Year-End Roundup
A dozen business insights from the past year
Tariffs, artificial intelligence, and political polarization were big topics for American business in 2025 — and they inspired big ideas from faculty researchers at the McCombs School of Business. Groundbreaking studies also found benefits in breaks from smartphones, hazards in driver safety systems, and marketing angles in divine interventions. As we look to a new year, here are a dozen timely and useful research stories from the past year.
To Be Happier, Take a Vacation … From Your Smartphone
Blocking mobile internet for two weeks can improve mental health, feelings of well-being, and attention spans.
Consumers Consider: Coincidence or Divine Intervention?
Belief in a higher power influences reactions to corporate crimes and punishments.
Driving Assistance Systems Could Backfire
Some warning alerts can lead to more hazardous driving.
Tariffs Reshape Supply Chains in Unpredictable Ways
Uncertainty about rates affects prices, product shortages, and bringing factories back to the U.S.
Space Shuttle Lessons: Backtracks Can Create Breakthroughs
NASA’s 1969-71 design process offers a road map for today’s breakthrough inventions, from rockets to new drugs.
Interventions can make partisan opponents feel less ire toward each other — at least for a while.
Retirement Is About Confidence as Well as Money
Feeling financially savvy is as important as actually being savvy, when it comes to easing retirement anxiety.
Picking the Right Doctor? AI Could Help
A machine learning algorithm can evaluate whether doctors, engineers, and other experts are making good decisions.
Adjusted Earnings Don’t Fool Investors
When companies omit stock-based compensation to make earnings look better, investors fill in the missing numbers.
AI Can Open Up Beds in the ICU
By explaining factors that affect a patient’s length of stay, artificial intelligence can help hospitals improve scheduling for staff and patients.
Only Some Emotions Help Posts Go Viral
Not all feelings are created equal when it comes to sharing on social media.
An artificial intelligence tool can write and evaluate business plans as well as or better than humans can.
Story by Steve Brooks
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