Knowledge at Wharton

Given two gold mines with the same amount of gold in the ground the same cost of extraction and the same worldwide demand why is one mine valued 10 times more than the other? Because one has local support and the other doesn’t argues Wharton professor Witold Henisz. In a new research paper Henisz and his colleagues show how cooperating with rather than antagonizing external stakeholders generates...

Parag Khanna is a leading geo-strategist world traveler and author of the international bestseller The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order. Stephen J. Kobrin Wharton management professor and publisher of Wharton Digital Press recently spoke with Khanna about his latest book How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/priva...

Recent hackings at Fox News Apple Citibank and even the CIA have drawn renewed attention to cyber security and accelerated the policy debate on how to protect critical information. The opportunity for cyber attacks grows daily as corporations and governments continue to amass information about individuals in complex networks across the Internet according to Wharton faculty and security analysts. I...

As the economy flirts with a double-dip recession and cost-conscious companies hesitate to re-hire the workplace for many Americans has shifted away from crowded offices to a new world of solitary work. From freelancers to telecommuters to laid-off workers making do with temporary jobs an increasing number of Americans are reporting to work each day from a corner of their home a space in the garag...

Until recently most discussions of perks focused on what high-tech companies in Silicon Valley were offering their employees from free gourmet meals and yoga classes to massage therapy and auto detailing. But these days many companies are simultaneously trying to shake off the recession keep costs low retain valued employees and recruit talented new ones. Perks if designed well can help achieve th...

Donald N.S. Unger the author of Men Can: The Changing Image and Reality of Fatherhood in America and lecturer in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies at MIT writes about representations of men masculinity and fatherhood in popular culture. Just in time for Father’s Day Unger shares his thoughts with Knowledge at Wharton on the changing role of fatherhood. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/pr...

The latest economic reports show the U.S. recovery has faltered. But someday surely there will be a real recovery. What forces will drive that upturn? And will the healthy economy of the future look different from those of the past -- establishing a ”new normal?” Two intertwined factors are critical to any rebound according to many experts: Home prices must stop declining and begin to rise and con...

Are overconfident CEOs also more likely to be overly optimistic when issuing earnings forecasts? Does in-store marketing -- including a product’s location and visibility on store shelves -- make a difference? How does anxiety cripple efforts to negotiate a successful business deal? Wharton professors Holly Yang Wesley Hutchinson and Eric Bradlow and Maurice Schweitzer respectively examined these i...

The landscape for health care in the U.S. continues to shift since the Obama administration passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act last year. Several questions remain unanswered including how to expand health coverage what are the potential minefields for doing so and what are the best ways to ensure that the system performs well. Meanwhile Americans are becoming increasingly unheal...

Allegations that traders manipulated oil prices in 2008 are reinforcing the buzz -- at the gas pump and elsewhere -- that speculators are driving up the price of oil triggering wild price spikes and nail-biting volatility. Fingering speculators is a popular pastime these days but experts at Wharton and elsewhere say the blame is often misplaced. Although speculation can affect prices most of the r...

According to Glen T. Senk the key to success is hiring and cultivating the right people. At a recent Wharton Leadership Lecture the CEO of Philadelphia-based retailer Urban Outfitters underscored the importance of recruiting and developing a team that is a good fit for corporate culture -- and then listening to what those employees have to say even when ”you have to pull [the bad news] out of them...

Wharton management professor Ethan Mollick has a message for knowledge-based companies: Pay closer attention to your middle managers because they may have a greater impact on company performance than almost any other part of the organization. Mollick’s research based on an in-depth analysis of the computer game industry is presented in a new paper titled ”People and Process: Suits and Innovators:...

Rumors that Facebook or Cisco would buy Skype were proven wrong on Tuesday when Microsoft struck an $8.5 billion deal to acquire the online voice and video chat service. Most analysts welcomed the takeover as a shrewd move on the grounds that it positions Microsoft in a commanding position in the emerging markets of video content and online telephony. Still considering that Skype’s previous acquis...

A decade after pets.com and a string of other early Internet specialty retailers collapsed a new wave of start-ups -- enabled by the power of cloud computing advanced delivery systems and deep social relationships with customers -- is shaping e-commerce. From diapers and eyeglasses to pool tables and yes pet products entrepreneurs are developing specialty businesses to compete alongside one-stop s...

Since the dot.com bubble burst more than a decade ago two popular categories in Wharton’s Business Plan Competition (BPC) have been health care and retail. This year was no exception. With more than $115 000 at stake in combined cash prizes and legal and accounting services the eight finalists of this year’s BPC presented their pitches on April 27 to a panel of judges and an audience of venture ca...

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The United States government spends more than it takes in a practice that is illegal in most state governments and harshly criticized when households and businesses do it. After being the rule rather than the exception for most of the past century why is the country’s deficit spending such a big deal now? Is the U.S. really on the edge of a precipice? Will the deficit-reduction plans under conside...

Estée Lauder -- the $7.8 billion cosmetics and beauty products giant founded in 1946 -- has grown to more than 25 brands in 140 countries. The company clearly knows its customers 95% of whom are women. In a recent interview with Knowledge at Wharton William Lauder the company’s executive chairman and the grandson of founder Estée Lauder discussed the challenges of working in a family-owned busines...

The Flip a quick and easy video recorder that captures spontaneous moments for instant uploading to YouTube is about to fold. Cisco Systems which bought the Flip just two years ago is closing the business in a move that illustrates how rapidly evolving technology and business strategies can force major corporate flip-flops. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nassim Taleb is a literary essayist hedge fund manager derivatives trader and professor of risk engineering at The Polytechnic Institute of New York University. But he is best known these days as the author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. During a recent visit to Wharton as part of The Goldstone Forum he spoke with Wharton finance professor Richard Herring -- who taught Tal...

Alberto Vitale was running Bantam Books the world leader in paperbacks when the Newhouse family recruited him to become the COO of Random House. In that role and later as the CEO of one of the world’s top publishing firms Vitale oversaw huge changes in the publishing industry. In this interview with Stephen J. Kobrin publisher and executive director of Wharton Digital Press and Knowledge at Wharto...

Valuations are growing aggressively for Facebook Groupon and a handful of other social media darlings. But does that growth signal the coming of another tech bubble? Not necessarily say Wharton faculty and other experts who note that the main issues are the extent to which these valuations are supported by real staying power and whether or not these companies are having an undue influence across t...

”Dismissed.” A single word from Bangladesh’s highest court ended a bitter legal battle that has grabbed world attention. The loser in this case: Muhammad Yunus the 70-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate and founder of Grameen Bank the groundbreaking Bangladeshi microfinance institution he is no longer allowed to run. But as with many of the highs and lows of microfinance there is much more than me...

While women have indeed come a long way since earning the right to vote in 1920 they still have not achieved wage and income equity compared with their male counterparts notes a government report released this month. The reason according to a series of speakers and panelists at the recent Wharton Women in Business Alumnae Conference 2011 is that women still need to assert themselves more when esta...

By combining the might of Facebook with the narrative element of experiential computer games like Oregon Trail or The Sims social gaming developer Zynga was able to become one of the fastest-growing companies on the Internet. Andrew Trader was a member of Zynga’s founding team in 2007 and until last year served as executive vice president of sales and business development. Now an entrepreneur-in-r...