894 Posts Found

Within the business school, capitalism is assumed to be the end of history, an economic model that has trumped all the others, and is now taught as science, rather than ideology.

Content: Quotation | Author: Martin Parker | Source: The Guardian | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics, MBA Related

In the business school, both the explicit and hidden curriculums sing the same song. The things taught and the way that they are taught generally mean that the virtues of capitalist market managerialism are told and sold as if there were no other ways of seeing the world. […] This combination of ideology and technocracy is what has made the business school into such an … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Martin Parker | Source: The Guardian | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics, MBA Related

Ostensibly about Bitcoin, this is an excellent finance/economics article that explains the differences between assets, currencies, commodities and collectibles and the difference between trading (pricing) and investing (valuing).

Content: Article | Author: Aswath Damodaran | Subjects: Economics, Finance

In the short term, the stock market is a voting machine; in the long term, it’s a weighing machine.

Content: Quotation | Author: Benjamin Graham | Subject: Economics

If you recall, Henry Ford made history by creating the production line that enabled him to sell low-cost automobiles to the very workers paid to build them, which created a virtuous circle that lifted the quality of life for the middle class in America. This pattern was repeated elsewhere. But we are now automating so many jobs, so quickly, that our ability to benefit society … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Tom Jenkins | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subject: Economics

Business strategy, at its heart, is about beating the market; that is, defying the power of “perfect” markets to push economic surplus to zero. Economic profit—the total profit after the cost of capital is subtracted—measures the success of that defiance by showing what is left after the forces of competition have played out.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Chris Bradley, Martin Hirt, Sven Smit | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Economics, Strategy

Jim Clifton, chief executive of Gallup Inc., has a robust theory about entrepreneurialism and economic recovery.

Content: Thought Leader | Authors: Art Kleiner, Jim Clifton | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Economics, Entrepreneurship

Professor emeritus Bruce Scott was a pioneer at the Harvard Business School, where he insisted that management training had to include the big picture, and helped craft the school’s now-mandatory MBA course, Business and Government in the International Economy (known colloquially as BGIE or “Biggie”) back in the 1970s.
 
Harvard Business School is the subject of journalist Duff McDonald’s new book, The Golden Passport, which examines … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Bruce Scott | Source: PBS | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics, MBA Related, Social Responsibility (ESG)

Aggregate efficiency is the ratio of potential work to the actual useful work that gets embedded into a product or service. The higher the aggregate efficiency of a good or service, the less waste is produced in every single conversion in its journey across the value chain.

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Traditional economics says you increase productivity by investing more capital in better machines and by providing better-performing workers, all … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Jeremy Rifkin | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Economics

Let’s step back for a moment and consider how the great economic transformations in history occur. There have been a number of them in world history, and they all have a common denominator. At a single historic moment, the same three defining technologies emerge and converge to create a new general-purpose technology infrastructure. They fundamentally change the way society manages, powers, and moves economic activity. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Jeremy Rifkin | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Economics

A healthy economy needs a healthy society, just as a healthy society needs a healthy economy. This is one of the defining lessons of the period since the end of World War II. It has long served business and policymakers well to create the conditions for this commonality of interest. Now is the time for the system to be realigned, once again as throughout human … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Blair Sheppard, Colm Kelly | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Economics

Financial performance is an essential element underpinning any market economy, but it cannot be the only measure of performance or success in a globalized economy. Other, broader measures, reflecting target outcomes in societal terms, must also be considered. We need to focus on managing the duality of GDP growth (at a national level) and shareholder returns (at a firm level) along with meeting a broader … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Blair Sheppard, Colm Kelly | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Economics

Since Alexis de Tocqueville published Democracy in America in 1835, economic success has been presumed to be linked to social progress. The shareholder–owner lived in the same town, went to the same market, and attended the same place of worship as the rest of the citizenry. Business success was intrinsically linked to the success of the community or society within which it operated. This linkage … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Blair Sheppard, Colm Kelly | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Economics

I think that some of the critique, the things we would worry about monopolies in the past don’t apply in the same way as they do now, but I think there are new things. So, 100 years ago people were worried about price gouging. Now they’re worried about personal information; they’re worried about intrusiveness. We’ve never had corporations that know so much about us. I … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Matthew Taylor | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Economics

The 18th-century economic philosopher Adam Smith, best known for his foundational book The Wealth of Nations, spent his last two decades considering the problem of virtue in capitalism. The vitality of the industrializing world was based on the good faith of energetic, creative people, acting individually. But no human society had ever resisted the temptations of corruption and exploitation. How would capitalism survive? Smith said … [ Read more ]

Authors: Adam Smith, Art Kleiner, Jeffrey Schwartz, Josie Thomson | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics

The influential economic theorist looks ahead to a world of virtually free energy and zero marginal cost production, and to a desperate race against climate change.

Content: Thought Leader | Authors: Art Kleiner, Jeremy Rifkin, Juliette Powell | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Economics, Trends / Analysis

If you have a society that is well educated, healthy, has good housing conditions, safety, and a good quality of life, isn’t it obvious that there would be a more competitive, highly productive society?

Content: Quotation | Author: Dezsö J. Horváth | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Economics

More than 80 years ago, Nobel laureate Ronald Coase argued that companies establish their boundaries on the basis of transaction costs like these: when the cost of transacting for a product or service on the open market exceeds the cost of managing and coordinating the incremental activity needed to create that product or service internally, the company will perform the activity in-house. As digitization reduces … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Miklos Dietz, Nicolaus Henke, Venkat Atluri | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Economics, Strategy

Ultimately, it is the economy-wide productivity consequences of technological innovation, not innovation per se, that lifts living standards. Innovation can co-exist side-by-side with low productivity (conversely, productivity growth is sometimes possible in the absence of innovation, when resources move to the more productive sectors).

Content: Quotation | Author: Dani Rodrik | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Economics

Although activist investors are successful at improving margins, they struggle to drive growth. We analyzed 55 companies over the past 10 years in which shareholder activists had a significant impact on company governance and strategy, and compared their performance to that of their industry peers. (The aims of activist actions included business focus, board composition, business restructuring, director election, focus on growth, board representation, general … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Joseph Duerr, Larry Jones | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Corporate Governance, Economics, Finance