Leadership & Organisations

Mimicry: The latest negotiating strategy

Negotiating online? New research shows that imitating your counterpart’s writing style can help seal you a better deal, proving that imitation is indeed the better part of flattery…

Leadership & Organisations

Winning in high-turnover markets

When managers evaluate potential new businesses, the first question they often ask is: How fast is the market growing? By focusing only on growth, however, they often overlook another critical measure of market potential — high turnover of the customer base. High turnover can make a market dynamic, even when the overall growth rate is low.

Leadership & Organisations

Betting on the wind

Strong headwinds are challenging Spain’s largest wind turbine manufacturer despite a surging demand for renewable power. Gamesa’s CTO discusses its emerging markets expansion, new technologies and the outlook for offshore, and rising competition in the rapidly evolving wind energy sector.

Leadership & Organisations

Growing a business with word-of-mouth marketing

Most start-up companies allocate a hefty budget for advertising and marketing at the beginning, especially when they have lofty goals of capturing market share. But an Indian online travel start-up has proven the unthinkable: you can do it all by word-of-mouth and not spend a penny on advertising.

Leadership & Organisations

Growing a business with word-of-mouth marketing

Most start-up companies allocate a hefty budget for advertising and marketing at the beginning, especially when they have lofty goals of capturing market share. But an Indian online travel start-up has proven the unthinkable: you can do it all by word-of-mouth and not spend a penny on advertising.

Leadership & Organisations

Do gamblers make good leaders?

A professor of corporate strategy at Tsinghua University explores the link between risk-taking in the casino and in the board room.

Leadership & Organisations

Infosys leadership transition: View from India

Planning for succession in India has traditionally been a matter for the country's family-run businesses. The recent leadership transition at Infosys Technologies could set new standards for professional management in the country’s burgeoning publically-held companies.

Leadership & Organisations

Infosys leaders on leadership

When Infosys Technologies Ltd. founder and CEO S. Gopalakrishnan addressed INSEAD as part of the Global Leadership Series in March 2011, the 55-year-old corporate titan said he believes in leading by example. Now, the world is about to see if he practices what he preaches.

Leadership & Organisations

When deadlines don't work: The perils of exploding job offer

Employers could be forgiven for wanting their favorite candidates to accept a job offer NOW. But new research shows that putting a time limit on a job offer can have far-reaching negative repercussions.

Economics & Finance

When profits are private and losses are public

Thomas Huertas of the Financial Services Authority, regulator of the financial services industry in the UK, is a firm believer that better regulation will avoid a repetition of the recent financial meltdown.

Leadership & Organisations

Executive women: Is there a future?

There are plenty of women in the workplace – and in positions only dreamed of a generation ago: airline pilots, scientists, executives. But not TOP executives. In the United States alone, only 14 percent hold the keys to the executive suite, a 2010 report by non-profit group Catalyst reports.

Leadership & Organisations

Playing hardball or playing nice...

You’ve been offered your dream job but you are also unhappy with the contract terms. Negotiating for more might risk galling your future boss. But men still ask. Women traditionally don’t – simply because being “pushy” could result in negative social consequences, which, for women, tend to be about as important as the material benefits at stake, according to Linda Babcock, a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University