Business+Impact again brought together U-M scholars on Fri, Dec. 13, 2019 to ponder how society should make choices that will influence and contribute to a society’s or organization’s ability to flourish.
Featured participants included Tom Malone, former CEO of Summa, and Scott E. Page of the University of Michigan.
Detailed Agenda from the Event
Opening Remarks
- Jerry Davis, Michigan Ross (Watch Video)
- Scott Page, University of Michigan (Watch Video)
The Five Pure Types: A Gathering of Experts
9:15am
Our day begins with talks by five brilliant Michigan faculty from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and methodological approaches. Each will provide a working introduction to one of the five institutional forms. How is it defined? When does this institution work well? When doesn’t it? In which allocative and decision-making domains do we see this institution? What spillovers does the institution produce?
- Markets: Betsey Stevenson (Ford School) (Watch Video)
- Hierarchies: Elizabeth Popp Berman (Organizational Studies) (Watch Video)
- Democracies: Lisa Disch (Political Science) (Watch Video)
- Communities: Rebecca Hardin (SEAS) (Watch Video)
- Algorithms: Paul Resnick (Information) (Watch Video)
Keynote: Tom Malone (Watch Video)
10:30am
In his recent book, SuperMinds, Tom Malone describes how technology increases the potential efficacy and power of humans interacting through institutions. Technology, sometimes in the form of algorithms and often through improved production and allocation of knowledge and information, improves democracies, hierarchies, markets, and self-organized communities.
Dyads: Real World Choices
11:45am
In The Vanishing American Corporation, Jerry Davis demonstrates how technological advances have led to more market-based transactions and fewer formal organizations (hierarchies) and how that trend has produced a variety of spillovers. Here, we bring in a collection of experts to discuss other dyadic variants of The Choice that occur in the real world.
- Melissa Valentine, Stanford (Watch Video)
- Sarah Miller, Michigan Ross (Watch Video)
- Doug Guthrie, Apple (Emeritus) (Watch Video)
Spillovers, Flourishing, and Context
1:30pm
The Choice framing emphasizes spillovers across institutions. In this panel, Scott Page (UM-Ross) (Watch Video) will provide some general framing on the types of spillovers that might arise as well as describe a potential taxonomy of spillovers to structure the afternoon’s charrette.
- Jenna Bednar (Political Science) will propose human flourishing (rather than GDP) as the aim of society and frame The Choice within this broader objective. (Watch Video)
- Oscar Ybarra (Psychology) will describe evidence for psychological spillovers. (Watch Video)
- Last, Jerry Davis (UM-Ross) will show how context matters by taking a deep cross-national dive in Uber. Why does Swedish Uber not resemble the US version and how did Uber thrive in India? (Watch Video)
A Deep Dive: The Legal Choice (Watch Video)
2:30pm
Orly Lobel (Univ. of San Diego Law) and JJ Prescott (UM Law) take a deep dive into how new technology disrupts settled normative regulation choices, and how policymakers should think about leveraging choices to support emerging platform markets, algorithmic capacities, and a changing labor market.
Micro-Charette: Gigs!
3:30pm
In this session, we will break into small groups to consider the direct and spillover effects of the gig economy. How would we measure spillovers from gig work? How do gig jobs impede and enable flourishing? In what contexts should we encourage or prevent gig employment?
Closings and Openings
4:30pm
We end the day with closing (summary) and opening (new directions for research) thoughts by some key participants. Among our speakers
