’50 Years, 50 Women, 50 Ideas’ represents 50 years of progress promoting gender diversity and 50 big ideas from its 50 notable female scholars

FONTAINEBLEAU, France, SINGAPORE, ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates, PRNewswire/ — INSEAD, the business school for the world, today unveiled 50 big ideas from 50 of its remarkable female academics through its 50 Years, 50 Women, 50 Ideas key initiative.

These ideas, from the school’s female faculty and doctoral alumnae, celebrate 50 years of INSEAD women leading academic excellence.

The initiative was launched in honour of the school’s year-long celebration of iW50, a campaign to mark the 50^th anniversary of the first female graduates from the INSEAD MBAprogramme. For each year of action and progress toward gender diversity, 50 female academics from INSEAD share their big idea which encapsulates the essence of their thought-leading research.

Laurence Capron, Dean of Faculty at INSEAD and Professor of Strategy, says that, “These 50 women reflect the heart and soul of INSEAD’s academic environment: diversity in research and teaching methods, with no single school of thought predominant. They focus on what matters most, which is rigour and impact on management as a practice and a discipline. We are proud to celebrate their achievements and thought leadership.”

These female academics go beyond the boundaries of their disciplines, identifying areas in academic literature and business practice to answer some of the most pressing issues facing businesses. Many of them are also pioneering innovative learning methods.

A selection of Big Ideas from INSEAD female faculty members:

• Annet Aris (Strategy): In a digitising world, boards will have to focus significantly more on understanding customers and delivering superior value.
• Linda Brimm (OrganisationalBehaviour): Global Cosmopolitans experience a complex array of challenges and opportunities when living and working in multiple countries.
• Laurence Capron (Strategy): Firms that diversify their growth strategies last longer than those using M&A alone.
• Lily Fang (Finance): Women should learn from men and tap into their social networks.
• Maria Guadalupe (Economics and Political Science): Anti-takeover provisions reduce firm value and do not give managers additional bargaining power to obtain a higher price in the takeover negotiation.
• Zoe Kinias (OrganisationalBehaviour): Self-affirmation, achieved by reflecting on personal values, can eliminate gender gaps in business students’ performance.
• Xiaowei Rose Luo (Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise): Widely held cultural views shape securities analysts’ assessment of family firms.
• Renee Mauborgne (Strategy): Lasting success comes not from battling competitors but from creating “blue oceans” — untapped new market spaces ripe for growth.
• Erin Meyer (OrganisationalBehaviour): To decode how people think, lead, and get things done across the world is the greatest leadership challenge of the coming decades.
• Jennifer Petriglieri (OrganisationalBehaviour): Labelling someone as a high-potential can thwart their development.
• HilkePlassmann (Marketing): Marketing changes how products and services are perceived in the brain.