461 Posts found for Source: Knowledge@Wharton

If you’ve ever seen an ad for an investment product, you’ve heard the phrase “past performance does not guarantee future results.” Because of course, it doesn’t. But that doesn’t stop businesses, governments, organizations and individuals from trying to predict the future. In an effort to improve our odds, a government research agency — the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA)– has been sponsoring annual competitions … [ Read more ]

Content: Multimedia Content | Author: Barbara Mellers | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Management

In the corporate world, businesses are regularly graded on the value of their assets: They report to their shareholders about the physical assets they own, their cash in hand, and revenues and profits, both past and expected. But when it comes to measuring their knowledge assets — the value of those can be harder to gauge. However, the entrepreneurial management of knowledge assets can be … [ Read more ]

Content: Multimedia Content | Authors: Ian C. Macmillan, Martin Ihrig | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Knowledge Management

How do you decide whether or not to hire someone? Can you predict how successful they would be? How do you know if they’ll stay? How useful is data in human resources as opposed to “trusting your gut”? These are questions a lot of companies would like better answers to, considering the critical importance of people to a business’s success and the high costs associated … [ Read more ]

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

How an organization makes its people-related decisions has a huge impact on its success or failure. But traditionally, these decisions have largely been based on intuition and biases and therefore have been prone to error. But now, companies are starting to use data and sophisticated analysis in issues such as recruiting, compensation and performance evaluation because they believe it can help in better decision making. … [ Read more ]

Content: Multimedia Content | Authors: Adam Grant, Cade Massey | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

Advertisers often use multiple publishers for their online campaigns, but many are not using the best metrics to decide which publishers they should compensate, new Wharton research shows.

Research by Wharton marketing professor Ron Berman finds that the “last touch” or “last click” method advertisers typically employ to compensate publishers is the wrong way to go about it. Berman’s research shows that the “last click” … [ Read more ]

Content: Multimedia Content | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Advertising, Marketing / Sales

Employers will go to great lengths to screen job candidates, interview and check references in the quest to make the best hire. Some even take a more scientific approach, deploying a structured interviewing process or putting a potential employee through the paces in the workplace in what amounts to an audition.

There is another critical question that, consciously or unconsciously, lies at the heart of any … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Human Resources

Digital media is evolving rapidly and requires more than traditional marketing. In this opinion piece, Suzie Reider, Google’s managing director for brand solutions, and Gopi Kallayil, Google’s chief evangelist for brand solutions, highlight six common traps that new-age marketers must avoid.

Editor’s Note: a lot of this article focuses on YouTube and related metrics, which IMHO are of questionable relevance to the topic at hand. Having … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Marketing / Sales

I like to say that people come to work for money, but they don’t work hard for money. That’s an overstatement, but you get my point — that managers always want to incentivize everything. I think it’s a cop-out to always focus on money as the key to motivation when we have known for 100 years that it’s not the key once you get beyond … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Compensation, Human Resources, Management, Motivation, Organizational Behavior

Linking feedback and incentives can bring unintended consequences. How would you know, for instance, if a particular customer’s complaint regarding an employee might be rooted in some form of discrimination? To feed that back to the [employee] or link customer complaints to bonus payments could well be the basis of a discrimination lawsuit. It is very difficult to distinguish between intended and unintended discrimination, and … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Customer Related, Human Resources, Management

When making a decision, does happiness win out over all? It’s important —even for decisions with implications that go far beyond simply achieving contentment, says Wharton operations and information management professor Alex Rees-Jones. But, as the saying goes, happiness isn’t everything. Often people knowingly forego the choice that will give them the most pleasure for one that satisfies other ideals or factors that are important … [ Read more ]

Content: Multimedia Content | Author: Alex Rees-Jones | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Economics, Marketing / Sales

The one-for-one business model has catapulted to prominence since Toms adopted it. Scores of similar businesses, selling a wide range of products, have followed suit. Many say that from a marketing standpoint, the model is a winner. Still, questions have been raised about whether the social impact aspect works quite as well.

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Social Responsibility (ESG)

Talk to any CEO about what haunts them the most and disruptive innovation will be at the top of the list. It is a logical fear: A company whose existence depends on established technologies could face extinction or loss of market leadership if a revolutionary innovation comes along. Just ask smartphone maker BlackBerry after Apple launched the iPhone. But a study soon to be published … [ Read more ]

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

Often perceived as acting in ways that harm the economy, society and the environment due to a short-term focus on profits, big business is now starting to use its power for long-term good, according to Lucy Parker and Jon Miller, authors of Everybody’s Business: The Unlikely Story of How Big Business Can Fix the World. In an interview with Wharton management professor Witold Henisz, Parker … [ Read more ]

Content: Multimedia Content | Authors: Jon Miller, Lucy Parker | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Social Responsibility (ESG)

Everyone cheats a little from time to time. But most major betrayals within organizations — from accounting fraud to doping in sports — start with a first step that crosses the line, according to Dan Ariely, a leading behavioral economist at Duke and author of The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone — Especially Ourselves. That step can start people on a … [ Read more ]

Content: Multimedia Content | Authors: Adam Grant, Dan Ariely | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Ethics, Management, Organizational Behavior

In his recent book, Business Persons, a Legal Theory of the Firm, Wharton professor of ethics and legal studies Eric W. Orts answers the question: Are corporations “people?” In this Knowledge@Wharton video interview, Orts explains why corporations should be treated as “persons” in some — but not all — instances.

Content: Multimedia Content | Author: Eric W. Orts | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Legal

Human resource professionals have begun to use sophisticated data analysis for all sorts of people-related issues ranging from recruitment and performance evaluation to promotion and compensation. People analytics, as this approach is called, is making waves because it is said to eliminate biases that exist in human judgment. Cade Massey, practice professor of operations and information management at Wharton, works at the intersection of psychology … [ Read more ]

Content: Multimedia Content | Author: Cade Massey | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Human Resources, Management

While quotas have proven to be a successful method for motivating employees in some situations, they also tend to spur a host of unintended consequences.

Content: Article | Author: Matthew Bidwell | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

Does word-of-mouth work the same way for all products and in all media? Jonah Berger and fellow Wharton marketing professor Raghuram Iyengar say no: The medium being used — oral versus written — actually influences which products get talked about. What’s more, marketers can capitalize on this knowledge to better exploit the power of word of mouth.

Content: Article | Authors: Jonah Berger, Raghuram Iyengar | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Marketing / Sales

In this interview, Keith Ferrazzi talks about the importance of making a people plan; how to learn to become more generous with those around you, and what to do when your generosity is met with skepticism.

Content: Multimedia Content | Authors: Adam Grant, Keith Ferrazzi | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Career, Personal Development

Instead of throwing money at “superstars,” companies would be better served by using quantifiable measures to pick the right CEO, according to recent Wharton research.

Content: Article | Authors: J. Scott Armstrong, Philippe Jacquart | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Corporate Governance