Academic-Capital

by Susan Sasiadek, Ph.D Every company wants employees that go above and beyond. Individuals that contribute to the overall success of their company through contributions and high level of productivity. But how is this achieved? Three ways to achieve high standards of productivity include empowering employees, creating a culture of trust and understanding employees in terms of what motivates them. Employee empowerment; a term often used in the workplace. For some cultures this may mean assigning more tasks by reinforcing that one is now empowered to do more?  According to Richards (2016) “employee empowerment has been defined in many ways but generally means the process of allowing employees to have input and control over their work, and the ability to openly share suggestions and ideas about their work and the organization as a whole” (Para1).  Empowerment is not an action but an adaptive culture of trust within the organization. Employees that are empowered are willing to s

Business and investment decisions rest on strong economic data and without it they can make costly mistakes that sometimes take years, if not decades, to recover.  Unless your business can afford its own economist it will need to rely on someone else to generate meaningful information on the state of the economy and its economic activities. Finding this information can be difficult if you don't know where to look or don't have the right numbers to create appropriate projections. A good source of information is the Federal Government which will increasingly become an information generating machine. Today's economic statistics are helpful but often lead large gaps in information that businesses need to be successful. Federal Reserve Reports The Federal Reserve conducts studies and publishes reports to assess the state of the economy and possible future trajectories. A useful report called the Beige Book offers an overall analysis on each of the major districts for key

Millennials are staying home longer, spending less money, and have more aesthetic interests than the generations before them. As 70% of our economy is based on domestic spending it is beneficial to consider the impact of a new spend less but feel better generation. They are not as consumer oriented and don't find the same value in new products. This means they may be putting a dent in our economic foundation but can lead to a push to become a stronger export nation. If domestic spending declines then the economy slows down. The Millennial are a large population and their habit of saving more and spending less can be a positive thing when we consider more people will be paying into the system even though they will spend less on discretionary items. Housing, restaurants, entertainment, the arts, travel and recreation will likely get a large bump. It is also important to consider what savings mean. Unless they are putting this money under their mattresses, chances are it will be a

Successful use of economic theory depends on the ability to make solid policies and actions that lead to beneficial results. Science has been pushing for integration of fields and more depth in theory that can comprehensively explain phenomenon in our environment.  Long standing discussions and disputes related to theories developed by Adam Smith, Joseph Schumpter and Keynes have led to political encampment and limited perspective on how these theories represent a piece of truth in the greater economic discussion. While John Maynard Keynes brought forward the ideas that government should spend money during downswings to boost the economy his theories have been somewhat discredited while many governments still use his theories to justify poor fiscal policies. Economists like Milton Friedman moved forward in the field as their theories held more true. Despite this, some of Keynes concepts still maintain their validity when discussing infrastructure. It isn't that his theories are

Marketing is an essential component to business success because without marketing you don't have much of a revenue source. We sometimes erroneously assume that visitors are attracted from calculating the direct influence of each marketing channel. We don't often take into account the spillover effects of these channels together which could be much more influential than we thought. Consider a study in the Journal of Marketing Research that shows online purchase channels often work in conversational manners and spill over influence on each other (Li & Kannan, 2014). One channel may lead to a purchase through a different channel at some later point. Simply calculating sales through each channel might not be enough without total sales. Consider that some people see a product or service as some point in history and don't make a purchase on that day because they don't have money or time. A few weeks pass and they want to make the purchase but don't know where to