Siobhan! To start, the Oxford Executive MBA has been ranked best in the world by Quacquarelli Symonds for two consecutive years now. From your perspective as the Programme Director, what makes it consistently stand out in such a competitive global field? A Thank you, it's a privilege to be here. The Oxford Executive MBA stands out for its unique combination of people, place, and perspective. Oxford draws an international audience, and our participants are no exception. They come from across the globe, eager to learn from one another, motivated either by the demands of their careers for a truly global outlook or by a personal desire to broaden their perspectives. Our UK location and modular format also make it easy for…

AUTHOR Much of the early debate on artificial intelligence, and GenAI in particular, has borrowed from familiar strategy playbooks, contrasting efficiency against differentiation, automation against augmentation, disruption against continuous improvements. These frameworks, useful in their time, tend to flatten organizational reality into binary trade-offs. They capture broad patterns but leave out the subtleties of how AI actually reshapes firms, workforces, and societies. In reality, AI is not a flat choice between cutting costs or market expansion. It unfolds across nine distinct strategic pathways, defined not just by growth potential, whether Low, Medium, or High, and by employment impact, whether jobs are Killed, Preserved, or Created, but also by a foundational axis that has long remained implicit: integrity alignment. Integrity itself spans three states: it can be Damaged, when dignity, autonomy,…

AUTHOR Today's businesses have numerous organisational priorities. They need to protect sensitive information and manage the liability of keeping data in a complex and dynamic environment. How organisations approach this issue poses challenges and opportunities across their entire digital risk spectrum, mostly as they need to ensure continuous operations and increase finance, while managing their human capital. Poor data quality costs the US economy approximately $3.1 trillion per year (Petrov, 2022), while one in four employees believes that they can use a personal cloud server to transfer work from home. Cyber-scams increased during the pandemic by 400 per cent (Petrov, 2022), resulting in software platforms pulling from sales and marketing activities (Harper, 2021), and leading to a recovery cost of $1,000 per backup tape (www.ironmountain.com). Furthermore, research indicates that the…

AUTHORS We spend hours in them. We complain about them. We book them out of habit. But when we ask many teams what a particular meeting is for, we'll often get a shrug. So many meetings I sit in start the same way: someone quietly flicks through the calendar, and then asks the question, “Do I really need to be in this one?” And that's the trap. We've forgotten that meetings aren't calendar furniture or corporate theatre; they're the modern echo of humanity's most successful survival strategy. For millions of years, our species thrived because we could do something our competitors couldn't: while chimpanzees relied on brute force and basic tools, humans won through superior social organisation. The ability to mobilise resources – to align, decide, and act together –…

AUTHOR Dr. Dolan has an impressive global teaching background, having taught at elite business schools such as Boston University, McGill University, and ESSEC. His prolific output includes over 88 books and more than 150 peer-reviewed articles, showcasing his dedication to advancing knowledge in his field. Honored with a Doctorate Honoris Causa from Huelva University (2024) and the Golden Medal from the Spanish Association of Health and Safety at Work (2025), Dr. Dolan is a thought leader whose innovations, such as The Stress Map and the digital tool www.stress2resilience.com, are making a significant impact in organizational well-being. Explore more about his remarkable journey and contributions at www.simondolan.com or www.learningaboutvalues.com. CHALLENGE 1: Resolving the paradox of better working conditions and the rise of mental health issues Navigating the paradox of our time,…

AUTHORS “O pportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” Thomas Edison's words resonate stronger than ever today as businesses face growing uncertainty around the future of sustainability regulation in Europe. Yet within the complexity lies opportunity for those willing to engage with regulation as a catalyst rather than as a constraint. Over the past five years, the EU has set a global benchmark with the EU Taxonomy, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), and the proposed Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). The direction was clear: mandate detailed sustainability data disclosure to drive transparency, improve risk-management, and steer businesses towards sustainable, resilient models. But even as rules shift, one signal remains clear: sustainability is becoming a long-term driver of performance and…

AUTHOR In today's challenging times for supply chains, leadership plays a crucial role in successful supply chain management. Supply chain leaders need to develop some key characteristics which are aligned to the current context of the advancement of supply chain 4.0 and 5.0, constant disruptions from wars, the imposition of tariffs, climate disasters, and the demand for global sustainability. This article presents six main characteristics that should be pursued by today's supply chain leaders to overcome these contextual challenges for supply chains. Here, we refer to this six-dimensional leadership framework for supply chains as the SARPIC Supply Chain 5.0 Leadership Model: Strategic, Analytical, Resilient, Perseverant, Integrator, and Comprehensive. Even with the challenging obstacles facing today's supply chains, strong leaders must keep their focus on the strategic goals and be capable…

We sometimes hear theory and practice spoken of as two separate aspects of business education, connected but distinct. Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Antai College of Economics and Management has adopted an arguably bolder perspective, one that builds the links between theory and practice into the fabric of its business training. Q Thank you for taking the time to speak with us, Mr Fangruo! Antai College has become one of China's top-ranked business schools. What are the key strategies and milestones that have driven its development in recent years? A Indeed, Antai College is widely regarded as a top business school in China, but we have not slowed down our pace for innovation and development. In 2018, we redefined our strategy, to focus on strengthening the connection between theory and practice.…

AUTHORS Attachment Theory in the Workplace Attachment is defined as the human propensity to seek out and develop close affectional bonds with others. Attachment theory, originally developed to explain interpersonal relationships, offers a valuable lens for understanding these dynamics. This framework posits that individuals’ attachment styles—secure, anxious, or avoidant—shape how they respond to perceived support or threat in relationships, including those mediated by technology. This article examines how AI-based monitoring systems interact with employees’ attachment styles, influencing their sense of trust, autonomy, and well-being. It proposes a psychologically informed approach to designing AI systems and provides actionable recommendations for fostering workplace environments that prioritise human needs alongside organisational goals. Attachment theory suggests that individuals develop internal models of relationships based on early experiences with caregivers, which influence their interactions in…

AUTHORS Lenin allegedly once said, “There are decades when nothing happens and there are weeks when decades happen.” Whether or not he really said this, the quote seems to be an apt description of the use of cryptos in businesses. Many businesses have, to date, shied away from introducing such technology into their operations. One development is an increasing number of companies hoarding bitcoins to bolster their valuation. However, this may hardly be a corporate strategy that the wider industry can adopt. A more robust corporate adoption of cryptocurrencies that has shown promise in the long run is to utilise stablecoins as a transformative force in corporate treasury operations. This is not entirely surprising, given that stablecoins enable corporate treasurers to address longstanding issues with traditional fiat-based payment methods. The…

AUTHORS There were many consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, but one of the most lasting is the working-from-home phenomenon. We had to do everything online: hiring and firing, teaching and decision making, even partying. Further, some of the most sensitive and personal conversations, like that between therapist and client, coach and coachee, now had to be “virtual”. Digitally mediated living changes the orienting anchors around which everyday realities are built. Public and private lives are less defined and contained by limitations of the time and space when activities are with people who don't inhabit our physical location. In this article, we share some of the things experts think about in supporting the development of safe, trusting relationships where each party is able to take “relational risks”. We look at some…

AUTHOR Cross-cultural negotiations hinge more on differing views of time, communication, and trust than on strategy. Here, Bhaskar Pant compares and contrasts high-context, relationship-driven cultures with those that are low-context and outcome-driven, and considers how to approach negotiations that aim to span the divide between them. I've spent my career working and negotiating across cultures—in media and now in education—and I've learned that timelines don't carry the same weight in every room. Today's trade negotiations show it clearly: one side pushes hard deadlines and penalties, while the other waits for trust to form. I first learned that lesson decades ago. When I was the president of Turner Broadcasting in South Asia in the 1990s, the company scheduled talks for a partnership that would bring CNN's international coverage and domestic news…

AUTHORS The jewelry industry The global jewelry industry, valued at 300 billion dollars and with an estimated growth rate of 4 percent annually until 2030, is heavily dependent on non-renewable resources. The rising demand for jewelry has raised concerns over the environmental and social impacts of the industry beyond the on-material sourcing, to incorporate carbon emissions and labor exploitation. Increasing pressures to adopt sustainable practices (Lin & Sai, 2023) and the principles of sustainable fashion emphasize the importance of reducing the environmental and social impacts of the jewelry industry by facilitating circularity in business models. The adoption of circularity in the jewelry industry offers three benefits. First, it enhances economic value through securing raw material supply, reducing cost, innovation, and minimizing waste (Faccioli et al., 2023). Second, enhanced economic value…

AUTHORS Much current “analysis” of AI's impact is mainly armchair thinking, trying to divine the future by extrapolating speculative assertions about evolving technological capabilities – what the economic historian Robert Gordon has called the musings of “techno-optimists.”1 But we don't need to think about AI in these abstract terms. Truly impactful technologies like electricity, Wi-Fi, or GPS are ones that we don't see anymore, because they are embedded in workflows and tasks, and this is happening with AI in places you might least expect – e.g., dentistry where, in just a few years, AI has progressed from research prototypes and clinical pilots to FDA-cleared tools embedded in daily patient care. This article examines the dental industry as an instructive case study for AI-driven change and the strategic lessons for other…

AUTHOR In the frenzy of all things digital, many companies behave like children in a high-tech candy store: fascinated, impulsive, and utterly disoriented. Everyone wants their own internal ChatGPT to link clients, operations, contracts, meeting notes, and procedures. They want it now, because someone, somewhere, declared that failing to digitalise is a death sentence. But few stop to ask the right question: on what structure will this intelligence operate? Recently, during a meeting with a major public institution, that question became unavoidable. The enthusiasm around implementing an AI-powered knowledge system was real. But the moment someone asked, “Who will have access to what?”, the conversation stalled. Algorithms faded into the background. The room shifted to concerns over access levels, data silos, accountability, and the risk of exposing sensitive information. Technology…

AUTHORS Introduction Lee Iacocca was admired and trusted by people, as he saved the Chrysler Corporation from seemingly insurmountable challenges. Like many corporate leaders, Iacocca was an engineer by trade and a leader at heart. In 1994, one year after he retired from the chairmanship of Chrysler, it was revealed that he was the first choice in a poll of the five most admired leaders. Bill Gates was ranked second. As a veteran of the automotive industry, Iacocca is the leader that saved Chrysler from bankruptcy. Fired once in his career by Henry Ford, Iacocca made a remarkable comeback. Iacocca's leadership story at Chrysler Corporation can provide very important and critical lessons for CEOs across the globe. Something Has to Change On November 2, 1978, the Detroit Free Press ran…

AUTHOR Business people often have to give lots of talks and interviews. They may have to address the shareholders’ meeting and the annual conference. They have to talk to their department regularly and may have to attend and talk at many conferences. Some do podcasts to their staff on a regular basis. The talented and confident ones do TED talks. Hence the popularity of presentation skills courses. Further, being an “inspirational speaker” may generate a very lucrative income. Corporate conferences in exotic locations, afterdinner yarns with famous people present, and high-powered international groups – all want lively speakers. At minimally £10k a talk, plus expenses, it can be a very nice little earner. Top speakers can command over £100k for a simple talk, some five times that. It is the…

AUTHOR In today's globalized, capitalized, and digitalized world, there is a distinct need for better management skills, strategies, and techniques. There is a novel field of study in the applied sciences that entails the strategic planning, implementation, management and assessment of such policies, namely strategic management. Definition: Strategic management (SM) can be defined as formulating, defining, planning, implementing, evaluating, and tracking the progress of the set objectives (David, 2001). In this respect, we have to bear in mind that all the interrelated processes should be involved, such as marketing, branding, finances, research and recruitment so that to optimize successful operations. Here, it is highly important to note that all the current trends in the market should be taken into account to ensure supply and demand optimization. SM consists of the…

Global trade and logistical connectivity Ms. Xu has run a jewelry packaging business in Yiwu for many years. She has witnessed the city's rapid growth and constant renewal due to its premier status as the top global center for small merchandise. To her, Yiwu's central market and commercial ecosystem undergird its economic prosperity and trade resilience. Ms. Luo, who manages a coffee equipment shop, relies on her personal network for market information while working closely with factories and suppliers to meet fast-changing customer demands in a competitive market environment. During China's recent National Day holiday in early October, when most people were on vacation, Yiwu bustled. Workers rushed to put the finishing touches to the Global Digital Trade Center, and the activity was equally intense in the six-generation district of…