Knowledge at Wharton

As the price of wireless transmissions drops telecom carriers need to focus on new applications that will engage consumers more deeply with their mobile devices -- and encourage them to pay a premium for wireless services according to speakers at the recent Wharton Business Technology Conference whose theme was ”Enterprise Agility: Lead with Speed.”  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more...

It would be hard enough under any circumstances to become the first outsider named to lead a 161-year-old global conglomerate but Peter Löscher faced a unique challenge last summer when he assumed the reins at Siemens AG -- the German-based engineering and healthcare giant. During a recent Wharton leadership lecture series Löscher openly acknowledged that his first and most difficult task was deal...

Big buyout firms like the Blackstone Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts do headline-grabbing transactions and collect eye-popping paychecks. But when the economy slows down and lenders turn wary those mega-deals are the first to dry up. Meanwhile the modest middle market -- typically deals in the $500 million to $1 billion range -- keeps plugging along. In fact according to panelists at the 2008 Wh...

No one makes it to the top ranks of corporate management without a healthy amount of self-assurance. Confidence underlies decisive strong leadership but does overconfidence lead managers to cross the line and commit fraud? New research by Wharton accounting professor Catherine M. Schrand and doctoral student Sarah L. C. Zechman examines patterns in frauds to determine if some frauds evolve not out...

How do consumers react when they discover someone else bought the same product they did at a cheaper price? Do they feel differently if that someone else is a friend versus a stranger? Wharton marketing professor Lisa Bolton and two colleagues explore pricing and fairness perceptions in a new research paper and document how attitudes are different or in some cases similar between consumers in Chin...

Congress and the White House recently settled on an economic stimulus package with unusual speed pushing the throttle to pull the economy out of a nosedive. Is this just election-year grandstanding or does economic stimulus really work? While some experts argue that priming the economy now is unnecessary or even counter-productive others support the $168 billion package and its emphasis on low and...

Approximately 19% of the world’s electricity bill comes from lighting according to Rudy Provoost CEO of Philips Lighting. As such Philips the world’s largest producer of industrial and consumer lighting products has a big role to play in the ongoing transformation from incandescent to solid-state lighting using LED technology. Provoost who until last year was CEO of Philips Consumer Electronics is...

When former Senator George Mitchell finally released his report on performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball last December many of its conclusions came as no surprise to baseball fans most of whom had heard the allegations of steroid use for years. With fans aware of such egregious behavior why has attendance at games continued to climb? Are baseball’s ”consumers” impervious to ethical...

As fallout from the subprime lending crisis continues a number of remedies have been proposed to deal with it. One is legislation to curtail predatory lending which is generally thought to be a factor behind the issuing of so many subprime loans to borrowers with poor credit. What qualifies as predatory lending? And what are the conditions that make it flourish? Wharton finance professors David Mu...

In 2005 about two years after Autumn Bayles became the first chief information officer at Philadelphia-based Tasty Baking Company a supply chain executive quit the company. ”As a part of my technology work I was very involved with that side of the operation ” said Bayles who was hired to be part of president and CEO Charles Pizzi’s turnaround team. ”I raised my hand and said ’Why don’t you let me...

Failing to manage your company’s talent needs says Wharton management professor Peter Cappelli ”is the equivalent of failing to manage your supply chain.” And yet the majority of employers have abysmal track records when it comes to the age-old problem of finding and retaining talent. In a book coming out in April titled Talent on Demand: Managing Talent in an Age of Uncertainty Cappelli offers a...

Delta Airlines is reportedly about to merge with Northwest Airlines in a deal that’s likely to set off a major round of consolidation in the airline industry. Wharton experts say that other major airlines are likely to fall in line with their own consolidation plans. Or so the speculation goes. But this scenario has been talked about before. Is the latest consolidation dance for real? And what are...

In the mid-1990s a new C-suite title was born when General Electric CEO Jack Welch dubbed Steve Kerr the company’s ”chief learning officer.” Since then CLOs have sprouted up at major firms in several industries. But what does this new breed of ”learning leaders” bring to the table that traditional human resources departments and employee training programs do not? How does an increased emphasis on...

Kristin King and Kate Brubacher are founding members of Liberian Widows Initiative (LWI) an organization to aid women devastated by the Liberian Civil War. LWI provides small business loans and savings accounts to members of the extreme poor -- Liberian refugee women who struggle to feed their families and send their children to school. LWI was an outgrowth of Brubacher’s residence in West Africa...

On Friday February 1 Microsoft announced it was making an unsolicited bid to acquire Yahoo for $44.6 billion in cash and stock a 62% premium over Yahoo’s stock price at the time. Yahoo is officially ”evaluating” the offer and according to reports is talking to other companies as possible suitors. Meanwhile Google seems determined to derail the deal stating that it finds the proposed acquisition ”t...

While changing jobs and shifting careers is hardly unusual in today’s business world Russ Palmer is somewhat unique in that he has been the leader of three very different organizations over the past several decades. He was CEO of Touche Ross (now Deloitte & Touche) for 10 years dean of Wharton for seven years and now owner chairman and CEO of The Palmer Group a corporate investment firm. Each...

Deliberations at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month did not go entirely as planned but few of the 2 400 people attending the meeting were deterred by the plunging market. In this opinion piece management professor Michael Useem who directs Wharton’s Center for Leadership and Change Management and who attended the forum discusses how Davos has emerged as a ”classroom on globalization.” Am...

Americans spend an average of 14 hours a week online and 14 hours watching TV. But marketers spend 22% of their advertising dollars on TV and only 6% online according to data compiled and analyzed by Google. Why are some chief marketing officers and major advertisers reluctant to add digital technology to the marketing mix despite the Internet’s ability to help target huge audiences and build bran...

In 2007 mutual funds specializing in non-U.S. stocks returned a fat 16% while funds with diversified holdings in U.S. equities returned just over 6%. In fact the foreign-stock funds have beaten domestic-stock funds over periods of two three five 10 and 15 years. Moreover owning foreign stocks helps a U.S. investor diversify risk by reducing a portfolio’s volatility. Why then does the typical U.S....

Private Equity has passed through a Golden Age but will now spend a year or so in ”purgatory” before entering an even greater period of expansion or ”Platinum Age ” according to David Rubenstein co-founder and managing director of The Carlyle Group the Washington D.C.-based private equity firm with more than $70 billion in assets. In a keynote address at the 14th annual Wharton Private Equity and...

On January 29 online auctioneer eBay unveiled plans to revamp the fees it charges sellers reduce fraud and increase the volume of transactions. It’s the first move by CEO-elect John Donahoe who will take over the reins of eBay on March 31 in the wake of long-time CEO Meg Whitman’s announcement that she plans to step down. Donahoe’s mission is to reinvigorate a company that remains dominant in onli...

It’s been quite a week. Stock markets around the world showed sharp declines on Monday; on Tuesday the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point. The rate cut helped stem the losses on some indexes but by January 23 the volatility had returned. The obvious fear is one of recession -- a possibility that the White House and Congress are trying to avert b...

The rise in delinquencies on auto loans is one sign that America’s auto industry is in trouble -- along with the rest of the economy. How hard are the auto makers being hit and what should the Big Three do to stem the damage? Meanwhile the global auto industry has seen some interesting developments including the introduction in India of Tata Motors’ Nano and the arrival of five Chinese auto manufa...

Even against the backdrop of an increasing likelihood of recession television advertising spots for February’s Super Bowl XLII were nearly sold out by early January -- several weeks sooner than in the past -- and advertisers are paying record prices. While the power of television has waned as new media compete for consumers’ attention the Super Bowl appears to have retained -- and solidified -- it...

The worldwide collapse of stock prices has many victims -- pension funds insurance companies hedge funds financial services firms. But those are players who if they are smart have the wherewithal to withstand a steep sell-off. What about the small investor the individual who is socking away modest sums for retirement or college costs? Should small investors rush for the sidelines? Or should they v...