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SEPTEMBER 11, 2025 |
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Harvard Kennedy School | | | |
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Customers checkout groceries at a Hannaford supermarket in South Burlington, Vermont. (Photo by Robert Nickelsberg / Getty Images) | | |
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Education, Training, & Labor |
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New technology isn’t benefiting older service sector workers |
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Technology is transforming the workforce, including the service industry. But tools like self-checkout machines and workplace surveillance technology—designed to increase efficiency and maximize profits—are not improving the experience of older workers, according to research by Professor Daniel Schneider and colleagues at the Kennedy School’s Shift Project. In a new Q&A, Schneider says that “surveillance reduces older workers’ job satisfaction and makes them more likely to report planning to look for a new job.” Self-checkout machines, too, can harm workers. “All too often, consumers take out their frustration with self-checkout machines on the nearest available worker,” Schneider says. “Customer bullying and disrespect are higher in stores with self-checkout.”
Learn more about Education, Training & Labor at HKS » | | |
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Health |
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Can corporatized healthcare work for patients? |
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The U.S. healthcare system has become increasingly corporatized. Medical care is a basic human need, and when corporate goals such as profit come at the expense of necessary care, patients can lose out. HKS faculty members Amitabh Chandra and Mark Shepard examine the pros and cons of the corporate model of care—as well as alternative funding options—in new research. They show that corporatization has potential upsides: patient demands for innovation, for example, could lead to improved care. “Evaluating corporatization requires understanding why it occurs, when it can succeed, and why it can go wrong,” they write.
Learn more about Health at HKS » | | |
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International Relations & Security |
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Understanding the relationship between mainland China and Taiwan |
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For centuries, mainland China and the island of Taiwan have had an interconnected and complicated relationship. Professor Rana Mitter, an expert on historical and contemporary China, explains some of the history and current issues involved in this relationship in a new Q&A. “One thing that tends to be underplayed in reporting about the relationship between Taiwan and China is that, while there is a very clear division and rhetorical confrontation between the two sides, they are also actually very close,” Mitter says, with entwined business and cultural relationships. “The two are very different societies that are still linked in important ways.”
Learn more about International Relations & Security at HKS » | | |
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What we're Doing |
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HKS students are innovating solutions to public problems as new Social Innovation and Change Initiative Fellows. Akonkwa Mubagwa MC/MPA 2026 is working to bring medical services to underserved and off-grid communities, Renata Millet Ponce MPP 2026 is helping technical students translate their skills into jobs, and Jasper Doeninghaus MPP 2026 is helping food companies understand their carbon footprints. Read about their projects and others. | | | | | |
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