461 Posts found for Source: Knowledge@Wharton

Product development is often a make-or-break issue for start-ups, and it’s also one of the most poorly understood, entrepreneur Dan Cohen said during a recent presentation at Wharton San Francisco.

Content: Article | Author: Dan Cohen | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Innovation, Products & Services

I realize now that an effective leader or manager can come in a virtually infinite number of forms. I have way more respect for the heterogeneity of excellence. That took a long time because it is so tempting to try and paint a very specific picture of what you think effective leadership is or what an effective organization looks like. The older I get and … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Malcolm Gladwell | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Leadership, Management

There is a wonderful psychologist at the University of Toronto called Jordan Peterson… He says that if you look at the big five personality traits, entrepreneurs are characterized by openness — which is obvious — creativity; conscientiousness – again, obvious — diligence [and being] disagreeable. That is to say, they are not people who require the social approval of their peers.

Content: Quotation | Author: Malcolm Gladwell | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Entrepreneurship

Often, shareholder value trumps all when it comes to measuring corporate success. But focusing too much on the short term can hurt a business over the long run, says Wharton’s Eric W. Orts.

Content: Article | Author: Eric W. Orts | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Corporate Governance

In his new bestseller, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, Malcolm Gladwell looks at what happens when ordinary people confront powerful opponents. Wharton management professor Adam M. Grant recently interviewed Gladwell about his new book. Gladwell shared why he never roots for the underdog, where he comes up with the ideas for his books and sets the record straight on … [ Read more ]

Content: Thought Leader | Authors: Adam Grant, Malcolm Gladwell | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Management

When you are using short-term options or other mechanisms to pay managers only in terms of their share-price performance, you create perverse incentives for them to commit fraud. I think that this is something that people did not think about when they adopted economic theories. Basically, in the economic jargon this is called “principal agent theory.” Principal agent theory was invented and advocated beginning about … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Eric W. Orts | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Corporate Governance

At the inaugural session of the Wharton Economic Summit 2013, GE CEO Jeff Immelt sat down with Wharton’s Michael Useem, director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management, to discuss everything from leadership to risk management to U.S. energy policy.

Over the course of the conversation, Immelt reflected on the challenges and rewards of running a global business that operates in 160 countries and the … [ Read more ]

Content: Thought Leader | Author: Jeff Immelt | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Management | Company: General Electric (GE)

Whether you are a shelf stocker at Walmart or an equity analyst at an investment bank, you may feel that you are not adequately compensated for the work you do — in other words, you are underpaid. But underpaid relative to what? How do employers determine whether compensation is fair, and if it’s not, what consequences can that have for the organization?

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

A colleague asks you for feedback on a report. A LinkedIn connection requests an introduction to one of your key contacts. A recent graduate would like an informational interview. New research from Wharton management professor Adam Grant reveals that how you respond to these requests may be a decisive indicator of where you will end up on the ladder of professional success. Grant recently spoke … [ Read more ]

Content: Multimedia Content | Author: Adam Grant | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Career, Organizational Behavior, Personal Development

Because I think that we’re so limited in our ability to behave ethically in the face of situational pressures, I want to teach our students how to do ethical systems design, how to take all the flaws and weirdnesses of human nature and work with them to design organizations and startup companies where people are always concerned about their reputation. People are concerned about reputation … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Jonathan Haidt | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Ethics

If we truly had efficient markets in which there were no externalities, in which there was no despoiling of public goods, in which there was perfect information and people weren’t allowed to deceive and cheat, then I think the Friedman argument would work. I believe Friedman is very aware of that and wasn’t saying, “Oh, just maximize shareholder, value no matter what the situation.” … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Jonathan Haidt | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Economics, Social Responsibility (ESG)

If you look at it as an individual, we are all so flawed, and we are all so bad at reasoning when our interests or our moral values are at stake. We are not going to get better at reasoning and change just by helping individuals to reason better. When you put us together into networks, systems, companies, juries and legislative bodies, we can correct … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Jonathan Haidt | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Decision Making, Organizational Behavior, Teamwork, Thought

Wharton management professor John Paul MacDuffie cites research which suggests that employees arrive at perceptions of fairness regarding their compensation by comparing the ratio of their inputs — including, for example, their credentials, level of experience and amount of effort put into the job — to their outcomes, including such things as salary and benefits. Under this theory, employees also compare themselves to someone else, … [ Read more ]

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

How do we know which of our successes and failures can be attributed to either skill or luck? That is the question that investment strategist Michael J. Mauboussin explores in his book The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing. Wharton management professor Adam M. Grant recently sat down with Mauboussin to talk about the paradox of skill, the conditions for … [ Read more ]

Content: Multimedia Content | Author: Michael J. Mauboussin | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Personal Development

Every year, hundreds of thousands of new graduates enter the business world, eager to climb the corporate ladder. Their progress on the early rungs of that journey will often be determined by qualities like hard work, determination, knowledge and technical proficiency. But Alan S. Berson and Richard G. Stieglitz, authors of Leadership Conversations: Challenging High-Potential Managers to Become Great Leaders, argue that those same qualities … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Alan S. Berson, Richard G. Stieglitz | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Career, Leadership, Management, Personal Development

Management is intrinsically result-oriented. Managers develop work schedules, set goals and delegate responsibility. They are there to answer questions and to assist employees in completing their tasks. Their orientation is tactical and geared to solving problems. Nonetheless, even at the lowest levels, managers are challenged to develop a new mindset, a new set of skills. As a so-called “high potential” moves up from individual contributor … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Leadership, Management

At Reebok, the cushioning in a best-selling basketball shoe reflects technology borrowed from intravenous fluid bags. And at IDEO, developers designed a leak-proof water bottle using the technology from a shampoo bottle top. These examples show how so-called “peripheral” knowledge — that is, ideas from domains that are seemingly irrelevant to a given task — can influence breakthrough innovation. But how does such information make … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Martine Haas | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Innovation

Losing out on a promotion is tough, and being passed over for a high-level position in favor of another candidate — either external or internal — can be a deal breaker for even the most loyal company soldiers. According to experts at Wharton and elsewhere, keeping employees happy after they fail to get a promotion is an important part of protecting a company’s most important … [ Read more ]

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

The defining characteristic of future change, according to Nassim Nicholas Taleb, is that it is impossible — and foolhardy — to try to predict it. Nonetheless, the dominant impulse among policymakers and so-called experts is to attempt to reduce volatility rather than deal with it more productively. In his new book, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, Taleb argues that in order for individuals, institutions, … [ Read more ]

Content: Thought Leader | Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Management, Personal Development, Risk Management

Companies are being overly responsive. They’re listening to every tweet and every Facebook post and basically saying, “The customer is always right; what are we going to do?” I’m all in favor of discrimination in the marketplace. Let’s give extra attention to the high-value customers. The other ones … have to live with it. It’s very important for a company to focus on the right … [ Read more ]

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