Vantage point: Insights from cutting-edge research

Women less likely to apply for executive roles if rejected before

Women were much less likely to apply for a job if they had been rejected for a similar job in the past, according to a study of over 10,000 senior executives who were competing for top management jobs in the UK. The study, conducted by London Business School academics Raina Brands and Isabel Fernandez-Mateo, who published an article in Harvard Business Review, noted that men were also less likely to apply if they had been rejected, but the effect was 1.5 times stronger for women.
 
The implications here are not trivial, because rejection is a routine part of corporate life, the authors pointed out. “To reach the top of the organisation, people need to keep playing the game, over and over again, even after repeated disappointments. So even small differences between how men and women respond to rejection could lead to big differences over time,” they added. The study also discovered that women tend to place greater weight than men do on the fairness of the recruitment and selection processes. “This is because fair treatment is interpreted by female managers as a signal that they belong and are accepted in the executive community. Moreover, women who are rejected tend to perceive their treatment as less fair than men do.”
 

In five years, companies will be valued on information portfolio
 
By 2021, the prevalence of equity analysts valuing organisations’ information portfolios in assessing businesses themselves will spark formal internal information valuation and auditing practices, according to Gartner, Inc. In a report containing a series of predictions about the rising importance of data and analytics, Gartner analysts said although information arguably meets the formal criteria of a business asset, present-day accounting practices disallow organisations from capitalising it. That is, the value of an organisation’s information generally cannot be found anywhere on the balance sheet. “Even as we are in the midst of the information age, information simply is not valued by those in the valuation business,” said Douglas Laney, vice-president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “However, we believe that, over the next several years, those in the business of valuing corporate investments, including equity analysts, will be compelled to consider a company’s wealth of information in properly valuing the company itself.”
 
A Gartner study showed how companies demonstrating “information-savvy” behaviour — such as hiring a chief data officer, forming data science teams and engaging in enterprise information governance — command market-to-book ratios well above the market average. Gartner also predicts that by 2019, 250,000 patent applications will be filed that include claims for algorithms, a tenfold increase from five years ago.
 

Innovative virtual reality triggers demand for 360-degree cameras
 
The demand for 360-degree cameras is on the rise as the popularity of virtual reality and the demand for virtual reality headsets increases globally. 360-degree cameras are essential for creating realistic scenes, videos, and images for virtual reality video games and applications. Virtual reality games, according to Infiniti Research, is expected to account for 12 per cent of the global gaming market by 2020; this growth will propel the demand for 360-degree cameras as well. The demand from video game players for realistic and immersive virtual reality games requires the use of 360-degree cameras in order to be satisfactorily met.
 
According to Infiniti Research, the 360-degree camera market is expected to reach $08.3 million and is expected to ship 651 thousand units by 2020. The consumers who are adopting 360-degree cameras are not limited to technological experts and industry professionals. A growing number of individual users have begun adopting them for personal use. For vendors to remain competitive, they must fully understand the scope of possible applications for 360-degree cameras as well as the potential and how best to market to and reach particular consumer groups.