461 Posts found for Source: Knowledge@Wharton

Years ago, corporate strategy was considered a secret known only by top executives for fear competitors might use the information to their advantage. Now it is important for everyone in the organization to understand the strategy and align everything they do with that strategy every day. Openness and clarity even help when coping with competition. “It’s good for a competitor to know what the strategy … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Strategy

When consumers have a bad shopping experience, they are likely to spread the word, not to the store manager or salesperson, but to friends, family and colleagues. Overall, if 100 people have a bad experience, a retailer stands to lose between 32 and 36 current or potential customers. These are some of the conclusions of The Retail Customer Dissatisfaction Study 2006, conducted by The Jay … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Customer Related, Industry Specific | Industry: Retail

Tthe barriers [to the adoption of a radical new technology within an organization] are both cognitive — ‘We know this won’t work, and we doubt that it will ever make money even if it does’ — and incentive related: ‘You won’t pay me for trying to learn.’ Because cognitive frames and incentives are tightly intertwined in an organization, any attempt to change one must be … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior

The decision by a rock group in Northern Kentucky to call itself 6 Sigma suggests that process management programs may definitely be part of mainstream consciousness. But does the continuing popularity of such programs hide the fact that they can end up suppressing innovation? “The risk is that you misapply these programs, in particular in areas where people are supposed to be innovative,” notes Wharton … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Innovation

At a recent Wharton presentation, a New Yorker cartoon flashed on the screen showing a group of women in what looked suspiciously like a faculty club dining room. The caption read: “I hear we’re all getting Valentines from Lawrence Summers.” The reference, of course, was to the Harvard University president’s famous remark that the lack of women in science and engineering might be caused in … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Women in Business

During the tech boom of the 1990s, leading edge companies began buying up smaller firms — and their promising, if untested, technologies — to stay one step ahead of the competition. Then the tech bubble burst and M&A activity came to a screeching halt. It became evident that while some purchases helped acquirers reap benefits, many failed to create the intended value. Wharton management professor … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton

Ever since the world wide web exploded in the mid-1990s, attempts have been made to extend its basic presentation format to create a richer, more meaningful network of information. Internet users have envisioned a web that presents information that can not only be read by humans but also be understood by computers.

Why does that matter? The reason is that it could usher in entirely new … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: IT / Technology / E-Business

After the dot-com bubble burst five years ago, corporate-sponsored venture capital funds jumped off that bandwagon in droves. Some companies were restructured; others decided these funds didn’t have much of an impact on their bottom lines. But Wharton management professor Gary Dushnitsky argues that venture capital is an essential tool for corporations to increase their innovativeness. As more and more new technologies spring up, he … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Innovation

Multinational corporations increasingly see China as a vital part of their global operational network, but opportunities for discussing the challenges this poses are few. In this special report, experts at the Boston Consulting Group and Wharton weigh in on such issues as developing management talent, R&D operations, sourcing of high-tech and traditional goods, and logistics. In addition, the CEO of TCL, one of China’s largest … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: International – China

Workers’ general notions about the effectiveness of male and female managers can be as important as their actual leadership abilities or business results, according to a recent Wharton Executive Development program entitled, “Women in Leadership: Legacies, Opportunities & Challenges.” As a result, women executives need to be exceptionally aware of their own leadership styles and strengths — as well as changes underway in their organizations … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Leadership, Women in Business

Imagine the following situation: You are a consultant who has just been assigned to a new project at your firm, and your first major presentation is in a week. Unfortunately, your client’s problem isn’t something you have any expertise in. Chances are, according to research by Sheen S. Levine, a professor at Singapore Management University who earned his PhD from Wharton, you would pick up … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Knowledge Management, Organizational Behavior

Companies tend to give attention to those innovation acquisitions which are complex, but underestimate, or are unsure how to handle, those deals surrounded by uncertainty.

Content: Quotation | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Mergers & Acquisitions

With the world focused on its rapid development, China has generated both excitement and concern among investors, policy makers and potential business partners. Now that global corporations have gained access to Chinese markets, they are concentrating on stability and sustainable long-term progress. Against this backdrop, the Wharton China Business Forum recently brought together business leaders and academics to discuss China’s strategic plan for continued growth. … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: International – China

Ann Moore, chairman and CEO of Time, Inc., had some blunt words for her audience at the recent Wharton Women in Business conference. “Our daughters have read too much Dilbert, and have become convinced that what [business women] are doing is not creative…. We have not communicated that [careers] can be rich and wonderful…. Business is going to be in trouble if this generation is … [ Read more ]

Content: Thought Leader | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Management | Industry: Publishing

Women executives who leave the corporate world when they hit a glass ceiling, want to raise a family fulltime or decide to focus on other interests, encounter frustrating roadblocks in their attempts to re-enter the workforce, according to new Wharton research. To overcome the obstacles, women should confront the difficulties they face and prepare for their return to the labor force the moment they leave, … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Women in Business

From DeLorean Motors to Webvan, the shortcomings of a bad strategy are usually painfully obvious — at least in retrospect. But good strategies fail too, and when that happens, it’s often harder to pinpoint the causes. Yet despite the obvious importance of execution, relatively few management thinkers have focused on what kind of processes and leadership are best for turning a strategy into results. Experts … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Management, Strategy

High emotion contributes to great opera. It does not, however, serve us well when making judgments about others. This is the argument advanced in “Feeling and Believing: The Influence of Emotion on Trust,” a new paper by Maurice E. Schweitzer, Wharton professor of operations and information management, and PhD student Jennifer Dunn. The two researchers show how incidental emotions — emotions from one situation that … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Personal Development

After boards of directors were blamed by many for not nipping the Enron, WorldCom and other corporate scandals in the bud, new rules were set up requiring that at least one member of a board’s audit committee be financially sophisticated. “The idea was that somehow this would make the board better able to monitor and detect potential fraud,” says Wharton finance professor Geoffrey Tate. Yet … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Corporate Governance

Thanks to technology and other innovations we know far more about our customers than we ever did before, but I would contend that we don’t understand more about our customers than we did 40 years ago. We can put each customer’s order on a microchip, but as far as having a sense of what’s inside making him tick, the answers remain elusive.

Content: Quotation | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Customer Related, Marketing / Sales

It used to be easy to measure transaction costs especially when looking at economies of scale and speed. That’s what helped justify centralization in vertically integrated firms. In the more dynamic and decentralized world, the value shifts to economies of scope. The real problem that we have is we have no transaction-cost analysis like “build versus buy” for determining whether I should share an asset … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Economics, Strategy