Knowledge at Wharton

Webvan the ambitious online grocer once bragged that it would set a new standard for Internet retailing. As most people now know for all its hubris the company has turned out to be one of the dot-com economy’s most spectacular failures. After burning its way through $1.2 billion in capital it declared bankruptcy in July. Does Webvan’s collapse mean that shoppers dislike buying groceries online? Fo...

Even as so many well-known search engines are struggling for survival Google.com continues to thrive actually turning a profit this year according to the privately-held company. What explains Google’s success and the loyalty of its users? “Performance not glitter ” sums up one Wharton professor. Plus a purist approach to advertising. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Choose one: a slight pay raise or a shorter work week. If you chose the former you may be suffering from what authors John de Graaf David Wann and Thomas Naylor call “affluenza ” which is both the name of their new book and a reference to America’s worship of economic expansion. Think more shopping malls bigger homes more bankruptcies both monetary and spiritual. Affluenza our reviewer says is a r...

How can executives measure returns on investments they make in information technology? This complex issue touches everything from decisions about replacing desktop computers with laptop models to investments in complex software systems. Experts from Wharton and Intel the giant chip maker suggest some methods that may help executives approach these questions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy...

Customer relationship management or CRM is the buzzword du jour in business circles. To hear some proponents talk about it all a company needs to do is buy and install a sophisticated CRM software package to maximize its returns from customers. Wharton faculty members point out however that making CRM work involves doing a lot more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lee Iacocca was a level 4 leader: effective in running the company but often more committed to self-aggrandizement than the sustained future of the institution. Darwin Smith the little-known former head of Kimberly-Clark was a level 5 leader. James Collins author of Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies and the forthcoming book Good to Great explained the difference at a Wharton...

Given recent increases in the use of stock options by both “new economy” and “old economy” companies one might reasonably expect that employees – the beneficiaries of this perk - understand how options work. But according to recent research by Wharton professors David Larcker and Richard Lambert employees tend to be relatively uninformed as to the basic economics of stock options a finding that ha...

Approximately 60% of new ventures fail because of bad marketing decisions according to Wharton professor Leonard Lodish author of a new book entitled Entrepreneurial Marketing. The book explores the critical role marketing decisions – on everything from brand building and positioning to advertising and pricing - play in a company’s success. As Lodish says: “There are some business people who intui...

True or false: Leaders have followers but not all followers are subordinates. Quite true says Michael Useem director of Wharton’s Center for Leadership and Change Management. Indeed if managers wish to be effective they must learn how to lead the people they report to as well as the employees they oversee. Useem calls this process “leading up” and it is the subject of his upcoming book. Hosted on...

Entrepreneurs as most people know are risk-takers who thrive on uncertainty and change always on the lookout for their next startup. But according to new research from Wharton management professor Ian C. MacMillan and co-author Vipin Gupta entrepreneurs aren’t the only ones who should be able to operate in unpredictable high-risk environments. Drawing on an extensive worldwide survey of middle man...

Now that employees in many dot-com companies have suddenly found their stock options to be substantially “out of the money ” is it time to announce the death of stock options as an integral component of compensation packages? Not so fast argue Wharton accounting professors Christopher Ittner Richard Lambert and David Larcker in a new paper that studies whether the performance of new economy firms...

“When people have a choice they choose service over anything else including price and product attributes ” says Pat House co-founder and executive vice president of Siebel Systems the world’s leading supplier of eBusiness application software. During a visit to Wharton earlier this month House explained the strategy that has allowed Siebel to thrive in a notoriously turbulent industry. Hosted on A...

Choosing performance measures is a challenge. Performance measurement systems play a key role in developing strategy evaluating the achievement of organizational objectives and compensating managers. Yet many managers feel traditional financially oriented systems no longer work adequately. A recent survey of U.S. financial services companies found most were not satisfied with their measurement sys...

In an article on Oct. 9 2000 in the Financial Times’ Mastering Management series Wharton marketing professor Barbara Kahn writes about the importance of turning customers into advocates who will not only develop loyalty to your company’s product or service but will also spread the word to other potential buyers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Let’s face it. Anyone reading this article thinks that information about how to reward highly-regarded employees applies to them. And we all have ideas about what these rewards should be (more money bigger title bigger office etc.) But short of giving out stock options that will be worth $500 zillion in six months how can managers provide meaningful incentives and rewards for star performers? Whar...

It’s become an all-too-familiar theme of business articles and books: How dramatic increases in competitiveness innovation deregulation globalization and information intensity have created perpetual uncertainty in everyday managerial life. The solution? Stop acting by the old rules and start thinking with the discipline of habitual entrepreneurs says Wharton management professor Ian MacMillan. Mac...

Is the lecture hall outdated? Management education needs to be radically rethought for an Internet age becoming more customizable with delivery anytime and anyplace and more applied interactive learning. Two Wharton professors Jerry Wind and David Reibstein discuss a new paradigm for management education facilitated by advances in information technology and how it might be integrated into a decisi...

As many companies and individuals have learned the hard way coming up with a new technology doesn’t necessarily mean you will reap the gains from it. What steps can you take to protect your innovation – there are four of them - and how do these strategies work in the brave new world of emerging technologies? Management professor Sidney G. Winter one of the authors of Wharton on Managing Emerging T...

Internet-based retailers often spend millions of dollars on advertising but how well do they use website log data to track their own performance in turning random browsers into buyers? And buyers into repeat buyers? And repeat buyers into big spenders? Not well at all claims Peter Fader of Wharton’s marketing department. As disturbing signs emerge that online purchasing may be starting to stall In...