Thought Leadership

A new supply of baby formula will bring much-needed relief to families across the country. While it's not a quick solution, Nada Sanders of Northeastern says, it's a great first step.

The pandemic, along with the war in Ukraine, caused supply chain issues that led to some ingredients and packaging materials becoming less available. How do we prevent it from happening again? Northeastern faculty weigh in.

The baby formula shortage has left families scrambling to feed their children. Northeastern faculty explain why breastfeeding—or buying breast milk—isn't necessarily an easy solution. Photo by Paul Hennessy/Getty Images

Though instructional design is not a new field, it is quickly being recognized as a necessary one. Teachers are needed everywhere, not just in the brick-and-mortar classroom. Instructional design has become a natural pathway for a variety of educators to converge their unique skillsets to positively impact learning across secondary and higher education, as well as many other industries.

“Our research found that 79% of those who currently use someone else's password would not get their own subscriptions if Netflix outright banned account-sharing,” says Ben Treanor, whose company surveyed so-called “streaming swindlers.” And Netflix will have a fine line to walk if it introduces ads, says Yakov Bart, a marketing expert at Northeastern.

President Joe Biden has ordered the release of 1 million barrels of oil per day from the country's petroleum stockpile for the next six months to combat the nation's oil crisis as the Russian war in Ukraine marches toward its third month. But some, including two Northeastern professors, question whether Biden was right to do so.

China is rapidly moving from imitation to innovation, with Chinese companies taking a key role perspective on the emerging paths of Chinese company innovation. Non-Chinese executives need to understand the six major paths to innovation taken by Chinese companies. While all these paths have also been taken by many Western companies, we discuss here the unique Chinese adaptation or intensification of each approach. Our findings indicate that the innovation advantages of Chinese companies may well be in the creative combinations of available innovation practices.

JetBlue Airways and Frontier Airlines are seeking to partner with Spirit Airlines, the low-cost carrier. “From a competitive standpoint, either of these mergers will probably result in higher fares,” says Ravi Sarathy, a Northeastern professor of international business and strategy who studies the industry.

If the COVID-19 pandemic showed businesses that depend on offshore production anything, it's that one stoppage along these vast delivery channels can propagate across the entire system, Nada Sanders, distinguished professor of supply-chain management at Northeastern, said in the annual Robert D. Klein Lecture on Tuesday.