Latest posts
Why Founders Benefit From Going to School
A new survey debunks the idea that an MBA won’t help you become a successful entrepreneur.
What Female Artists Can Do About Discrimination
Participation in residency programmes and access to elite education can enhance the opportunities available to women artists.
How Conspiracy Talk Helps People Make Sense of the World
Sharing Covid-19 conspiracy theories on online social networks helped individuals cope with fear and uncertainty during the pandemic.
How to Tell the Age of an Innovation
All innovations make the journey from “eureka” to “meh”. But they don’t do so according to fixed rules.
Can Managers Who Wear Many Hats Be Trusted?
The more diverse your goals are, the greater the temptation to muddy the waters on performance.
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Goals Just Before Halftime Mean More – in Football and Business
Examining why 45th-minute goals have outsized importance reveals how timing can affect the outcome of virtually all sorts of competitions.
Power, Politics and Crisis Response on the Board
It’s not the individual directors – it’s the competing coalitions they form that determine what boards will do.
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How to Bend the Rules Like Beckham
The risks professional footballers take as they flirt with foul play hold lessons – positive and negative – for high-stakes competitors in every arena.
Boards Under the Influence
Directors need to carefully manage their reactions to what they read in the business press.
How Airlines Manage Conflicts Between Profits and Safety
Warning: Don’t read this just before your next flight.
Competition in the Age of Amazon
Amazon’s dominance is changing the power structure of publishing – a pattern that may be borne out in several other industries.
The Invisible Roots of Community Resilience
Why some communities pull together in the wake of disaster, and others fall apart.
How Great Leaders Make Work Meaningful
Mired in day-to-day tasks, people easily lose sight of their work’s higher purpose. That’s where great communicators come in.
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You Can Have More Than One True Work Identity
People with multi-pronged careers shouldn’t feel inauthentic or fear being branded as such.
When Extraversion Rhymes With Acquisition
Extravert CEOs have a big appetite for acquisitions, but does it benefit their firms?
The Teachable Moments of Financial Crisis
Squint hard enough and you can find traces of long-ago crises in the way communities do business today.
The Dark Side of Flattery
Flattery can trigger resentment and ironically damage the social capital of those who accept it.
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Does Racial Bias Call the Shots in the NBA?
Even in the performance-obsessed world of pro basketball, racial preference influences how the game is played.
Entrepreneurs Must Balance Specialisation With General Knowledge
Entrepreneurial legitimacy rests on having general and functional knowledge of an industry.
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Using History to Motivate Change
Creative and entrepreneurial employees thrive on a sense of the organisational past.
The Strategic Science of Delayed Compliance
No company is above the law, but some firms are allowed much more time in complying with it.
Stop Blaming Women for Gender Inequality
It’s hard to “lean in” when you feel you’re being pushed out.
How Respect Can Set Inmates (and Employees) Free
Respect and a sense of encouragement transform workers’ identities.
Fear Can Stifle Collaboration, or Jumpstart It
During organisational change, play the radicals against the moderates to foster collaboration.
Board Political Leanings Determine CEO Pay
Directors with conservative proclivities are significantly more generous.
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How Products Can Climb the Social Ladder
In a few short years, one ambitious fashionista transported grappa from reviled to respectable.
How Alessi Merged Manufacturing and Art
The marriage of industrial production and postmodern art techniques was a tough sell internally.
When Gender Inequality Controls Whole Organisations
When cultural traditions and interpersonal relationships coincide, businesses start acting in irrational ways.
Forecasting the Success of Innovations
Creators beat managers at predicting an innovation’s success, unless they’re predicting the success of their own work.
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The Disturbing Benefits of “White-Washing” a Résumé
Four decades after the Civil Rights Act, students are “whitening” their résumés to increase their chance of getting a callback. What’s more disturbing is that research shows it works.
The Mixed Results of Motivational Rankings
Rankings designed to shame companies into changing their behaviour often accomplish just the opposite.
How All-Star Employees Affect Firm Behaviour
The status-seeking moves of ambitious employees can alter the fate of a company.
When Customers Panic
Even loose association with a similar firm embroiled in scandal or facing difficulty can mean ruin for a healthy company. But there are measures to protect your business against guilt by association.
Who Are Apple’s New Competitors?
The Apple-Cisco partnership promises to transform the workplace; It may forge a whole new marketplace along the way.
How Greece Can Unite its People
Divisions and distrust are keeping Greece from bouncing back. Uniting the people for the sake of the nation, not of its politicians, could help.
How Firms Change Bad Practices
Organisations don’t always respond to threats, but they change quickly when their peers do.
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The Most Important Questions Entrepreneurs Should Ask Themselves
Before starting a business, there are four characteristics an entrepreneur should have, or look for in their partners.
When Three’s a Crowd: How to Upset a Good Partnership
The French state’s intrusion into Renault-Nissan may upset a very strong alliance.
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Loyal Cheaters: When Organisations Promote Wrongdoing
Fraudsters seem to cheat more for their organisation than themselves.
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The Art of Keeping Employees from Leaving
Retaining workers is becoming a balancing act between hard data research and a human touch. It’s more important than ever to complement intuition with statistical analysis.
Should Organisations “Leak” on Purpose?
Netflix’s mistaken release of the latest season of "House of Cards" is a lesson in what organisations can glean by making an “error” favourable to consumers.
iWatching Every Step You Take
All-seeing, all-knowing smartwatches that connect the information dots of our lives reflect the many alliances firms like Apple have to manage to innovate.
Luxury Brands, Take Note: High-Status Consumers Aren’t Snobs
Many elite buyers are drawn to products commonly associated with the hoi polloi.
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Breaking an Alliance to Take the Lead
Toyota appears to have broken an unwritten agreement among automakers, but it has done so before and won.
The Skandia Scandal: Whose Fault?
Reputations are valuable and easily tarnished even by association: a little care and attention can help.
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Preparing for Growth-Accelerating Partnerships
Influential alliances can help grow your business fast. It’s never too early to start building your global network.
Why Female Superstars Are Often Overlooked
Men and women evaluate expertise in very different ways. This may not always be fair and can affect the effectiveness of team decisions.
Market Entry: Where to Start-Up?
Even highly-targeted niche start-ups need to think about their focus. What factors should you consider when positioning your company?
Innovation Through Acquisition
Google’s acquisition of Skybox is a good example of complementary innovation.
How Shared Interests Can Break Mergers
When firms have common clients and shared interests they are often tempted to merge. But a bigger entity can scare off clients and create overlap.
Unlikely, But Necessary Alliances
Alliances with competitors are sometimes necessary for long-term competitiveness.
Overseas Subsidiaries Land Where Countrymen Are Present
Europe is hungry for Chinese investment. But where Chinese firms choose to establish their subsidiaries will depend on where their migrants are.
Learning How to Expand Overseas
Expanding into new markets? It helps if you’ve entered others.
Sins of the Past
Adolescent mistakes can seriously impact a career today. It may not be fair but it happens.
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Oscar Selfies: Another Side to the Fun
Both "the selfie that broke Twitter" and the device that captured it are brilliant examples of powerful alliances.
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iSpy Denial: Be Seen to Do the Right Thing
Staying clear of wrongdoing and denying involvement when even associated with misbehaviour is the optimum path to a strong reputation and a profitable future
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The Role of National Animosity in Business Partnerships
Historical national animosity can influence business ties.
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Tell Your Boss About the Problem, if You Have One
Telling the boss about problems, rather than peers makes the most effective organisations.
Making the Right Decisions in a Recession
Companies turn to ideology and imitation to make big decisions in hard times.
Networking Is About Personal Style, Not Convention
It’s not all about how full your Rolodex is. There may be better ways you could be networking.
Innovate More by Doing Less
R&D departments could be better utilised to look for alliances that may provide robust innovations
When Will People Avoid Corporations?
Colombian coffee growers take on Starbucks.
How Much Misery Does It Take to Innovate?
High-tech, opportunity-driven innovation gets the headlines, but this is only one part of innovation as we know it.
Standing Tall: Lady Gaga's Shoes and Young Artists
Status matters to your network and it plays a big role in shaping a successful business.
Muted Recession Graduates
Hungry graduates are grateful to have jobs, but are today’s young people complaining less than they should?
Big Fracking Surprise
It shouldn't surprise researchers that underdog wildcatters, not Big Oil, were the main drivers of the shale gas revolution.
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The Smartphone Innovation Curve
Samsung's curved-screen smartphones are a hot trend, but innovation may come from unlikely places.
"We are nice too": How Firms Deal With Problems
That positive press release trumpeting a company's good deeds could signal trouble behind the scenes.
BlackBerry as Niche: Firm Disappointment and Strategy Change
BlackBerry director Bert Nordberg was elected recently, but is not shy about making statements: he has already said publicly that the BlackBerry smartphones need to retreat to certain niches in the market, leaving others for the competitors. This may seem reasonable to many listeners given how BlackBerry has suffered from competition by Samsung, Apple, and other firms, but it is probably not a popular view in BlackBerry, where employees remember their earlier great times.
Murder by Structure: When Social Networks Kill
I just saw NBA star Derrick Rose give thoughtful responses to a CNN interviewer asking about the murder spree that is currently hitting Chicago: 506 murders in 2012, of which around 400 were thought to be gang related. Rose, who is from Chicago and knows the neighbourhoods hit by gun violence and murders, put the blame on poverty, as well as the increasing gap between the poverty that many experience and the lifestyle and success they see others have.
Jugaad Cars: Carlos Ghosn and Disruptive Innovation
Would you like to have a Renault or a Nissan (well, Datsun brand) for less than USD 5,000? Soon you can, if you live in India. These cars are part of a bold initiative by Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn to harness frugal engineering, a set of practices intended to launch new models with radically lower development and production costs than has been done before.
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Networks of Giving: How Corporations Choose to Give
If this year is like last year, people in various places can soon watch Citigroup bankers clean beaches, prepare summer camps for children from poor households, and distribute food to the hungry. They participate in what Citigroup calls Global Community Day, a “Day of Service” done by many large corporations. I can imagine various reactions to bankers picking garbage and operate soup kitchens, but as a management scholar I think “Nice, but could they also do something that uses their expertise?” In all fairness, they do, in the form of teaching financial literacy to people in need.
Missiles and Violins: Why Knowledge Management Strengthens the Case for Disarmament
When North Korea threatens to attack South Korea or fires missiles into the sea, the press reports are typically accompanied by pictures of military parades like the one below. I am wondering if I am the only one struck by the contrast between the missile pointing skyward and the decrepit truck underneath. Once again it is clear that North Korea only spends money on what its leadership cares about, so the best they have of trucks (and trucks can be used to carry food and other useful tasks) is far inferior to their missiles.
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Outsourcing and Management Consulting: When do Firms do What?
I just did a search on keyword “consulting” and found that two of the top articles that appeared were on the problems that the large Indian outsourcing firms were having in getting enough visas for their employees to work in the US, and McKinsey’s attempts to get female workers who left the company to return.
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What did Yahoo Buy? Problems and Opportunities in Learning from Others
Wall Street Journal reports that Nick D’Aloisio, who is 17 years old, has sold his company to Yahoo Inc. for an undisclosed price that is rumoured to be above 10 million dollar. Nick D’Aloisio started work on the free newsreader app Summly when he was 15, and it became a successful tool to quickly read news summaries. Yahoo has now closed down Summly. Puzzling, you might say, because Yahoo might have continued to operate it instead. So did they just buy a competitor in order to kill it? Are they taking a pause in order to re-launch it?
Ups and Downs: Communities and Corporate Giving following Events and Disasters
With the Ski World Championship about to end in Schladming, I am reminded of my trip to Hakuba, Japan, last year. It is a great place for alpine skiing that has ski runs and other facilities made for the 1998 Nagano Olympics. I plan to go back there this year. But it also has some facilities that are not used much anymore, and its location in an isolated valley makes me wonder how it handled such a large event as the Olympics. The same could be said for Nagano prefecture, which is far from Japan’s center in population and economy.
Insider Trading and Investors: Avoiding the Stigma of Misconduct
Wall Street Journal reports that the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors LP is losing investors at a rapid pace, with 1.7 billion dollar (one quarter of the total outside investments) at risk of being withdrawn. In a regular mutual fund, such a wave of withdrawals would have been disastrous because funds lose money when selling large amounts of stock in a short period of time. SAC can handle the situation because it has rules limiting withdrawal speed (normal for hedge funds) plus it is backed by 9 billion dollar of money invested by its fund manager and employees. So this is a serious situation but not a meltdown.
Etihad’s Jet Air Investment: The Great Alliance Game
Jet Airways of India has increased its revenue and turned to positive profits this quarter. This is in part because of the troubles of competitor Kingfisher Airlines, but it is also helped by cost reductions, especially in fuel. The good news is very timely because Jet Airways is in talks to sell a 24% ownership stake to Etihad Airways, the United Arab Emirates airlines. Although Etihad is already likely to pay well for the strategic value of the Jet Airways investment, the profits will make the price even higher.
Community Imprinting: Why do some Communities Work better than others?
It is possible to find a list of the best and worst-run cities in the US on the following blog:
http://247wallst.com/2013/01/15/the-best-and-worst-run-cities-in-america/#ixzz2IWFW3Xys
The best run city is Plano, Texas, followed by Madison, Wisconsin; the worst was San Bernardino, California, followed by Miami, Florida. How was the list made? To quote, “we looked at factors like the city’s credit rating, poverty, education, crime, unemployment, and regional GDP.” That seems a bit unfair. Poverty, unemployment, and regional GDP are outcomes of the local economy, which may be influenced by city government but is surely not run by it. None of these cities have a centrally planned economy.
Why Entrepreneurs Fail: On Average Correct, but Overconfident most of the Time
Autobiographies by successful entrepreneurs often depict their business success as being “against all odds,” accomplished only through extraordinary effort and sometimes also luck at critical junctures. They are right. Successfully starting an entrepreneurial venture is against the odds, as least as far as we can tell from the statistics that are available. Although the numbers differ by nation, the 50-5 rule that more than 50% of all new ventures are gone in 5 years is pretty good (perhaps a bit optimistic). A venture that closes within its first five years has probably lost money. On the upside, the ventures that make it past the 5-year mark are highly likely to survive the next five year.
On a Tax Scandal in Greece, and How to Get a Diverse and Free Press
Along with its bond payment troubles, austerity measures, unemployment, and protests, Greece is experiencing a scandal over possibly undeclared income and unpaid taxes among its elite. The story is interesting and confusing, and it involves the press as a key actor.
Your CEO’s Child: How it Affects your Wages
We can all recall or imagine the scene seen in many firms, large or small: Somebody has a child, and the employees are gathering to celebrate the happy occasion. Let’s make the scene more concrete by saying that the person celebrating the birth of a child is the CEO (chief executive officer), who happens to be a man. Now, if workers are celebrating a CEO becoming a father, there might be some tensions in the room. Some are especially eager to congratulate, thinking of it as good career management. Or maybe they are just especially happy for him, but their coworkers suspect them of doing career management. Things are never completely easy around CEOs.
Liquidating Twinkies: When Pension Benefits Fail to Go Quietly
After the first news struck the US media like a shock, the follow-up has been quiet and predictable. Hostess Brands, the maker of such classic snacks as Twinkies and Ho Hos (thanks to a European upbringing I have no idea what I am writing about), has been given permission to enter bankruptcy proceedings and liquidate its assets by the oddly appropriately named Judge Drain. That means job losses of 18,500 jobs and a search for buyers for its 30 or so brands and many production plants, distribution centers, and other assets.
