461 Posts found for Source: Knowledge@Wharton

Companies gather and analyze data to fine-tune their operations, whether it’s to help them figure out which webpage design works best for customers or what features to include in their product or service to boost sales. Marketers, in particular, use data analytics to answer questions like this: To put people in a shopping mood, is it better to make the webpage banner blue or yellow? … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Christophe Van den Bulte, Ron Berman | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Marketing / Sales

In order to manage and surmount uncertainties, companies need to become intelligence-driven, and that is achieved by understanding and acting upon five types of agility, notes Baba Prasad. He discusses these concepts in his book Nimble: Make Yourself and Your Company Resilient in the Age of Constant Change. Prasad spoke with Knowledge@Wharton about his book in a recent interview.

Content: Article | Author: Baba Prasad | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Management

Agility is often confused with a speedy, reactive response. We can instead think of agility as a speedy and effective response, not just toward current circumstances but also [to factors] that may now be beyond the horizon. It’s not just a reactive response; it also is a strategic response. This is where [the concept of] strategic agility needs to come in. [Strategic agility] makes one … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Baba Prasad | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Management, Strategy

Begin with the end in mind. I start each conversation with that saying. What is the result that we all want? If they don’t agree on that, then we’ve got bigger problems. But usually they will agree with that, it’s just that they have different approaches. If we can start an open, respectful dialogue, you usually can get to a resolution. There’s a great quote … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Todd Davis | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Teamwork

Do we default to the victor, where for us to feel like we’re winning always has to come at the expense of others? Does there always have to be a loser? On the opposite side of the spectrum, do we default to the martyr? Everybody else wins but at our expense, and we’ve just decided that’s our lot in life. To “think we, not me” … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Todd Davis | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Personal Development

What I see time and time again at work is that we confuse activity with results. We get to the end of the day or the end of the week or the end of our life, and we’ve been very busy, we’ve been very exhausted, and we’ve been doing a lot of things. But have we been doing those things that really matter or make … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Todd Davis | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Career, Personal Development, Work

Jenny Lefcourt is general partner at Freestyle Capital, a venture capital firm that specializes in seed and early-stage investments. She knows what it takes to be an entrepreneur because she’s been there. Lefcourt co-founded two companies — WeddingChannel.com and Bella Pictures — after dropping out of Stanford Business School. Meetings with investors to pitch the business and raise capital left her with a deeper understanding … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Jenny Lefcourt | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

We’re very intentional about what we do. We’re intentional about how we do it. We’re intentional about who we do it with. But we take this question of when we do stuff and say, “Ah, it’s not that important. Let’s sit it over there at the kids’ table.” But it belongs at the grown-ups’ table. Time of day explains about 20% of the variance in … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Daniel Pink | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Productivity / Work Tips

Pay differences among workers can hinge on objective matters like experience. But salary disparity is often a function of more arbitrary factors — raising the question of why establishing compensation hasn’t evolved into a more fair, equitable and objective system. How do qualities as intangible and unpredictable as work ethic, creativity and esprit de corps get translated into compensation? Still, there is good reason to … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Compensation, Human Resources

We sometimes try and justify the most valuable things in life, like health and well-being, in terms of a lost ability to contribute to the economy. We’ve got a situation where human well-being is apparently in service to the economy, where we need to turn that around. The economy, and certainly the financial sector, should be in service to life. We need to reframe it. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Kate Raworth | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Economics

We need to ask ourselves three questions. Growth from what? Is the economy growing because we’re making a huge investment in a transition to renewable energies, like China investing $360 billion by 2020 in solar energy capacity? That’s a great reason for GDP in China’s growth. Or is it growing because we’ve got massive consumer debt spending on mortgages we can’t afford and cars we … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Kate Raworth | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Economics

In the 1930s he [Simon Kuznets] was asked by Congress to come up with a measure of national income. He did a fantastic job and came up with this measure, which we now know as GDP. But at the time when he created it, he gave us a caveat. He said, “This measure should in no way be mistaken for the measure of a nation’s … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Kate Raworth, Simon Kuznets | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Economics

I think every student should learn there are four fundamental forms of provisioning: through market exchange, through the state providing public goods, through household unpaid care and households and communities, and the self-organizing without market or state in the commons. Almost any good that you care to think of can be provided in any one of those four ways. Then you’ve got a much more … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Kate Raworth | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Economics

There are winners and loser in the economy every day, and there are winners and losers from the massive technological shifts that are going on right now. All the time, the economy is evolving. We just need to ask ourselves, what is the purpose of the economy and what direction do we want it to evolve in?

I think there are two principles that we need … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Kate Raworth | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Economics

Digital innovation is giving rise to new business models. Uber and Airbnb are household names today, when not so long ago we were all learning about the sharing economy. The regulations don’t always evolve as quickly as technological change — at least that’s the perception. So what should policy makers and regulators do? Wharton legal studies and business ethics professor Kevin Werbach recently shared his … [ Read more ]

Content: Multimedia Content | Author: Kevin Werbach | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Innovation, Legal

Kate Raworth, a senior research associate at Oxford University and senior associate at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, wants to challenge the old ways of thinking about economics and develop sustainable new patterns for economic growth. In her book, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist, Raworth encourages careful consideration of measurements beyond the standard gross domestic product metric. Thoughtful economic … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Kate Raworth | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Economics

We all have to negotiate in life, whether it’s asking for a bigger raise, nailing down details of a contract or even getting your kids to do their homework. But how does one become a good negotiator? Attorney and negotiating strategist Corey Kupfer shares the tips in his book, Authentic Negotiating: Clarity, Detachment, & Equilibrium — The Three Keys to True Negotiating Success & How … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Corey Kupfer | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Negotiation

Many commentators suggest that gender diversity in the corporate boardroom improves company performance because of the different points of view and experience it offers. However, rigorous, peer-reviewed academic research paints a different picture. Despite the intuitive appeal of the argument that gender diversity on the board improves company performance, research suggests otherwise.

Results of numerous academic studies of the topic suggest that the presence of more … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Katherine Klein | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Corporate Governance, Women in Business

When a business has a steady customer base, it’s easy for it to make estimations and projections. But that task is very difficult for companies that are non-contractual, meaning they have customers with inconsistent buying patterns. Wharton marketing professor Peter Fader and Wharton doctoral student Dan McCarthy are looking to close the data gap in their new research paper titled, “Valuing Non-Contractual Firms Using Common … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Peter Fader | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Customer Related, Finance

In a world rapidly switching to digital business models, the old ways of classifying industries and measuring business performances do not suffice anymore. So argue Barry Libert, CEO of OpenMatters, Megan Beck, the chief insights officer, and Wharton marketing professor Jerry (Yoram) Wind. In this opinion piece, they say it’s time to upgrade Standard & Poor’s Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) and GAAP (Generally Accepted … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Barry Libert, Jerry Wind, Megan Beck | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Accounting