April 5, 2016

Last year millions of Americans celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize gay marriage. But they certainly weren’t the only ones applauding the landmark ruling: dozens of brands showed their support on social media. Such an outpouring of advocacy from established companies would have been unthinkable just a decade ago. Times have changed, though, and businesses today have started to realize how important LGBT issues are to many consumers, especially young people. As a result, companies that Continue reading

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March 31, 2016

Last month, the FBI and Apple became entangled in a legal battle that many assumed would rage for months. The conflict centered on an iPhone owned by one of the perpetrators of the San Bernardino mass shooting. While the FBI accessed most of the device’s data through the cloud, the government claimed a security system installed on the phone prevented them for obtaining the rest of its information. Apple refused to help the feds bypass the security feature, however, claiming Continue reading

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March 29, 2016

At many large corporations, top executives earn as much as 80 percent of their salaries from performance-based bonuses. The idea is that CEOs will be more likely to do a good job if the company rewards them for success, such as increasing quarterly earnings or raising share prices. According to a new study from the London Business School, however, this widely accepted strategy might not be as effective as many companies think.

First of all, the study argues that contingent Continue reading

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March 23, 2016

According to economists and government officials, the Great Recession officially ended in the middle of 2009. If you ask an average American, however, you’ll likely hear a different answer. 64 percent of people surveyed last year in a Fox News poll said they believed the U.S. economy was still in a recession. A poll conducted by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal the year before came up with similar results. And now thanks to an in-depth study by the Continue reading

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March 21, 2016

For years crowdfunding websites have given regular people a platform to finance their personal causes. GoFundMe, for instance, adds 100,000 campaigns to its site each month. Most people are looking to raise money to combat a crisis, such as paying for medical bills or funeral expenses. Together these campaigns have raised more than $2 billion on GoFundMe alone, with more than half of that amount coming in the last 9 months. In fact, analysts expect that crowdfunding donations will grow Continue reading

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March 16, 2016

The horrific events of last year’s mass shooting in San Bernardino shocked the nation. Along with the sheer violence of the attack, the fact that it occurred in an office building made many Americans deeply uneasy. Debates about workplace security soon started to rage throughout the media and the Internet. To the nation’s pro-gun advocates, San Bernardino represented another instance where they believe people could have been saved if only they had been carrying a weapon themselves.

While there are Continue reading

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March 14, 2016

In 2005 the website Etsy launched as an online marketplace where artisans across the country could sell their wares. The Brooklyn-based company quickly established itself as a destination for handcrafted items that shoppers wouldn’t find in any stores. As the years progressed Etsy’s army of craft sellers grew into the thousands, with women accounting for a whopping 85 percent of them. The company marked a major milestone in 2012 when it became a certified benefit corporation. By 2015 Etsy’s stock Continue reading

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March 4, 2016

In today’s age of targeted advertising, billboards may seem like a holdover from another era. However, these seemingly obsolete roadside ads could bring about one of the latest advancements in mobile marketing. This week the media giant Clear Channel announced a plan to make their tens of thousands of billboards more effective by analyzing location data from smartphones. The idea is to aggregate demographic information about the people who travel by a particular billboard and where they go afterwards. For Continue reading

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March 2, 2016

For decades China’s industrial economy grew at a breakneck pace thanks to heavy investment from the state. This expansive age may be at an end, however. Over the last few years, demand for Chinese goods has dropped and its stock market has become increasingly unpredictable. Analysts say that China built up far too much manufacturing infrastructure that has now become an excessive drain on resources. As a result, last week the Chinese government announced the drastic measures it would take Continue reading

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February 29, 2016

Talcum powder is such a standard household item that most people don’t think twice about using it every day. That was certainly the case for Jackie Fox of Birmingham, Alabama, who for decades used Johnson & Johnson brand baby powder for feminine hygiene. Once she became diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2013, however, Fox soon learned that the seemingly healthy habit had actually caused her disease. Shocked by the news, Fox filed suit against Johnson & Johnson in a broader Continue reading

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