Knowledge at Wharton

While many Americans are worried that real estate prices have flattened and may even turn downward some of the country’s top commercial developers say there always is opportunity for those who manage their projects efficiently in a global market focus on areas with growing demand and have the staying power to wait out the downturns. This was the consensus of a 2007 Wharton Economic Summit real est...

The world of pro sports may look a lot more exciting than life in the office but in reality -- when you strip away the glamour and media attention -- the bottom line for success is not too different on the playing field than it is in the business world. Character is what counts the most whether you are scouting for a new quarterback in the NFL draft or hiring a young commodities trader. That was t...

Although mammoth executive compensation packages at hedge funds -- hundreds of millions of dollars a year for some managers with a select few topping $1 billion -- have recently been disclosed in the business press public outrage over soaring CEO pay has been growing for years. Do executive compensation figures reflect an efficient market or a failed one? Are pay levels adequately disclosed? Shoul...

Trying to predict the next hit -- whether it’s an independent horror film a new recording group or a popular video game -- entails a high amount of risk in an industry that has been turned upside down by the Internet and the reconfiguration of longstanding distribution channels according to panelists at the recent 2007 Wharton Economic Summit. For that reason they noted many of the most successful...

Martin Varsavsky’s fans see him as a rebel who has often disrupted the telecommunications industry. An Argentine/Spanish entrepreneur who has launched seven companies in the past 20 years Varsavsky’s current venture is FON which he describes as a ”community-empowered company dedicated to building the world’s largest global WiFi network.” He has a few partners helping him get there -- Skype eBay an...

When the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act was signed into law in 2002 its goal was to protect investors through increased disclosure and tougher internal controls in the wake of accounting frauds at Enron WorldCom and other U.S. companies. But on April 4 2007 the Securities and Exchange Commission announced it will revisit some of SOX’s rules. The primary focus will be the financial costs of Section 404 w...

Omar Hamoui could be called a ”serial entrepreneur.” Immediately out of college he started his first business a consulting company that grew to between 20 and 25 people. Then came what he characterizes as the one job he has ever had: a two-year stint working at Sony. After that Hamoui created a series of startups built around the expanding ecosystem of mobile devices. While he was a first-year MBA...

During a recent Wharton Leadership Lecture De Beers managing director Gareth Penny presented the history strategy and mystique of the international diamond company and offered his views on what it takes to be a leader in today’s global society. In response to questioning from the audience he also addressed the issue of ”conflict diamonds” and noted De Beers’ efforts to eliminate the sale of these...

Experts at Wharton and Harvard University have unveiled a proposal that they say addresses both global security and the future of energy markets. In a new study Erwann O. Michel-Kerjan and Debra Decker argue that interest in nuclear power has escalated as countries become increasingly concerned about climate change and energy security. To avoid dangerous uncontrolled nuclear proliferation they say...

Some technology companies have been founded in a garage. Local Internet search company Natpal was hatched in a Connecticut car dealership. That’s where Wharton undergraduate student and future Natpal CEO Nate Stevens first realized that Internet search wasn’t exactly friendly to small businesses looking for sales leads. The discovery led Stevens along with Penn alumnus Ben Rubenstein and Wharton p...

The similarities between Poland and Argentina were striking. By the time the Soviet Union collapsed the two countries were beacons of reform in their regions. Each had a largely Roman Catholic population of about 36 million. Both were introducing free-market reforms. And after decades of authoritarian rule both were establishing democracies. But since then countries in Eastern Europe have been pul...

You know the type: coworkers who never have anything positive to say whether at the weekly staff meeting or in the cafeteria line. They can suck the energy from a brainstorming session with a few choice comments. Their negativity can contaminate even good news. ”We engage in emotional contagion ” says Wharton management professor Sigal Barsade. ”Emotions travel from person to person like a virus.”...

When Circuit City announced last week that it was laying off 3 400 workers so it could rehire new ones at lower salaries it raised the question of just what strategic benefits the company -- or any company -- expects to achieve through employee downsizing. Clearly these benefits depend on the underlying strength of the organization and the specific reasons behind the cost-cutting but most experts...

In the best possible marketplace all buyers see the prices asked by all sellers and all sellers see the prices offered by all buyers -- and little guys are treated the same as big ones. The result: competition that insures the most efficient interplay of supply and demand. In theory it sounds great. And indeed this is the idea behind the Security and Exchange Commission’s push for an integrated st...

Attention shoppers: Did you find everything you were looking for? Retail customers who answer ”yes” to this question might very well represent the Holy Grail to retail operators who want to increase their sales with only a modest increase in costs or in some cases increase sales by merely reallocating staff within a store at no extra cost. Impossible? Not according to a new study on retail store e...

A system to gauge whether loan recipients are escaping poverty an overhaul of the loan making system and a bold plan to use the infrastructure of microfinance to tackle other social woes are some of the ways that microfinance is evolving despite continuing criticism from those who doubt its effectiveness in the struggle against poverty. Alex Counts CEO of the Grameen Foundation and keynote speaker...

At American Airlines’ AAdvantge e-shopping site more than 200 vendors -- including Bergdorf Goodman Home Depot and Petco -- offer bonus miles to shoppers. At the Apple Store a dollar spent earns one mile while Hallmark pays 10 miles for each $1 in sales. Continental’s OnePass program allows members to earn two miles for every $1 paid for electricity from Gexa Energy of Houston. The list goes on. B...

The newsroom at washingtonpost.com the website of The Washington Post is not so different from that of a print newspaper with one notable exception: At a time when newsrooms across the country have empty desks from recent buyouts and layoffs staff numbers here are expanding to fill every available nook and cranny. Washingtonpost.com is a success story in an industry where the divide between vibran...

Microsoft’s Ray Ozzie has a long and storied history of technological innovation with accomplishments that include creating Lotus Notes and founding Groove Networks. But Ozzie may now be facing the most daunting challenge of his career: coordinating the work of Microsoft’s various product groups to keep the world’s largest software company agile enough to address the challenge of the next generati...

For the last couple of years auto analysts and others have focused most of their attention on the troubles in Detroit home of General Motors and Ford two American car companies that have been struggling to regain their footing in the auto industry. But what has been going on in Wolfsburg the headquarters of Volkswagen a quintessential German automaker and in Stuttgart headquarters of DaimlerChrysl...

Bill George probably best known in the business community for his former position as chairman and CEO of Medtronic is also an author. In 2003 he published a book called Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value. This month he published his second book titled True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership described by George and his co-author Peter Sims as a way to ”...

Although the German government provides its citizens with a generous family-leave policy being a working mother in Germany is harder than in many other industrialized countries according to faculty members at Wharton and German business schools as well as German corporate officials. This is partly because the culture still to some degree frowns upon the idea of mothers not taking care of their sma...

German corporations have long prided themselves on being above-board but scandals at some of the country’s multinational icons have seriously tarnished that reputation. The scandals allegedly involve hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes the procurement of prostitutes and misbehavior by some of the country’s most senior executives including officials at Siemens Volkswagen Deutsche Bank and oth...

Talk about good timing. With Germany assuming the rotating presidencies of the European Union and the Group of Eight (G8) developed nations the country is enjoying an economic resurgence. It remains a formidable exporter of goods worldwide its unemployment rate has eased and a recent major tax increase has not dampened economic activity as much as many had feared. Still there is some question whet...

All eyes and ears were on the two-day meeting of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee (FOMC) that ended on March 21. While most observers did not expect interest rates to change the markets were keen to know what language the Fed would use about inflation in its statement on economic and monetary policy. The U.S. economy has seen mixed signals lately and concerns about recession have been r...