The Tie-In Decision

There are many strategic product decisions business managers must make regarding product offerings, price and pricing structures, product characteristics and quality, research and development, and marketing, among other things. Included in these strategic considerations is how to sell one’s products. It is not uncommon for a manufacturer to choose to “tie” its consumers’ purchase of one product to a required purchase of another. For example, … [ Read more ]

The Trybaby Syndrome

This article identifies the Trybaby Syndrome as a performance challenge and introduces a “Performance Influence-Importance Matrix” to help managers identify the differences between so-called Trybabies, Spinners, Pass-Timers, and Corperformers. Two real-world examples of trybabies, followed by five countermeasures, are offered to help guide managers, coaches, and employees in handling the performance challenge referred to as the Trybaby Syndrome.

Muhammad Yunus

Dr. Muhammad Yunus, 2006 nobel laureate and founder of the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, addressed an audience of more than 700 on Oct. 20, 2007 at Pepperdine’s School of Law. His address was titled “Social Enterprise: Doing Well by Doing Good.”

Darrol J. Stanley

“History is economics in action,” as Karl Marx noted. Marx, who got almost everything else wrong but most likely got this right, connected economics to everyday reality.

In their famous book The Lessons of History, Will and Ariel Durant explain that economics in action is the contest among individuals, groups, classes, and states for food, fuel, materials, and economic power.

Personality Traits and Workplace Culture: Online tests measure the fit between person and organization

This article will help you explore one dimension of the complex relationship between you and your company: the cultural match factor, or “How compatible is your personality with the organizational culture of the company for which you work?” Even more than that, it will provide you with the assessment tools to figure out whether you are, indeed, compatible. One tool helps you evaluate the company … [ Read more ]

The Power of Performance Profiling

Activity without direction or purpose is simply motion. No more. No less. Traditional job descriptions focus on activity. It is far better to throw out your activity-based job descriptions and replace them with performance profiles that focus on results – not activity.

Developing a Barometer for Workplace Attitude (WPA)

The role of attitude and its importance in decision-making are becoming more apparent to the business leader/practitioner. He/she knows that the right attitude can provide tremendous financial gains, along with the catalyst for the development of a learning organization, and will result in the thinking, feelings, and actions of a positive business environment. However, the perceived power of measuring workplace attitude has not as yet … [ Read more ]

Assertive Performance Feedback

The opportunity to help others improve their performance arises frequently for individuals at all organizational levels. When these situations call for confronting poor performance, however, those in the position to give potential feedback often lack a clear, concise, and professional way to communicate. This challenge confronts virtually everyone-CEO’s and independent contributors alike.

Electronic Spreadsheets: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Spreadsheet analysis is a very visual technique to help improve business operations and profitability. In this Editor’s Note Professor Rick Hesse discusses how far we’ve come in the 25 years since spreadsheets were introduced.

The Death of Time and Distance

Supply chain management (SCM) is an integral and expensive collaboration between warehouses, manufacturers, and consumers. Getting the parts in and the product out with minimal cost and maximum output is an ongoing dilemma. This article discusses the current SCM directions, strategies, and tactics, and how organizations can improve their processes.

Defamation vs. Negligent Referral

A policy of giving only basic employee references may lead to liability.

Editor’s Note: this is an older article (Spring 1999) so the status of some of the legal issues discussed has undoubtedly changed, but the concepts addressed are of long-lasting value…

Seven Neurotic Styles of Management

Effective executives strive to manage their firms using sound management practices. However, there are managers who may mean well, but whose styles are anxious and idiosyncratic. Their neurotic styles tend to undermine and obliterate the effectiveness of their organizations and people and lead to reckless results.

Making Marketing Accountable

Twelve characteristics to provide standards and metrics that create accountability for marketing decisions.

Achieving Corporate Success and Maximized Value

While the importance of stakeholders to corporate success is not a new concept, Dr. Darrol Stanley restates the significance of these stakeholders in a pragmatic way that will lead to their adoption as part of an integrated corporate strategy. He also shares ten financial drivers that a management team should focus on to enhance, if not maximize, corporate value for the long term.

Language, Culture and Global Business

The choice of an interpreter may be one of the most important choices you make when conducting business globally.

Graziadio Faculty Discuss Ethics

The state of ethics in America today is of grave concern to many people. Several members of the Graziadio faculty recently engaged in a hearty dialogue on ethics in America and about teaching ethics to students. Here is a compilation of some of their thoughts.

Michael Keeley

Organizations are effective to the extent that they attempt to satisfy the interests of participating individuals. It is only when persons feel that their own interests are protected by some equitable distribution principle that they may value the overall attainment of a collective outcome or goal.