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Whether You Agree with Globality or Disagree, Don't Ignore It
In a year when airlines all over the world are reeling from the double whammy of high oil prices and a faltering economy, Embraer -- the Brazil based aircraft maker -- doubled its net income in the second quarter. The company's growth during difficult economic times offers an example of the way that companies from rapidly developing economies are reshaping global business, say Harold L. Sirkin, James W. Hemerling and Arindam K. Bhattacharya in their new book, Globality: Competing with Everyone from Everywhere for Everything. Sirkin and his co-authors identify 100 such "challenger" firms that are expanding rapidly, spell out the reasons why, and analyze the implications for the way business will be done in the future.
Is a Medical Intern's 'Initiation' Harmful to Your Health?
Sandeep Jauhar's book, Intern: A Doctor's Initiation, is the unsettling account of his medical residency at a New York hospital, largely focused on his first year. It represents his take on his internship, interweaving that experience with something of his childhood, family history, previous studies and work experiences. In the process, Jauhar tells us about himself, medical education and health care.
'The Objective of Education Is Learning, Not Teaching'
In their book, Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track, authors Russell L. Ackhoff and Daniel Greenberg point out that today's education system is seriously flawed -- it focuses on teaching rather than learning. "Why should children -- or adults -- be asked to do something computers and related equipment can do much better than they can?" the authors ask in an excerpt from the book. "Why doesn't education focus on what humans can do better than the machines and instruments they create?"
Of Cell Phones, Maps and Mental Models: Why Doing What Was Right Is Sometimes Completely Wrong
Why don't we see the truck racing toward us, or the treasure of gold beneath our feet? Are these just invisible events? In this excerpt from the book, It Starts with One: Changing Individuals Changes Organizations, authors J. Stewart Black and Hal B. Gregersen offer examples from the mobile phone industry and from the Spanish exploration of America in the 16th century to explain why organizations and individuals fail to see the need for change. "Why do we fail to see the need for change?" the authors ask. Their answer: "Fundamentally, we fail to see because we are blinded by the light of what we already see."
'Inventing the Movies': The Epic Battle between Innovation and the Status Quo in Hollywood
While many companies are scrambling to gain competitive advantage by finding ways to innovate using technology, the film industry -- as characterized in Scott Kirsner's book, Inventing the Movies -- has had a century-long history of shunning innovation and eschewing technological progress. Subtitled "Hollywood's Epic Battle Between Innovation and the Status Quo, from Thomas Edison to Steve Jobs," the book is a case study in the difficulties of introducing technological change in an industry that carefully guards its well-entrenched business models.
Unbound Prosperity: Unlocking 'Unreal Estate' through Institutional Reform
Does reforming institutions always result in benefits to the system regardless of when and how they take place? Are some institutions more important than others? Elena Panaritis's debut work, Prosperity Unbound, not only answers these questions but targets what the writer believes to be the most valuable institution necessary for growth -- the property system and its underpinning laws and regulations. Panaritis, who heads Panel Group, a Washington D.C. based organization that works with governments to unlock illiquid markets, also offers a diagnostic tool to give policy makers guidelines in reforming a property system.
The Power of Momentum: Companies That Build Their Wave and Ride It
How can a company deliver continuous, exceptional growth, year after year? J. C. Larreche, a professor of marketing at INSEAD, answers that question in his book, The Momentum Effect: How to Ignite Exceptional Growth. According to the author's research, momentum-powered firms delivered 80% more shareholder value than their slower rivals. "Momentum leaders are not lucky -- they are smart," he writes in this excerpt. "They have discovered the source of momentum and, with it, the beginnings of a smarter way to exceptional growth. Managers often talk about 'riding the wave.' Momentum leaders aren't that passive. They live by this motto: First build your wave, then ride it."
War of the Words: Scrabulous Is off Facebook, but Did Hasbro Win the Game?
Scrabble -- the board game in which you compete with other players in making words -- has become a familiar household name since it was introduced in 1948. Its unofficial online double, Scrabulous, has become one of the most popular applications on Facebook since it was launched in July 2007. Now, both games are making waves as Hasbro, the copyright holder for Scrabble in the U.S. and Canada, has filed a lawsuit against the creators of Scrabulous -- following which Scrabulous was yanked off Facebook in late July. But in today's fast-changing social networking environment, Hasbro's lawsuit and its attempt to control its online image may not be the right move, Wharton faculty say.
Doha Debacle: What's Next for Global Commerce
Progress toward unfettered international commerce stumbled last week with the collapse of the World Trade Organization's Doha talks, a seven-year effort to establish new global trade rules. The lengthy talks were complicated by the rapid emergence of China and India as major economic powers with commercial and strategic interests to protect, and the clout to do so. Many observers say the talks' collapse is a setback for poorer nations, which need access to larger markets in order for their economies to grow. Wharton professors Stephen Kobrin, whose research interests include globalization, and Marshall Meyer, an authority on China's economy, recently spoke to Knowledge@Wharton about the talks' collapse, global commerce and China's interest in the rules governing trade.
A Precarious Road: How Retailers Can Navigate Inflation's Hazards
Retailers are in a tough situation, locked between rising product costs and a limited ability to raise their prices. Even cost-savvy market leaders such as Costco are having a difficult time. But Wharton faculty say that handled carefully, the current inflationary period may actually be a business opportunity for some companies. The key: Forgetting some of the old rules of retailing.
On the Verge of Change: Giving Muslim Women the Confidence to Lead
Managing the forces arrayed against them -- hostility against Islam in the Western world, resistance to change among Muslims and hostility to the West among Muslim populations -- is no easy task for Muslim women in positions of leadership. As one of the participants in a recent leadership conference noted: "A Muslim woman must prove not just that she is as good, or better, than a man, but as good as a Western woman." Two Wharton leadership experts were among the presenters at the three-week event.
A Lot to Learn: Many Sovereign Wealth Fund Managers Come up Short in Measures of Sophistication
Many public funds don't adhere to basic norms of modern money management and most don't even appear to make an effort to match their investment strategies with their future financial obligations. "As [sovereign wealth funds] have grown, they appear to be demonstrating an increasing risk appetite, very little transparency and virtually no clarity of objectives," write three researchers, including Wharton professor of insurance and risk management Olivia Mitchell, in a soon-to be-published paper titled, "Managing Public Investment Funds: Best Practices and New Questions."
File-sharing Networks Return with Legitimate Ways to Share Music -- and Make Money
After the U.S. Supreme Court declared in 2005 that Internet file-sharing sites Grokster and StreamCast had illegally aided their customers' efforts to share pirated copies of copyrighted music and video files, many commentators predicted the demise of businesses that depended on online file-sharing. But new start-ups say they have found ways to make peer-to-peer (often called P2P) file-sharing legal and perhaps profitable. Still, their business plans need tweaking, according to a paper published recently by Wharton professor Kartik Hosanagar and two University of Washington colleagues. One suggestion: The networks should sometimes be willing to pay more than they get for content.
Green from Green: Rising Energy Costs May be Good News for 'Clean Tech' Firms -- and Their Investors
Despite warnings of a bubble, investors and entrepreneurs see long-term promise for firms that make efficient technology and alternative energy. Unlike the vaporware of the tech bubble that burst in 2001, these technologies are up, running and proven, say participants at a recent conference sponsored by Wharton's Mack Center for Technological Innovation.
How the U.S. Government Has Mismanaged the Country
America has been failed by its government, and the nation now faces economic and security catastrophes unless its leaders change their ways, Wharton management professor Lawrence G. Hrebiniak concludes in his new book, The Mismanagement of America, Inc. He directs his severest criticism at the government's supervision of the Social Security Trust Fund and an intelligence infrastructure in which various agencies are no better at communicating with each other than they were before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Collateralized Damage: Commercial Mortgage Securities Are at a Standstill
Media outlets and regulators have scrutinized the securitization of risky residential mortgages for their role in the global credit crunch. Not as much attention has been paid to their less-risky cousin, the commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) market, which has been tarnished by problems on the residential side. Despite their superior fundamentals, says one Wharton professor, the CMBS market is "pretty much gone." The question now: Can it come back?
Does Short-selling Need the SEC's Oversight?
"There's really nothing illegal about it" is a phrase often heard in descriptions of the practice of shorting, or short-selling, which are essentially bets that a stock price will decline. But after some market watchers accused short-sellers of unfairly depressing the stock prices of several key financial institutions, the Securities and Exchange Commission imposed new rules. Wharton finance professors Marshall Blume and Franklin Allen suggest the impact will be minimal.
Fast Forward: Tech Giants Scramble For Bigger Piece of Growing Online Ad Market
Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have been talking about -- and making -- deals that each believes will help secure its future in the fast-growing market for online advertising. No matter how their maneuvering concludes, advertising and marketing firms must get ready to adapt to new technology that promises to speed the migration of ads from traditional media to the web.
Persevering through the Storm: Radian Group's S.A. Ibrahim on Leadership in the Subprime Crisis
In June 2007, the stock price of Radian Group was at $64 a share, close to its all-time high. In late June 2008, in the thick of the sub-prime mortgage crisis, the company's stock had tumbled below $1 a share. Yet S.A. Ibrahim, CEO of the Philadelphia-based credit risk management firm, honored a commitment he had made a year ago to speak at the recent 12th Annual Wharton Leadership Conference. After all, Ibrahim noted, "What could be more relevant than hearing about leadership from someone in the middle of a multitude of challenges?"
Betting on Betas: How Internet Entrepreneurs Are Creating New Paths to Online Revenue
Some Internet entrepreneurs are blazing new trails to real revenue in the virtual world. In the examples that emerged from the recent Supernova conference, an annual technology event in San Francisco organized by Wharton professor Kevin Werbach, these models have something in common: building long-term relationships with customers.
