Research Working Groups

Benefits of Research Working Group Participation

The Conference Board's Research Working Groups provide a confidential, hands-on environment for companies to work with expert researchers to forge practical solutions for a specific, defined set of business challenges.
Members gain exposure to a select group of peer executives from global companies who are similarly situated in needing to tackle the same challenges.
Collectively, Research Working Group members work with subject matter experts to find actionable solutions through proven methodologies, practical tools, and templates.

Citizenship & Sustainability

Corporate Governance and Sustainability: Integrating Corporate and Investor Perspectives
The focus is to better understand and recommend to companies a framework for institutionalizing and mainstreaming their approaches both to designing sustainability programs and to communicating with institutional investors on the nature of these programs.

Stakeholder Engagement on the Global Stage/Special Focus: China
This working group will provide companies with the opportunity to meet with corporate peers and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and stakeholder leaders to build relationships and learn from one another.

Diversity and Inclusion

Bridging Generational Divides in Knowledge Transfer
The group will also explore the specific topics of what is truly unique about Millennials, reverse mentoring, collaborative learning methods, and the cultural aspects of cross-generational knowledge transfer.

Engaging Employees Across Generations
This group will empirically explore whether the differences between "Baby Boomers," "Gen-Xers," and "Millennials" actually exist.

Faith in Today’s Corporation: Challenging Realities
This working group explores faith-based societal trends, assesses their impact, and looks at ways to make the workplace "faith friendly".

Leveraging High-Potential Employees
This research working group will explore the implications of developing high-potential employees.

Mature Workforce Challenges
Over 30 percent of the highly skilled workers in Europe will enter the age of retirement within the next 10 years, organizations must consider institutional changes now to retain the talents, energies and knowledge of workers poised to retire.

Multigenerational Knowledge Transfer
This working goup will address knowledge-retention challenges that organizations face due to shifting demographics and the search for new leadership talent.

Enterprise Risk Management

Assessing Offshoring Risks: Thinking Through the Financial and Operational Issues
The Conference Board's new Working Group on Managing Offshoring Risks will provide leaders from organizations at all stages of offshoring operations with a much needed forum to discuss important concerns.

Enterprise Risk Management & Managing the Cost of Capital
While there has been a great deal of boardroom support for ERM, there continues to be little direction and follow-through in its practical application. This Research Working Group addresses such concerns.

Managing Reputation Risk:
Creating solutions to evaluate and manage your company’s reputation risk
As a member of this Research Working Group, you will develop a framework to assess reputation risk across an organization's operations, functions, practices and policies.

Ethics and Compliance

Ethics & Compliance Criteria in Government Enforcement Decisions
This research working group will create a searchable database of cases from countries where E & C program effectiveness had an impact on the decision to bring charges or on sentence severity.

Governance

HR and Talent Management

Corporate Center Design: Maximizing Shareholder Value
This Research Working Group will help its members answer the question: "How can I help my CEO understand, measure, and communicate the value contribution of the corporate center?"

Defining New Performance HR Targets: Evidence-Based HR
Members will identify the operational and financial key performance indicators that are most relevant to the causal relationship between human capital strategies and business performance.

Engaging Employees Across Generations
This group will empirically explore whether the differences between "Baby Boomers," "Gen-Xers," and "Millennials" actually exist.

Engaging Your Global Workforce
This Working Group on Engaging a Global Workforce is designed to help you and your organization better understand what is common across the globe, what is distinctive to particular geographies or contexts, and what does and does not work in these contexts

Evidence-Based Human Resources
The Next Generation of Human Capital Metrics and Analytics
The Conference Board Research Working Group on Evidence-Based Human Resources will explore the empirical links between human capital and business performance.

Global Leadership Development: Maximizing Value in Challenging Times Research Working Group
This working group will assess the insight of international assignees on their experiences on global leadership and how the effectiveness of global leadership can be dispersed to others throughout the organization.

Growing Talent for Succession Research Working Group
This Research Working Group will address the high-leverage strategy, process, tools, and mindset necessary for growing talent for succession.

Implementing Strategic Workforce Planning Research Working Group
To help your company's transition and further your understanding of the complexities of Strategic Workforce Planning, this working group will explore best practices through discussions, presentations, and member-guided research.

Innovation: Meeting Human Capital and Cultural Challenges
This Research Working Group offers a unique opportunity to help your business identify the most appropriate building blocks to advance a culture of innovation.

Leveraging High-Potential Employees
This research working group will explore the implications of developing high-potential employees.

Multigenerational Knowledge Transfer
This working goup will address knowledge-retention challenges that organizations face due to shifting demographics and the search for new leadership talent.

Leadership Development

Multigenerational Knowledge Transfer
This working goup will address knowledge-retention challenges that organizations face due to shifting demographics and the search for new leadership talent.

Marketing and Communications

Operations and Business Processes

Exploring Transformational Offshoring Research Working Group
The Conference Board® Research Working Group on Exploring Transformational Offshoring is teaming up with the Duke University CIBER, ORN, the most recognized academic-based research project on offshoring.

Multigenerational Knowledge Transfer
This working goup will address knowledge-retention challenges that organizations face due to shifting demographics and the search for new leadership talent.

Other