INSEAD Knowledge

When a CEO tells me they wished their employees were more capable at “self-organising”, I usually ask what exactly they mean. The answer matters for more than academic precision; leaders drawn to the notion of decentralisation routinely turn to self-organisation as the mechanism that will deliver it. The appeal is clear: Give people more autonomy, reduce bureaucracy and allow coordination to emerge naturally rather than through layers of management. In other words, let them “organise themselves”.

Should you judge a company’s performance by its earnings or cash flow? Cash flows are highly volatile and seasonal, while earnings are far smoother. That’s why accrual accounting – recording transactions when they occur, regardless of when money changes hands – can produce a clearer picture of financial performance. However, some recent studies have concluded that the timing role of accruals has largely disappeared.

Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... One of my patients, let’s call him Johan, came to my office complaining of burnout, although “complaining” is perhaps too lively a word for what I saw. With the mild embarrassment of a man returning a defective piece of equipment, he simply said, “Something in me no longer works.” Burnout, we are told, spans many domains. Emotionally, the person feels drained, cynical or just plain numb.

In a webinar hosted by Andrew Shipilov, Professor of Strategy at INSEAD, Liam Goodman, Chief Technology Officer at FIDEMI, referred to 2025 as the "transistor moment" for quantum computing – a tipping point where years of incremental progress have quietly shifted the technology from experimental to strategic. Investment in the sector grew 50% year on year, with public funding across more than 30 countries already passing .

Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... Everyone wants to make better decisions. To do so, many leaders turn to decision analysisto bring clarity, structure and speed to the process. But without certain foundations in place, even the most sophisticated analysis can produce misleading conclusions and ultimately prove ineffective. In a previous article, we explored three essentials for effective decision-making: bandwidth, purpose and options.

Inequality, by most measures, is high and getting worse. Governments, economists and HR departments treat this as a given – and respond on the assumption that the people affected know it, feel it and are ready to act on it. Our research suggests that assumption is wrong.

Europe has reached a strategic crossroads. The ongoing geopolitical turbulence, from renewed pressure on transatlantic alliances to open conflict at the continent’s eastern borders, has pushed defence spending back to the top of the policy agenda. Under the 2025 ReArm Europe Plan, European Union member states are expected to increase defence spending by up to 1.5% of GDP over the next five years. But Europe’s vulnerability runs deeper than defence.

It’s a board’s responsibility to manage a company’s managers and ensure that they have the right strategy in place to achieve the goals of the firm, as set by its owners. If a board fails to fulfil this role, then it puts the firm at risk of activist takeovers to reestablish the original mission.

Two words appear in entertainment headlines more than almost any other excuse, but are they doing more harm than good? When a director exits a film "due to creative differences", everyone reads it the same way: something happened, and we're not meant to know what. Spencer Harrison, Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD, calls it the "aloha" of Hollywood, a phrase flexible enough to mean hello or goodbye, used precisely because its vagueness protects everyone involved.

We often think of AI as a technological revolution that will transform industries, disrupt jobs and change the nature of competitive advantage. Inside organisations, though, it is unfolding in a much more complex and less predictable way. In many firms, AI is still more narrative than operational reality, making it hard to move from discussion to meaningful action.