Ton is currently examining how organizations can design and manage their operations in a way that satisfies employees, customers, and investors simultaneously. Her earlier research focused on the critical role of store operations in retail supply chains. Ton identified operational problems at stores that reduce retail supply chain performance as well as store profits and traced these problems to the design of store processes and the management of store labor.
Her work has been published in a variety of journals, including Organization Science, Production and Operations Management, and Harvard Business Review. In addition, she has written numerous cases that explore different approaches to managing retail stores and labor. Prior to MIT Sloan, Ton spent seven years as an assistant professor in the Technology and Operations Management area at Harvard Business School, where she was awarded the HBS Faculty Teaching Award for teaching excellence.
Ton holds a DBA from Harvard Business School and a BS in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering from Pennsylvania State University.
Zeynep Ton's extensive experience with top executives has shown that many genuinely believe they are doing everything they can for their frontline workers and therefore don’t have a bad jobs...
Zeynep Ton believes good jobs start with meeting a worker’s physical needs and then move to making them more meaningful and fulfilling.
What almost no one talks about is how we can improve the low-wage jobs — mostly in the service sector — that already exist. Even enlightened business and thought leaders often view these jobs only...
Inside Higher Ed review's Zeynep Ton's book, The Good Jobs Strategy, and asks "Might this book force us to question the economic logic behind the shift away from prioritizing the creation of tenure...
Research from Zeynep Ton discusses how the retail industry can quantify both the true costs of operational mediocrity and the potential financial gains of building a better system.
Compensation is more than just a good wage and benefits — employees need to be empowered to innovate and add value to their companies.
What employees want most is control over their work lives. Attract top talent with perks like telework, flexible hours, compressed work weeks, even unlimited vacation.
Zeynep Ton is featured in this Boston Globe article, advocating for higher wages as way for companies to maintain high performing employees and ROI.
The “working poor” are a growing problem in America — one that is increasingly embarrassing to the corporate elite. Business leaders who are morally inclined to do the right thing should and can...
MIT Sloan Adjuct Associate Prof. Zeynep Ton, MIT Sloan Research Affiliate Sarah Kalloch, and Good Jobs Institute Managing Director Katie Bach write: "Higher wages alone are not enough to break this...
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