Outsourcing routine tasks, like payroll, customer service, and accounting, offers well-known benefits to businesses and contributes to an economy in which entrepreneurial vendors can support industry and expand employment. However, new research from the Lally School of Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute discovered that not all client-vendor relationships are beneficial for the vendors.

The latest episode of Why Not Change the World? The RPI Podcast features researchers who have come up with new ways of looking at — and improving — things that have been around for a long time.

Numeric anchoring is a long-established technique of marketing communication. Once a price is mentioned, that number serves as the basis for — or “anchors” — all future discussions and decisions. But new research shows that this phenomenon is not limited to decisions that involve numbers, the use and understanding of which require high-level cognitive thinking. Anchoring also biases judgments at relatively low levels of cognition when no numbers are involved.

The 2020 Don Shohfi Memorial Outstanding Doctoral Paper Award was recently presented to Joonhyuk Bok, a doctoral student in the Lally School of Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

The Rensselaer Plan 2024, the strategic plan that guides Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, dedicated the university to innovative teaching and research “that addresses the most compelling global challenges.” In the last year, no challenge has consumed the globe more than the COVID-19 pandemic — and the Rensselaer community has stayed true to its mission.

Throughout the nearly 200-year history of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the university has prized flexibility and ingenuity in its delivery of higher education. This mindset has especially proven to be an asset during the COVID-19 pandemic, which required the entire campus to shift to remote instruction in the spring and summer of 2020, followed by a combination of in-person, online, and hybrid courses in subsequent semesters.

Warnings about misinformation are now regularly posted on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms, but not all of these cautions are created equal. New research from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute shows that artificial intelligence can help form accurate news assessments — but only when a news story is first emerging. 

In a money-saving revelation for organizations inclined to invest in specialized information technology to support the process of idea generation, new research suggests that even non-specialized, everyday organizational IT can encourage employees’ creativity.

Multiple rankings have recently recognized the high quality of the graduate degree programs offered by the Lally School of Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

The final episode of the third season of Why Not Change the World? The RPI Podcast explores the challenges and opportunities associated with working remotely, something that has suddenly become very common during the COVID-19 pandemic.