Professor Kimberly Wade-Benzoni explains how reflecting on long-term impact shapes motivation, behavior, and decision-making

Many people ask themselves, “does my work actually matter?” Concerns about engagement, burnout, and job satisfaction are common, and they relate to a basic need to feel that work has an impact not only today, but also in the future.

In this episode of Fuqua Insights Podcast, Professor Kimberly Wade-Benzoni of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business discusses her research on the psychology of legacy. She defines legacy as “an enduring impact attached to one’s identity that persists after one has left the context in which the lasting effect was created.” Her research examines how thinking about legacy influences decisions, especially those involving tradeoffs between present and future outcomes.

One of the main findings of Wade-Benzoni’s research is that when people reflect on the legacy they want to leave, their work feels more meaningful. They are also more satisfied in their jobs and more likely to help others. These results come from studies showing that activating legacy motivation can produce positive outcomes in workplace settings.

Legacy reflection changes how people think about their work. As Wade-Benzoni explains, “it’s a way that our actions can have impact that outlasts our individual lives.” This process allows people to think about how part of their identity can continue through others, which helps create meaning and shifts attention from immediate tasks to longer-term goals.

The research also identifies practical applications. A structured reflection exercise—for example, asking individuals to write about how they want to be remembered and the impact they want to have—can activate legacy thinking. This approach can be used in leadership development, career planning, and other organizational contexts. It also encourages people to behave in a more future-oriented and other-oriented way, helping counter short-term, self-focused decision-making, and supporting more meaningful and lasting impact.

Duke Fuqua Insights features digestible conversations with our faculty about the most impactful research from their careers, including studies they teach in Fuqua classes. New episodes every other week in season.

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Professor John Graham explores how AI is affecting productivity, hiring, and firm strategy based on new CFO survey data

Artificial intelligence is everywhere—from automating routine tasks to generating insights in seconds. Yet despite the hype and anxiety, especially around job loss, the real impact of AI on companies may be more nuanced than headlines suggest.

In this episode of Duke Fuqua Insights, Professor John Graham of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business draws on data from The CFO Survey, which included responses from nearly 750 financial executives across industries. The survey, conducted in late 2025, asked how firms are currently using AI and what they expect in 2026. By focusing on CFOs—"leaders who know what the spending is on AI,” Graham said—the research offers a grounded perspective on how AI is affecting productivity, workforce composition, and investment decisions.

The central finding: AI is expected to boost productivity without causing widespread job losses—at least in the near term. CFOs forecast productivity gains of up to 3% in 2026, “a significant increase,” Graham said, while overall employment remains largely stable.

Instead of mass layoffs, firms anticipate modest declines in routine clerical roles, partially offset by hiring in technical positions.

Interestingly, the AI-driven productivity gains aren’t fully reflected in increased revenue forecasts. Graham points to a modern “productivity paradox.” As he explains, “we’re hearing more about productivity than we’re seeing it in the revenue numbers,” suggesting a lag between implementation and financial results. Companies may improve output per worker first, but it takes time for those gains to translate into sales due to production cycles and human-driven sales processes.

For business leaders and MBA students, the implications are that AI’s value today lies less in cost-cutting and more in enhancing quality, innovation, and customer satisfaction.

To students, Graham suggests focusing on core strengths: “Do what you do really well, and improve it through AI.” Technical skills are increasingly valuable, but equally important are critical thinking, communication, and the ability to interpret AI-generated outputs. In a world where “anybody can produce numbers,” the real advantage lies in understanding and explaining them.

Duke Fuqua Insights features digestible conversations with our faculty about the most impactful research from their careers, including studies they teach in Fuqua classes. New episodes every other week in season.

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Professor Jordan Etkin explains how “time-first budgeting” can help people improve performance and set smarter goals

It’s a familiar pattern: You begin your morning with a lengthy to-do list and a plan to complete it, and somehow the day ends with unfinished tasks and a sense that time slipped away. Is there a better way?

Professor Jordan Etkin, a consumer behavior scholar at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, explores why people consistently misjudge how much they can accomplish. Drawing on her research on motivation and performance, she proposes a simple shift: “time-first budgeting.” Instead of starting with goals and assuming the time will follow, she suggests beginning with a realistic assessment of how much time you have, then allocating it across tasks.

Etkin finds that people routinely overestimate how much they can do because they ignore real time constraints. In experiments, participants’ estimates of how long tasks would take exceeded their available time by as much as 50%. When people instead budget their time first, they set more realistic goals and report greater progress.

Etkin explains that people often fail to account for everything a task involves, from transitions to competing priorities. “If I'm thinking about a workout, I might not account for the getting to the gym piece, the washing my hands afterwards piece, needing a few minutes to clean up and move on with my day,” she said. Time-first budgeting works because it flips that process: “What if we start by thinking about what time I have available, and given that available time, how much time am I willing to spend on those different types of goals?”

The approach applies broadly, from managing personal workloads to professional settings where colleagues depend on what you deliver. As Etkin puts it, “we can’t do things we don’t have time for,” making it critical to treat time as a finite resource when setting expectations.

Duke Fuqua Insights features digestible conversations with our faculty about the most impactful research from their careers, including studies they teach in Fuqua classes. New episodes every other week in season.

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Marketers are increasingly pessimistic about the economy, with sentiment reaching its lowest level since the pandemic in 2020. In response—and facing organizational pressures for returns—marketing activities are contracting, lowering spending and prioritizing existing customers over expansion opportunities.

At the same time, companies are accelerating adoption of artificial intelligence, projecting that AI will account for more than half of all marketing activities within three years. Yet this rapid technological progress is outpacing organizational readiness, with no marketing technology activity currently delivering at its full potential. These are among the findings of the 35th edition of The CMO Survey, directed by Professor Christine Moorman of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and co-sponsored by Deloitte and the American Marketing Association.

The survey was conducted from January 7 to January 29, 2026. It polled 308 marketing leaders at for-profit U.S. companies, 97% of whom are VP-level or higher.

Duke Fuqua Insights features digestible conversations with our faculty about the most impactful research from their careers, including studies they teach in Fuqua classes. New episodes every other week in season.

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Professor Christine Moorman on why keeping marketing secrets may cost more than letting them go

Companies spend billions safeguarding their marketing secrets—from customer insights to pricing algorithms—assuming these secrets are key to competitive advantage. The global data loss prevention market is valued at an estimated $1.5 to $2 billion annually and continues to grow. But does locking down knowledge undermine performance rather than protect it?

In this episode of Duke Fuqua Insights, Professor Christine Moorman of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, a leading scholar of marketing strategy and the director of The CMO Survey, examines whether protecting marketing knowledge is worth the cost.

Drawing from in-depth interviews with senior executives across industries, Moorman and her co-authors explore how firms manage three types of marketing knowledge: customer and competitor insights, marketing plans, and marketing know-how, such as pricing algorithms. Their research challenges the conventional wisdom that tighter control always leads to stronger advantage.

The research found that efforts to prevent knowledge leakage often generate significant costs, while the external benefits may be overstated. Firms frequently rely on “leakage prevention strategies” that restrict who can access or share information. But Moorman finds these controls can create a set of “hidden costs” that can undermine decision quality, slow execution, and even weaken morale. Protection can also unintentionally block learning as well as leaks. “If you put up all of these barriers, those same barriers are going to also prevent information from coming to you,” she said.

On the benefit side, Moorman points out that these benefits may be overestimated. The reason is that even when information escapes, competitors must first notice it, interpret it correctly, and have the resources to act on it before any real harm occurs.

Moorman suggests that instead of obsessing over preventing leaks, companies should first weigh a careful assessment of these costs and benefits. Companies should also consider alternative knowledge protection strategies that do not have these costs. These include investing in harm prevention strategies, like refreshing their marketing knowledge faster than competitors can use it, and out-executing rivals even when information escapes. Competitive advantage may depend less on secrecy and more on speed.

Duke Fuqua Insights features digestible conversations with our faculty about the most impactful research from their careers, including studies they teach in Fuqua classes. New episodes every other week in season.

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Professor Anna Cieslak explains how central bank communication shapes financial markets, even when rates stay the same

When the Federal Reserve meets, markets obsess over one question: Will interest rates go up or down? But sometimes, market moves happen even when rates don’t change at all. In uncertain times, a subtle shift in tone can ripple across global financial markets.

In this episode of Duke Fuqua Insights Podcast, Professor Anna Cieslak of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business explores how central bank communication shapes financial conditions beyond formal rate decisions.

Her research examines how the Fed uses “policy tilts”—signals about future intentions—to influence investor expectations and long-term interest rates.

Drawing on decades of data—including the late 1990s productivity boom and the post-COVID recovery—her research shows how policy tilts shift investor risk perceptions and long-term Treasury yields, with effects that can rival formal rate decisions.

She explains that the Fed follows a “risk management approach,” assessing not just the most likely forecast but also low-probability, high-cost scenarios. By signaling vigilance, policymakers reduce fears that they will fall behind inflation.

The stakes of getting communication right are high. In 2021, the Fed's 'lower for longer' messaging diverged from rising inflation concerns, tightening financial conditions even as rates held steady. As former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke observed, monetary policy is '98% talk and 2% action'—which means parsing Fed language is as important as watching the rate decision itself.

Duke Fuqua Insights features digestible conversations with our faculty about the most impactful research from their careers, including studies they teach in Fuqua classes. New episodes every other week in season.

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Professor Elia Ferracuti explains how activist investors reshape corporate research, and why it matters for long-term innovation.

Why would a company famous for breakthrough discoveries suddenly pull back from bold research in favor of safer bets? Research shows shareholder pressure plays a role. The tension between short-term financial pressure and long-term scientific progress is at the heart of many hedge-fund-led activist campaigns and may explain why companies retreat from basic research, with effects across the broader innovation ecosystem.

In this episode, Professor Elia Ferracuti, an accounting scholar at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, discusses new research—co-authored by Fuqua’s Rahul Vashishtha and Kevin Standbridge of the University of Utah—on how hedge fund activism affects corporate science.

Drawing on large-scale data linking activist investor campaigns to corporate research outputs, Ferracuti and his coauthors examine what happens inside firms after activists push for operational and governance changes. Their analysis spans multiple industries, with particularly rich evidence from pharmaceuticals, where innovation choices are easier to observe and compare.

The research found that after firms are targeted by activist hedge funds, they produce significantly less scientific research. Measured through publications in academic journals, corporate science declines overall—and drops most sharply in top-tier journals. In pharmaceuticals, targeted firms also shift away from novel drugs toward more incremental “me-too” compounds that closely resemble existing treatments. “Activism pushes corporations away from risky activities with long gestation periods and large spillovers,” Ferracuti said.

Why does this happen? Hedge fund activists typically acquire minority stakes but exert outsized influence, pressing managers to boost near-term returns. According to Ferracuti, this pressure changes internal priorities: “Foundational scientific research may be among the first activities to go.” Because basic research is uncertain, slow to pay off, and often benefits society more than any single firm, it becomes vulnerable when managers face intense scrutiny to deliver quick results.

The effects don’t stop with targeted firms. Rival companies in the same industry also scale back research, likely because they fear becoming the next activist target.

Shareholder activism can improve efficiency—but it also carries hidden costs for innovation, economic growth, and social welfare.

Ferracuti cautions against “fiddling” with the functioning of capital markets, instead pointing to the growing importance of sustaining and incentivizing fundamental research, especially at universities, at a time when public support for science is under pressure.

Duke Fuqua Insights features digestible conversations with our faculty about the most impactful research from their careers, including studies they teach in Fuqua classes. New episodes every other week in season.

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Professor Simon Gervais explains how active managers can grow the economy, even when they don’t beat the market

Many investors are told that active funds rarely outperform passive index funds after fees. So why bother paying for them?

In this episode of Duke Fuqua Insights podcast, Professor Simon Gervais, a financial economist at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, challenges the narrow way we evaluate active money management. Drawing on his paper, “Money Management and Real Investment”, Gervais argues that focusing only on fund returns misses a critical role active managers play in the economy: improving how capital is allocated across firms and industries. Rather than acting as passive observers, active managers influence real corporate investment decisions through the information embedded in stock prices.

The central insight of Gervais’s research is that active money managers can create economic value even if their funds generate negative net returns after fees. By trading on information about industries, competition, and macroeconomic trends, active managers help direct capital toward more productive uses. The result is a “bigger economic pie,” even if investors receive a slightly smaller slice of it.

Active managers trade on information that corporate executives may not fully have, pushing stock prices up or down. Firms then learn from these price movements and adjust investment decisions accordingly. As Gervais puts it, if a firm announces a merger and its stock went down, maybe that is the signal that the merger was a bad idea.

For MBA students and business leaders, the takeaway is a broader view of value creation. Passive investors may benefit indirectly from better capital allocation, but unlike active managers, they don’t automatically adjust as the economy changes. The research calls into question how regulators, investors, and institutions evaluate asset managers. If active management improves productivity and risk allocation, then traditional performance metrics like alpha may be incomplete. As Gervais suggests, the real challenge is learning how to measure not just who captures value, but who creates it.

Duke Fuqua Insights features digestible conversations with our faculty about the most impactful research from their careers, including studies they teach in Fuqua classes. New episodes every other week in season.

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