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: 1 day 15 hours ago
Research Roundup: Improving Intelligence Forecasts, Vertically Integrated Health Care, and 'Worrisome' Health Care Costs
How can intelligence agencies improve accountability and forecasting accuracy? Can hospitals become more efficient through vertical integration with home health agencies and nursing homes? Do taxpayers fully understand how the expansion of health care will be financed? Wharton professors Philip Tetlock and Barbara Mellers; Guy David and Evan Rawley; and Mark Pauly, respectively, examine these issues -- and what they mean for business -- in recent research articles.
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Don't Mention It: How 'Undiscussables' Can Undermine an Organization
Recent high-profile scandals at Penn State, MF Global Holdings, Olympus and elsewhere raise questions about why organizations often fail to address significant internal problems that at best impede performance, and at worst could have devastating effects. In hindsight, especially to observers, it is clear what should have been done. But for employees, exposing such problems is more complicated than telling right from wrong, say experts at Wharton and elsewhere.
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China and the WTO: Looking Back, Looking Forward
Ten years after China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), the country has become the world’s largest exporter and accounts for some 10% of global trade. The International Monetary Fund predicts that by 2016, China will overtake the U.S. to become the world’s largest economy. How did membership in the WTO help transform China? What will the next decade mean for China and its trading partners? To discuss these questions and others, Knowledge@Wharton spoke with Wharton management professors Marshall Meyer and Mauro Guillen and finance professor Franklin Allen. Their insights appear in this special report, produced in collaboration with Beijing Review magazine.
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Procter & Gamble: Mastering the Art of the Innovation Tournament
When Procter & Gamble embarked on a plan to power 30% of its energy needs with renewable sources by 2020 -- the first goal in a longer process -- the company decided to hold an innovation tournament. While not a new idea, innovation tournaments are hard to execute well. P&G managed the process by opening it up to a broad circle of participants, both inside and outside the company, and making sure there was "no predetermined list of options." Such an approach "drove us to a better discussion," says one P&G executive.
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The Microsoft Effect: Will Google Become What It Fears?
Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs once warned Google co-founder Larry Page that the search giant was dangerously close to becoming another Microsoft -- that is, a company spreading itself too thin by trying to do everything. In recent years, Google has grown from being simply a search engine to having a hand in a range of sectors, an expansion that some worry will make it more difficult for innovative ideas to come to the surface. How can Google avoid some of the missteps made by Microsoft during its rapid expansion? And what can it learn from Microsoft's successes?
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Seven Top Leaders on Making Tough Calls and Serving for the Greater Good
What makes a great leader? At a recent event, the seven winners of this year's Top American Leaders Award from the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's Kennedy School and Washington Post Live shared personal observations on how they came by the passion that inspires their work -- and on what irks them about public life. Common in all their views is that leadership is about serving more than one's self.
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M. Night Shyamalan: Seeing Signs
Filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan fell in love with movies as a teenager and began shooting scenes with a Super-8 film camera. His breakout film, supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense (1999), garnered six Academy Award nominations and earned more than $650 million in worldwide box office receipts. Shyamalan is currently in pre-production on One Thousand A.E., a film based on an idea by co-producer and actor Will Smith that Shyamalan will direct. After a recent Wharton Leadership Lecture, he sat down with Knowledge@Wharton to discuss trends in the movie industry, his creative process and his future plans.
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Writer/Director M. Night Shyamalan on the Catch 22 of Branding and the Power of Point of View
Each of writer/director M. Night Shyamalan's movies has been informed directly by his life experiences: Whether audiences like or dislike the finished result, they recognize his voice guiding the story. At a recent Wharton Leadership Lecture, Shyamalan discussed how a strong point of view has helped him achieve success as a writer and director as well as ride out critical and box office disappointments. It has also defined how he runs the M. Night Shyamalan Foundation, which supports social justice programs in the Philadelphia region and internationally.
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Research Roundup: Homeowner Mobility, Divestitures and the Real Impact of FDI
How has the housing bust and accompanying recession impacted the mobility of homeowners? Are divestitures always a smart move for companies? Can multinationals create a fact-based case for the real economic impact of their investment in different countries? Professors Joseph Gyourko, Emilie Feldman and Ethan Kapstein, respectively, examined these issues -- and what they mean for business and consumers -- in recent research papers.
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The Customer Lifetime Value Equation: Will It Pay Off for Tech Companies?
Amazon will lose money on each Kindle Fire it sells. Sprint is not expected to turn a profit selling Apple's iPhone for at least three years. Both companies are banking on customer lifetime value (CLV), a marketing formula based on the idea of spending money up front to gain customers whose loyalty will reap rewards over the long term. The model is becoming more and more popular among technology companies, and as software companies increasingly turn to subscription-based business models through cloud computing, CLV will become an even larger issue, according to Wharton experts.
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Microfinance's Latest Challenge: Cutting Back on Over-indebtedness Among Its Poorest Clients
Whereas poor entrepreneurs were at one time unable to get even one loan, now they frequently can get three or four. And that's a problem, according to participants in the 3rd Annual Women's World Banking Advanced Leadership Program, which took place last week at Wharton Executive Education. Too many loans can cause clients to "drown themselves in debt by borrowing from multiple institutions," noted one member of a roundtable set up by Knowledge@Wharton to discuss the challenges and successes of microfinance.
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Will a Eurozone Recession Put a Damper on the World's Fragile Economic Recovery?
If large parts of Europe fall into a recession, as many experts are predicting, it is likely to have negative, although varied, effects on economies around the world. As European leaders hammer out yet another package of solutions this week, Wharton faculty weigh in on the impact of a eurozone recession, as well as the pros and cons of the recovery measures that are up for debate.
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'Great by Choice': Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen on Excelling in Uncertain Times, Part Two
In Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck -- Why Some Thrive Despite Them All, Jim Collins and Morten Hansen suggest that even in the most tumultuous business conditions, we can choose to be great. In the second half of a two-part interview with Knowledge@Wharton and Wharton management professor Michael Useem, they start out discussing how successful businesses deliver returns that are a minimum of 10 times the industry index over a 15-year period. They also explain why companies don't have to be the most innovative but instead, can be "innovative enough"; the critical importance of "zooming out" and "zooming in" to get your bearings in any situation; and when and how to introduce change in an organization.
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Zvi Eckstein: A Former Central Banker's View of Economic and Social Hot Spots
Fragile stability probably best describes how visiting Wharton finance professor Zvi Eckstein sees the world. From Cairo's Tahrir Square to Wall Street and beyond, the former deputy governor of the Bank of Israel recently shared his thoughts with Knowledge@Wharton about the world's economic and social hot spots. As 2011 draws to a close, people around the world -- including those in his home country, Israel -- face numerous challenges whose solutions are hardly easy.
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'Drinking from a Fire Hose': Has Consumer Data Mining Gone Too Far?
Today's ever-expanding cache of online data is a store in more ways than one. Every tweet tweeted, badge unlocked, website searched and "Like" button clicked adds to the growing inventory of user information. Data miners then sort it, package it, market it -- and companies use it to better target customers. But how much sharing is too much, especially when consumers are not given a say over how their data is used? And is the exploding availability of information actually making companies less adept at predicting consumer behavior?
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Progress but Also Insecurity: An Insider's View of Life in Today's Russia
Russia experienced one of the largest mass privatization efforts ever undertaken, says Wharton legal studies and business ethics professor Philip M. Nichols, adding, however, that some of the most valuable assets have been renationalized, or "privatized in a way that allows the state to continue to control them." Nichols recently interviewed Vitali Naishul, president of the Institute for the Study of the Russian Economy and the Center for the Study of Russian Socio-Political Language, and widely acknowledged as one of the creators of the country's market economy. Naishul talks about Russia's economy, and why some Russians have a sense of unease about where the country is headed.
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The NY Jets' Mike Tannenbaum and SAP's Bill McDermott: Creating Leaders On and Off the Field
The tasks of running a software firm and managing an NFL team seem very different on the surface. During a recent Wharton Leadership Lecture, however, New York Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum and SAP CEO Bill McDermott noted that they employ similar philosophies to keep their organizations healthy. Chief among them are being decisive, building a coherent vision and looking for investment and hiring opportunities that match up with company culture.
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Concierge Medicine: The Doctor Is (Always) In, If You Pay Enough
For anyone who has ever waited days or weeks to see the doctor, concierge medicine sounds appealing: For an additional fee, patients typically enjoy same-day appointments and 24-hour access, more face time with the doctor and extra preventative care. Doctors who offer concierge medicine say the practice frees them from the constraints imposed by insurance providers and allows them time to give patients the individualized attention they need. Skeptics argue that concierge medicine promotes a two-tiered system, improving health care for a few but worsening it for everyone else.
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Turning the Page: Books for the Holidays and Beyond
Our latest book report offers some opportunities for reflection as the year comes to a close. Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen discuss Great by Choice, focusing on why some companies thrive in chaos while others do not. Malcolm Gladwell reflects on the “extraordinary wisdom” that has influenced the ideas in his bestselling books. Wharton professors Peter Fader and Richard A. Lambert talk about their new books; Fader challenges businesses to identify their most valuable customers in order to ensure long-term growth, and Lambert explains why it is critical that managers use financial data to make smarter decisions. Rob Markey, co-author of The Ultimate Question 2.0, discusses how companies can measure and increase customer loyalty. Finally, an excerpt from Eric Ries’ Lean Startup will get you thinking about the benefits of applying lean manufacturing concepts to new businesses.
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'Great by Choice': Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen on Excelling in Uncertain Times, Part One
In a new book, Jim Collins and Morten Hansen suggest that even in the most tumultuous business conditions, we can choose to be great. Over a period of nine years, Collins, a bestselling author, and Hansen studied businesses that excelled and compared them to those that failed. As they note in part one of an interview with Knowledge@Wharton and Wharton management professor Michael Useem, they learned that the most successful business leaders didn't simply succeed: They delivered returns that were a minimum of 10 times the industry index over a 15-year period. In Great by Choice, Collins and Hansen share what these "10Xers" have to teach other business leaders.
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