Five Critical Trends Reshaping Executive Decision-Making in 2025: Strategic Insights from HEC Paris Research

For C-suite leaders navigating an increasingly volatile business landscape, strategic foresight has never been more critical. The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025 projects a fundamental reshaping of the global workforce: by 2030, 22% of today's jobs will undergo substantial transformation, with 170 million new positions emerging while 92 million current roles face displacement.

Against this backdrop of geopolitical instability, climate crisis, and technological disruption, HEC Paris faculty share key insights from their latest research published throughout 2024 in Knowledge@HEC. Drawing from the school's extensive research portfolio, these carefully curated insights offer senior leaders actionable strategies for turning unprecedented challenges into competitive advantages.

Strategic Inclusion: Market Forces Drive Gender Diversity

As businesses navigate an increasingly competitive landscape in 2025, new research reveals that gender diversity isn't just about social responsibility—it's becoming a crucial strategic lever for winning clients and market share. This shift is profound: the Future of Jobs Report 2025 reveals that 47% of companies now view diversity as transformative to workforce planning, a dramatic increase from just 10% two years ago.

A comprehensive study of 167 major U.S. law firms and 1,400 clients shows that competitive pressures, rather than altruistic motives, often drive meaningful advances in gender representation. "The acid test is how diversity translates through the rest of the organization, all the way up to senior partner level," notes Professor Mawdsley, co-author, with Rodolphe Durand and Lionell Paolella, of the "A rivalry-based theory of gender diversity".

 " When law firms increase their female representation at the top, they're often acting strategically in response to market demands.

The research reveals a clear pattern: firms strategically increase their gender diversity when they observe higher female representation in the senior ranks of their competitors' clients. However, this effect diminishes when such alignment is less likely to win new business. 

This strategic approach to diversity is increasingly widespread – the Future of Jobs Report shows that 83% of employers globally have now implemented active DEI policies, with North American companies leading at 96% adoption. These initiatives are driven by both competitive advantage and the need to tap into diverse talent pools to address skills shortages and foster innovation. 

For business leaders in 2025, these findings suggest a dual opportunity. First, organizations can leverage their diversity credentials to gain competitive advantage in client acquisition. Second, clients themselves wield significant influence in driving industry-wide diversity through their choice of service providers.

Leading organizations are already taking decisive action. Lloyd's of London and Baker Hughes have instituted innovative programs focused on developing women's careers, while initiatives like LeanIn.org are democratizing access to leadership development through widely accessible curriculum.

 This becomes particularly crucial as organizations face increasing scrutiny of their diversity practices and their handling of digital spaces.

"Managers should be thinking about how to use diversity as part of their strategy for improving their market position," Mawdsley advises. "If you build your pool of employees to reflect what society values, you're probably going to do better."

Learn more about this research

Learn about how global change leaders can be allies for gender equality

Online Communities: Managing Digital Violence in 2025

As organizations navigate 2025, they face an increasingly complex challenge in managing online communities, with new research from HEC Paris revealing how seemingly benign online spaces can transform into hotbeds of digital violence. This challenge becomes particularly acute when viewed through the lens of inclusion and diversity.

Recent EU research has revealed a troubling pattern: women face almost three times the amount of online hate compared to other targeted groups across Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, and Sweden. 

This gender-based targeting spans multiple platforms including YouTube, Telegram, Reddit, and X (formerly Twitter), highlighting the urgent need for executive attention to digital community management.

Professor Kristine de Valck's decade-long study, examining over 7 million posts across 170 discussion threads, has uncovered disturbing patterns in how online violence evolves—even in unexpected places like leisure-oriented communities.

"These are not two parallel worlds", explains de Valck, referring to online and offline behavior. " They're completely integrated. However, online, it is easier to be aggressive".

Her research identifies three distinct "brutalization constellations" that communities need to watch for: sadistic entertainment, clan warfare, and popular justice.

The findings come at a crucial moment, as businesses increasingly rely on online communities for customer engagement and brand building. The research shows how violence can emerge even in communities started with positive intentions, through a combination of direct, structural, and cultural violence.

Under the EU's Digital Services Act, which came into force last year, very large tech platforms and search engines must do more to tackle harmful and illegal content or risk fines. The European Commission has already opened formal investigations into efforts by major platforms to remove harmful content, signaling increased regulatory scrutiny of digital spaces.

However, the research also offers hope. The studied platform successfully transformed into a more positive space through strategic intervention. "They structurally rewarded the opposite behavior," de Valck explains, describing how the community implemented "Redeemed Member" awards to encourage positive interactions.

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Circular Economy: The Profit-Planet Balance Sheet for 2025

As businesses face mounting pressure to address environmental challenges in 2025, new research from HEC Paris's Daniel Halbheer and his colleagues reveals a compelling business case for circular economy adoption that goes beyond mere environmental stewardship.

Their groundbreaking study comes at a critical moment, with global circularity stagnating at just 7.2% and the traditional "take-make-waste" model proving increasingly unsustainable for both business and planetary boundaries.

The market is increasingly validating this strategic imperative. Recent data from the Future of Jobs Report 2025 places green jobs, including renewable energy engineers and sustainability specialists, among the 15 fastest-growing job categories globally. This trend is reflected in hiring patterns: LinkedIn's analysis through July 2024 shows professionals with green skills being recruited at significantly higher rates than the general workforce, with this gap widening since May 2022. 

Against this backdrop of growing market demand, IFCO's innovative SmartCycle model provides a compelling example of circularity at scale. Since 1992, their circular model for reusable packaging has transformed the fresh grocery supply chain. Every year, over 380 million reusable packaging containers are shared and reused over 2.2 billion times, demonstrating how circular models can create lasting competitive advantages while addressing environmental challenges.

"Circularity is a co-creation between the firm and consumers, and circularity will not work in a throw-away society," explains Professor Halbheer. The research demonstrates that companies can simultaneously boost profits and reduce their environmental impact by strategically implementing circular business models.

The key finding challenges conventional wisdom about the cost of sustainability: businesses that properly design recyclable products can command premium prices while creating new revenue streams from recycling end-of-life products. However, success depends on careful calibration of several factors:

"A firm should increase recyclability until the incremental increase in unit cost, accounting for the recovered resources' value, equals the incremental value created for consumers," Halbheer notes. 

This precise balancing act is becoming increasingly crucial as consumer eco-awareness rises. But the research also warns of potential pitfalls. While stronger consumer environmental concerns typically reduce the expected waste footprint per product, a "rebound effect" can occur if sales expand too dramatically due to greener product design, potentially increasing overall corporate waste.

The implications for business leaders in 2025 are clear: the transition to circular business models isn't just environmentally necessary—it's becoming economically imperative. 

Learn more about this research

Learn more about Desso's journey to circularity 

AI's Job Impact in 2025: Less Disruption, More Transformation

As artificial intelligence continues its rapid advance in 2025, new research from HEC Paris offers a more nuanced perspective on AI's impact on employment, challenging both techno-optimistic and alarmist narratives.

This nuanced perspective on AI's impact is particularly timely, as the World Economic Forum's latest research indicates that 86% of employers now consider AI transformative to their operations. The technology is driving significant growth in strategic and expert decision-making skills, while simultaneously creating new imperatives: there's rapidly increasing demand for "trustworthy AI practices," reflecting the critical need for ethical integration of AI into business operations. 

These trends are already visible in practice: The John Lewis Partnership exemplifies strategic AI integration, having recently committed £100 million to a five-year partnership with Google Cloud. This investment enables the organization to harness the latest AI and machine learning technology, demonstrating how leading organizations are leveraging AI not just for efficiency, but to enhance customer experience and enable more strategic decision-making by their workforce.

Professor Antonin Bergeaud's comprehensive analysis of nearly 17,000 tasks across 220 professions reveals that while AI's impact will be significant, it's far less apocalyptic than many predict. 

"Between 10% and 20% of employment are at risk with AI, which is a lot, but less than some alarmist discourses suggest when they talk about a near-total disappearance of employment," Bergeaud notes.

The research comes at a crucial moment as businesses and policymakers grapple with AI integration. Using sophisticated analysis of the O*NET database and GPT-4 modeling, Bergeaud's work provides a granular view of which jobs face the most significant disruption—and which might emerge stronger.

"Understanding whether AI primarily impacts certain tasks rather than entire jobs is essential," explains Bergeaud. His findings show that while some positions like secretaries, accountants, and telemarketers face significant exposure to AI, manager roles face higher exposure than previously thought.  However, manual and relationship-based roles appear largely insulated from AI disruption.

The research also highlights a surprising trend: companies that implemented AI systems between 2018 and 2020 experienced faster employment growth than those that didn't, suggesting AI might be more of a job creator than destroyer.

As organizations navigate this transition and prepare for the EU's AI Act taking effect in 2025, Bergeaud's work suggests success will depend not on whether to adopt AI, but how to implement it while supporting workforce adaptation. "Overall," Bergeaud concludes, "the impact of AI should be positive due to significant time savings." The key will be ensuring these productivity gains translate into opportunities for workers rather than displacement.

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ESG Investing in 2025: Why Brown May Be the New Green

As environmental concerns mount and regulatory pressures increase, business leaders face tough choices about sustainable investing strategies. HEC Paris research reveals a counterintuitive approach that could reshape how we think about ESG investing in 2025 and beyond.

GEA exemplifies how companies can leverage ESG strategies to drive both profitability and environmental impact. Their approach to tackling Scope 3 emissions through supplier engagement and product design demonstrates the power of integrating sustainability throughout the value chain. Through initiatives like their annual Supplier Day, GEA fosters transparency and sustainability commitments among suppliers, creating a ripple effect across their supply chain.

The traditional playbook of investing exclusively in green companies may need a significant overhaul. "Green companies are already green, and putting more money into them will rarely make them greener," explains HEC Paris Finance Professor Stefano Lovo, whose groundbreaking research challenges conventional ESG investment wisdom. Together with Augustin Landier, he is the co-author of the paper “Socially Responsible Finance: How to Optimize Impact". 

The study reveals a surprising insight: investing in "brown" companies—with specific conditions attached—could actually drive greater environmental impact than pursuing purely green investments. This approach leverages investment capital as a powerful tool for behavioral change, particularly in sectors where funding competition is high.

"Investment capital, it turns out, is a powerful form of leverage for influencing and modifying the behavior of brown companies," Lovo notes. The research shows that even smaller funds can achieve significant impact by targeting companies in capital-constrained sectors and requiring emission reductions as a condition for funding.

Perhaps most intriguingly, the study introduces a novel "Scope 3" strategy—investing in clean sector firms while requiring them to work only with suppliers who reduce emissions. This approach offers a unique combination of benefits: maintaining strong financial performance, satisfying value-aligned investors, and creating real environmental impact through supply chain pressure.

Learn more about this research

In a world where analytical thinking meets artificial intelligence, and resilience pairs with technological literacy, one truth emerges from these insights: the future belongs not to those who know the most, but to those who can learn the fastest.

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