Business
Looking for positive and inspiring business stories? From green operations to employee rights, from innovative corporate structures to diversity and inclusion, the Business section at The Optimist Daily has got the latest innovative solutions from the corporate sector.
Research Suggests Uber Might Be Making Our Roads Safer
There is a lot that can be said about Uber, the popular car service and mobile app. On one hand, the company has been hailed as the gold standard of sharing-economy startups, providing a much-needed service to cities with transportation systems strained by overuse. On the other, Uber has faced any Read More...
The Uber Controversy Highlights A Key Question: Who Is The Boss In The Sharing Economy?
When is a company not a company? A modern-day Zen koan, maybe, but the evidence is all around us—Airbnb, Elance-oDesk, Handy, HourlyNerd, TaskRabbit, Uber. These businesses seem much more like conglomerations of independent professionals that connect to customers through a common platform, rather Read More...
Transcendental meditation is going corporate. Here's why that's a good thing.
Thanks to the continued research touting its advantages, meditation has hit the mainstream. More and more people are willing to give it a try, often despite a measure of initial skepticism. Nowhere is that more true than in the workplace, where everyone from C-suite executives to entry-level Read More...
How the 'sharing economy' could upend capitalism
The gig economy. The “collaborative” model. Whatever cliché you want to use, Zipcar co-founder Robin Chase suggests that large-scale sharing has just gotten started. “This has the potential to reshape our cities in a dramatically positive way,” she predicts. To Chase, “the sharing Read More...
More and more companies are sponsoring volunteering by their employees
Feeling that we are making progress in meaningful work is core to being higher-performing and happier, according The Progress Principle coauthor Teresa Amabile. Not surprisingly, companies and employees that take that same stance in volunteer work are able to grow faster. One way to optimize that Read More...
The sharing economy beats Paris luxury hotels
The Paris region offers 50,000 Airbnb listings—nowhere in the world is more accommodation available on the home-sharing website. Airbnb offers between 380 and 400 Paris properties at over 500 euros a night. Of those, about 40 charge over 1,000 euros ($1,090). And that poses an increasing problem Read More...
7 Lessons From A Successful Corporate Social Responsibility Program
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs are practically a given at most companies these days, but that doesn’t necessarily mean all companies have truly accepted the calling to be good corporate citizens. Some CSR programs are really nothing more than a marketing ploy, and a poorly Read More...
Patagonia Out to Change the 'Filthy Business' of Denim
Knowing how conventional cotton is grown and denim is made, always-a-better-way outdoor apparel brand Patagonia has set out to change the industry. The company has partnered with chemical company Archroma on a new denim collection, launched this week — which is Fair Trade certified Read More...
Study Suggests Uber Reduces DUI Deaths
You can have your own argument about Uber’s value as an industry-changing technology (just please don’t torch anyone’s car in the process). But one recent study looked at a particular effect of Uber: namely, when it started in California, did it reduce drinking and driving deaths? The Read More...
The buzz at Google: Coffee pulp re-purposed as flour for sweets
When sipping that daily espresso, cappuccino or other cup of joe, you may pride yourself in knowing where the beans originated, their roasting method and whether they’re Fair Trade certified. But what you might not realize is that every pound of coffee produced creates an almost equal amount Read More...