Economy

Women Will Come To The Fore In The Feeling Economy – Forbes

Published

4 years ago

March 8, 2021

A recent study from Lero, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Software, towed a familiar path. It revealed that adding women to software development teams not only boosted team performance but also reduced workplace delinquency.

“Companies should recruit more women to their development teams not only for obvious ethical reasons but because this will improve performance. Indeed, women software engineers significantly differ from men in terms of personality traits, which are related to higher job performance, ethics, and creativity. Men, despite having lower scores on emotionality, exhibit higher scores on the psychopathy trait, which may lead to a reduced level of team performance,” the researchers argue.

The thing is, should we training girls to enter “male” occupations or should we instead be simply themselves? It’s a notion that Roland Rust and Ming-Hul Huang believe will be at the heart of what they refer to as the “feeling economy” in their eponymous book.

The feeling economy

The feeling economy marks the transition from both the physical economy, where our economies were driven largely by brute force, into the thinking economy, where brains and logic were the determining factors, and into the feeling economy that will come to be dominated more by emotional intelligence, empathy, and creativity.

It’s a transition that is largely driven by improvements in technologies, such as AI and robotics, which mean that both physical and thinking economy work can be done more effectively by machines than by humans. It also means that it’s an economy that they believe will come to be dominated by women, who tend to be stronger in the kind of traits that will come to the fore.

“In the feeling economy, we expect that females will outnumber males for higher pay feeling jobs, such as healthcare and education,” they say. “In fact, those service industries are growing much faster than manufacturing, which is stagnant or declining.”

Skills for the future of work

It’s also noticeable that in Google’s famous Project Oxygen a few years ago, they found that of the eight skills associated with Google employees’ jobs, STEM skills were bottom of the pile in terms of importance. Far more important was the kind of soft skills that humans, and especially women, excel in.

And yet, as Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic famously pointed out several years ago, we still tend to recruit and promote men who are often wholly lacking in these skills. Hence, we tend to get men who are “self-centered, overconfident and narcissistic individuals as leaders”.

Which is wholly detrimental to our organizations, and even to society more broadly. During the pandemic, the compassionate leadership of the likes of New Zealand’s Jacinda Arden and Germany’s Angela Merkel were lauded after data from the World Economic Forum showed that countries with female leaders fared better.

Similarly, research from the University of Buffalo says that female leaders tend to fit the servant leadership mold that is so important in our current time better than their male peers.

Supporting innovation

This kind of servant leadership also plays a crucial role in supporting the kind of innovations that will be so important in the years ahead. The importance of the “pivot” has been a fundamental part of the entrepreneurial playbook for much of the near-decade it’s been since Eric Ries first published his groundbreaking The Lean Startup but the ability to adapt has been especially crucial during a pandemic in which so much of what we thought we knew has been tipped upside down.

While research suggests that we tend to think of men as more creative than women, the reality is quite the opposite. The dichotomy exists in large part because we falsely assume that innovation is simply having a “eureka” moment. A second study examined the various areas in which managers support innovation, including encouraging employees to pursue a broad range of knowledge, capturing any ideas they have, managing diverse teams, stretching employees, and providing feedback. Interestingly, across all eight of the domains, women outperform men.

The importance of psychological safety has been well documented due to the groundbreaking work of Harvard’s Amy Edmondson, but research from Cambridge’s Judge Business School shows that this is especially important during a crisis. Perhaps most importantly, the strong presence of women helped to provide the kind of psychological safety that is so important.

Holding women back

Despite the evident benefits women bring to teams and organizations, there continue to be numerous psychological biases that prevent them from contributing to their fullest.

For instance, research from Wharton’s Adam Grant revealed that it’s actually incredibly difficult for women to speak up with challenging ideas, whether involving innovations or otherwise. He reveals that when men do this, they tend to get praised in subsequent performance reviews, but for women, the reverse is true.

A subsequent Yale study shows that this effect is not diminished when women gain leadership roles either. Indeed, the leadership capabilities of powerful women were diminished the more outspoken they were.

If, as Rust and Huang argue, we’re entering the age of the Feeling Economy, then the skills women so often bring to our organizations will be more important than ever before. It’s vital, therefore, that we find ways to remove those barriers and those biases that so often hold women back.

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Business

A timeline of events in the bread price-fixing scandal

Published

5 hours ago

September 19, 2024

Anne Joseph

Almost seven years since news broke of an alleged conspiracy to fix the price of packaged bread across Canada, the saga isn’t over: the Competition Bureau continues to investigate the companies that may have been involved, and two class-action lawsuits continue to work their way through the courts.

Here’s a timeline of key events in the bread price-fixing case.

Oct. 31, 2017: The Competition Bureau says it’s investigating allegations of bread price-fixing and that it was granted search warrants in the case. Several grocers confirm they are co-operating in the probe.

Dec. 19, 2017: Loblaw and George Weston say they participated in an “industry-wide price-fixing arrangement” to raise the price of packaged bread. The companies say they have been co-operating in the Competition Bureau’s investigation since March 2015, when they self-reported to the bureau upon discovering anti-competitive behaviour, and are receiving immunity from prosecution. They announce they are offering $25 gift cards to customers amid the ongoing investigation into alleged bread price-fixing.

Jan. 31, 2018: In court documents, the Competition Bureau says at least $1.50 was added to the price of a loaf of bread between about 2001 and 2016.

Dec. 20, 2019: A class-action lawsuit in a Quebec court against multiple grocers and food companies is certified against a number of companies allegedly involved in bread price-fixing, including Loblaw, George Weston, Metro, Sobeys, Walmart Canada, Canada Bread and Giant Tiger (which have all denied involvement, except for Loblaw and George Weston, which later settled with the plaintiffs).

Dec. 31, 2021: A class-action lawsuit in an Ontario court covering all Canadian residents except those in Quebec who bought packaged bread from a company named in the suit is certified against roughly the same group of companies.

June 21, 2023: Bakery giant Canada Bread Co. is fined $50 million after pleading guilty to four counts of price-fixing under the Competition Act as part of the Competition Bureau’s ongoing investigation.

Oct. 25 2023: Canada Bread files a statement of defence in the Ontario class action denying participating in the alleged conspiracy and saying any anti-competitive behaviour it participated in was at the direction and to the benefit of its then-majority owner Maple Leaf Foods, which is not a defendant in the case (neither is its current owner Grupo Bimbo). Maple Leaf calls Canada Bread’s accusations “baseless.”

Dec. 20, 2023: Metro files new documents in the Ontario class action accusing Loblaw and its parent company George Weston of conspiring to implicate it in the alleged scheme, denying involvement. Sobeys has made a similar claim. The two companies deny the allegations.

July 25, 2024: Loblaw and George Weston say they agreed to pay a combined $500 million to settle both the Ontario and Quebec class-action lawsuits. Loblaw’s share of the settlement includes a $96-million credit for the gift cards it gave out years earlier.

Sept. 12, 2024: Canada Bread files new documents in Ontario court as part of the class action, claiming Maple Leaf used it as a “shield” to avoid liability in the alleged scheme. Maple Leaf was a majority shareholder of Canada Bread until 2014, and the company claims it’s liable for any price-fixing activity. Maple Leaf refutes the claims.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:L, TSX:MFI, TSX:MRU, TSX:EMP.A, TSX:WN)

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Economy

S&P/TSX composite up more than 250 points, U.S. stock markets also higher

Published

5 hours ago

September 19, 2024

Anne Joseph

TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 250 points in late-morning trading, led by strength in the base metal and technology sectors, while U.S. stock markets also charged higher.

The S&P/TSX composite index was up 254.62 points at 23,847.22.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 432.77 points at 41,935.87. The S&P 500 index was up 96.38 points at 5,714.64, while the Nasdaq composite was up 486.12 points at 18,059.42.

The Canadian dollar traded for 73.68 cents US compared with 73.58 cents US on Thursday.

The November crude oil contract was up 89 cents at US$70.77 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was down a penny at US2.27 per mmBTU.

The December gold contract was up US$9.40 at US$2,608.00 an ounce and the December copper contract was up four cents at US$4.33 a pound.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD)

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Economy

Construction wraps on indoor supervised site for people who inhale drugs in Vancouver

Published

20 hours ago

September 18, 2024

Anne Joseph

VANCOUVER – Supervised injection sites are saving the lives of drug users everyday, but the same support is not being offered to people who inhale illicit drugs, the head of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS says.

Dr. Julio Montaner said the construction of Vancouver’s first indoor supervised site for people who inhale drugs comes as the percentage of people who die from smoking drugs continues to climb.

The location in the Downtown Eastside at the Hope to Health Research and Innovation Centre was unveiled Wednesday after construction was complete, and Montaner said people could start using the specialized rooms in a matter of weeks after final approvals from the city and federal government.

“If we don’t create mechanisms for these individuals to be able to use safely and engage with the medical system, and generate points of entry into the medical system, we will never be able to solve the problem,” he said.

“Now, I’m not here to tell you that we will fix it tomorrow, but denying it or ignoring it, or throw it under the bus, or under the carpet is no way to fix it, so we need to take proactive action.”

Nearly two-thirds of overdose deaths in British Columbia in 2023 came after smoking illicit drugs, yet only 40 per cent of supervised consumption sites in the province offer a safe place to smoke, often outdoors, in a tent.

The centre has been running a supervised injection site for years which sees more than a thousand people monthly and last month resuscitated five people who were overdosing.

The new facilities offer indoor, individual, negative-pressure rooms that allow fresh air to circulate and can clear out smoke in 30 to 60 seconds while users are monitored by trained nurses.

Advocates calling for more supervised inhalation sites have previously said the rules for setting up sites are overly complicated at a time when the province is facing an overdose crisis.

More than 15,000 people have died of overdoses since the public health emergency was declared in B.C. in April 2016.

Kate Salters, a senior researcher at the centre, said they worked with mechanical and chemical engineers to make sure the site is up to code and abidies by the highest standard of occupational health and safety.

“This is just another tool in our tool box to make sure that we’re offering life-saving services to those who are using drugs,” she said.

Montaner acknowledged the process to get the site up and running took “an inordinate amount of time,” but said the centre worked hard to follow all regulations.

“We feel that doing this right, with appropriate scientific background, in a medically supervised environment, etc, etc, allows us to derive the data that ultimately will be sufficiently convincing for not just our leaders, but also the leaders across the country and across the world, to embrace the strategies that we are trying to develop.” he said.

Montaner said building the facility was possible thanks to a single $4-million donation from a longtime supporter.

Construction finished with less than a week before the launch of the next provincial election campaign and within a year of the next federal election.

Montaner said he is concerned about “some of the things that have been said publicly by some of the political leaders in the province and in the country.”

“We want to bring awareness to the people that this is a serious undertaking. This is a very massive investment, and we need to protect it for the benefit of people who are unfortunately drug dependent.” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.

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