Knowledge@Wharton is an online resource that offers the latest business insights, information, and research from a variety of sources. Content includes analysis of current business trends, interviews with industry leaders and faculty, articles based on the most recent business research, book reviews, conference and seminar reports, and links to other websites.
Updated: 8 hours 47 min ago
Sheena Iyengar on the Power of Choice -- and Why It Doesn't Always Bring Us What We Want
In March 2010, Sheena Iyengar, a professor at Columbia Business School, published a book titled, The Art of Choosing. The book, she says, reflects her interest in how people make choices, including how they are able to navigate both the opportunities and responsibilities that an abundance of choice can bring. In a video presentation, Iyengar offers Knowledge@Wharton viewers her perspective on the need to separate choices that are "meaningful and uplifting" from those that tend to distract us or that lead to unwise decisions.
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The Complicated Lives of Today's Leaders: Why Being at the Top Is Harder Than Ever
For insights into the ethics, values and competencies required of today's global leaders, Knowledge@Wharton recently coordinated a Wharton Executive Education roundtable discussion with four fellows from The World Economic Forum's Global Leadership Fellows Program. The program allows participants to work full-time at the World Economic Forum while developing leadership skills through training courses at top universities. The discussion touched on issues including the changing nature of leadership, how leaders respond to crisis and the role ethics plays in being an effective leader
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Are There Second Acts in the Lives of Aging Internet Firms?
Yahoo is busy integrating social networking features from Facebook and investing in online content. Microsoft touts its new search engine, Bing, every chance it gets in an attempt to take on Google. And AOL, the ailing Internet services company, has spent the last year restructuring and divesting. At the recent Supernova conference in Philadelphia, Brad Garlinghouse, president of AOL consumer applications, described the company's transformation as an attempt at a "second act." Wharton faculty weigh in on what it would take to bring aging Internet companies like AOL up to speed.
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A Seasonal Sales Shift: For Bargain Hunters, Retailers Make Every Day Feel like Christmas
Target, Toys R Us, Sears and Kmart are just a few of the big retailers that have launched mega-sales in recent weeks to tempt increasingly cost-conscious shoppers to their stores. This phenomenon -- known as the seasonal sales shift, or "Christmas creep" -- is not new. But in today's uncertain economic climate, it has bigger implications than ever, both for the retail sector's growth strategies and for consumer spending habits, say Wharton and other business experts.
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Solving a 'Wicked Problem': UPS CEO Scott Davis on Surviving a Shaky Economy
In the current economic climate, many executives are tempted to change strategies quickly or reinvent their company in hopes of finding a new model to weather the downturn. For UPS CEO Scott Davis, however, leadership during the "Great Recession" has meant staying the course. Davis told the audience at the recent Wharton Leadership Conference that his strategy for surviving the last two years involved sticking to the company's core values of integrity and partnership.
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Coca-Cola on the Yangtze: A Corporate Campaign for Clean Water in China
Nearly half of China's sewage and industrial waste is discharged into the Yangtze River, the lifeline of millions of Chinese. As a result, the Yangtze now tops the list of the 10 most-threatened rivers in the world, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). To help reverse the tide, the WWF has joined forces with Coca-Cola to improve the water quality of the upper reaches of the Yangtze. The partnership is the result of a growing corporate awareness that water is a threatened resource -- not just in China, but throughout the world.
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Financial Reform: What Will the Dodd-Frank Act Accomplish?
Following final approval of the sweeping Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act on July 15, Obama administration officials are now addressing audiences across the country to explain how and under what timetable they plan to implement the law’s broad intentions. In separate speeches at Wharton this month, Neal Wolin, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and Diana Farrell, deputy director of the National Economic Council, outlined the administration’s plans to protect against some of the risks that led to the global financial crisis. Knowledge@Wharton offers coverage of their speeches, along with faculty members' perspectives on what the new legislation will mean for the U.S. economy.
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Ranking Employees: Why Comparing Workers to Their Peers Can Often Backfire
What inspires an employee to work harder? More money, more often than not. But what about being benchmarked against peers, asks Wharton management professor Iwan Barankay in a new study titled, "Rankings and Social Tournaments: Evidence from a Field Experiment." With the help of a "crowd-sourcing" website, Barankay set out to discover not only whether workers are interested in how they rank against their peers, but also what happens to their performance if they find out how they placed. His conclusion may leave companies thinking twice about the best way to appraise staff performance.
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Why Gita Wirjawan Wants to Open Indonesia to International Investors
Indonesia's economy is on track to hit $1 trillion in GDP by 2014. The country is the world's third-largest democracy, and is in a demographic sweet spot -- half its population is under 30. But Indonesia is more widely known for natural disasters and natural resources than for its industry and infrastructure. Gita Wirjawan, a 44-year-old former investment banker with Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan, last year became Indonesia's chairman of Badan Koordinasi Penanaman Modal (BKPM), the country's Investment Coordinating Board, a ministerial-level post. He believes "the world needs to understand Indonesia in a different way." Wirjawan spoke with Knowledge@Wharton about his efforts to attract global investors.
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'Talking the Talk': Jeff Schwartz on Building Talent During a Downturn
According to a year-long project by Deloitte initiated at the start of the global economic downturn, the firms that posted stronger performances and were optimistic about the future were those that paid more than lip service to the importance of retaining top employees. Jeff Schwartz, global leader for Deloitte Consulting's organization and change service line, shared the results of the study, which included approximately 1,800 executives, at the recent 14th annual Wharton Leadership Conference.
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Mid-life Crisis? Venture Capital Acts Its Age
The venture capital community is showing signs of middle age -- moving more slowly and cautiously than before, and hitting fewer home runs than it did in younger, leaner days. As a result, experts say, the sector is having trouble producing the robust performance long associated with it. This means investors need to look at venture capital, and its impact on their portfolios, in a new way.
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'Turning Social Capital into Economic Capital': Straight Talk about Word-of-mouth Marketing
If your hair stylist gave you $10 every time you sent one of your friends her way, you might be more tempted to tell everyone what a fabulous stylist she was -- or you might even try to make new friends to refer. This clever method of customer acquisition is a form of word-of-mouth marketing known as a referral program, and it is becoming increasingly popular in a wide range of industries, from financial services and automobiles to newspapers and hotels. Indeed, according to a new study co-authored by Wharton marketing professor Christophe Van den Bulte, referral programs are a financially attractive way for firms to acquire new customers.
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ABC's IPO Underscores the ABCs of Banking in China
With the world record-breaking $22 billion IPO of Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) on July 15, Beijing relinquished another small part of its hold on the country's financial services sector. But the process of modernizing the country's banks is far from over, say experts in China and beyond. As ABC and its local rivals struggle to shed their legacy as state-directed "policy banks," many observers still question the central government's willingness to cede control over the balance sheets of what have become some of the world's largest lenders.
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Surviving Silly Bandz: Prolonging the Shelf Life of Fads
Fads are hard to miss. Whether it's this summer's craze -- Silly Bandz, the rubber-band bracelets that have become a must-have accessory for children -- Beanie Babies or the Rubik's Cube, they take off like a rocket in popularity and then seem to fizzle out just as quickly. You might think fads are kids' stuff. But adults aren't immune to the fad machine -- remember all those grownups sporting Crocs a few years ago? And while fads present challenges to businesses riding that wave, they can also spell opportunity if managers take the cash generated by these crazes and use it to build a sustainable business.
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Shooting the Messenger: Quarterly Earnings and Short-term Pressure to Perform
While most experts agree that a single-minded focus on the short term can cause negative consequences for companies, they also suggest that blaming quarterly earnings reports, and the pressure to meet analysts' targets or company guidance, is like shooting the messenger. Although the system of quarterly earnings might be broken, fixing it is no easy matter and might create even more pressure to produce immediate results.
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Will the Economic Recovery Run Out of Steam?
After a year of solid gains, the economic recovery is beginning to slow. Demand is trailing off as inventory levels have been restored and emergency stimulus measures withdrawn. Continued high unemployment and a downtick in housing are weighing on consumer confidence and spending. Add unexpected shocks from Europe and a slowdown in China, and forecasters are now ratcheting down their expectations for growth over the next year. While many still expect economic expansion to continue in the longer term, "we have definitely hit a soft patch," one Wharton faculty member notes.
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From Recession to Recovery: A Focus on Higher Productivity, New Partnerships, Cost Competitiveness
At the opening session of the Global Alumni Forum in Madrid, Sebastián Escarrer, vice chairman of Sol Meliá SA, Wharton dean Thomas S. Robertson and Wharton finance professor Jeremy Siegel each offered different observations about the state of the global markets, the outlook for reform, and the roles that companies, governments and business schools must play in a newly reconfigured economic environment.
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Real Estate's Future: 'It Depends on What Degree of Risk You Are Looking For'
With the financial crisis wiping out trillions of dollars in property values worldwide, the challenges facing the global real estate industry are greater than they have been in decades. Within the turmoil, however, are opportunities for players in both the commercial and residential real estate markets, a point made by members of a panel at the recent Wharton Global Alumni Forum in Madrid called, "Real Estate: Exploring the Road to Recovery."
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Demographic Changes: A Catalyst for New Models in the Global Tourism Industry
For years, the tourism industry grew almost effortlessly. Those days are over. Tough economic conditions have awakened companies in the industry to the fact that they must better anticipate customers' needs and reinvent their business models. That was the theme of a panel discussion at the recent Wharton Global Alumni Forum in Madrid. Panelists spoke about population shifts, the need for greater concentration in the sector and the rise of new middle class consumers with a desire to travel.
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Private Equity: 'Is the Golden Age Behind Us?'
Before introducing the panelists taking part in a session during the recent Wharton Global Alumni Forum in Madrid called "Relaunching Private Equity," moderator Raffi Amit summarized the challenges that both venture capital and private equity face at a time when investors have become more conservative, returns are down, and transactions have declined in both volume and value. Panelists offered their views on the new investment climate, and suggested strategies for coping with today's tough economic environment.
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