What’s in a name? Plenty when you’re an entrepreneur starting up a new business says Tayeb Kamali who recalls the struggle to convince others in the early days of the Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) that the United Arab Emirates’ new government-sponsored university needed a name that would be associated with leading-edge education in the Arab region. However as HCT’s Abu Dhabi-based vice chancellor explains in an interview with Knowledge at Wharton that particular challenge was short-lived g...
Aug 19, 2009•20 min
Economic progress ethics and social entrepreneurship are three themes that have long had a place on the agenda of the World Economic Forum (WEF) well before phrases like ”subprime lending” had crossed the lips of bankers and Wall Street investors. But how can these and other global topics remain relevant during today’s market turbulence? To answer that question Knoweldge@Wharton spoke with Gilbert Probst WEF managing director and dean of the Geneva-based non-profit think tank’s Global Leadership...
Aug 19, 2009•29 min
Following a high-profile career in finance in which he became one of the first well-known hedge fund managers Michael Steinhardt began the Taglit-Birthright Israel program a philanthropic enterprise which has provided free 10-day trips to Israel for some 220 000 Jewish youth to learn more about their heritage. Steinhardt spoke with Knowledge at Wharton about how the program helps to improve the country’s image and the challenges of what he calls a deteriorating educational system in Israel -- ma...
Aug 13, 2009•46 min
Anyone who follows current events sees images of Israel that suggest a country defined by conflict and violence. Yet Israel has also made substantial contributions to the global marketplace in such industries as technology and medicine. The challenge for Israel going forward is to make the world more aware of its hospitable business environment. Marketing professor Yoram (Jerry) Wind and David Pottruck former CEO of Charles Schwab & Co. and now chairman and CEO of Red Eagle Ventures talked w...
Aug 13, 2009•24 min
Early reports show that Microsoft’s new search engine Bing has managed to draw more users than its predecessor Live Search. According to Wharton faculty however while Microsoft’s campaign to promote Bing has been successful so far it is unclear whether its well-funded effort will make significant inroads in a market dominated by Google. On the other hand they believe the campaign helped pressure Yahoo into an important partnership agreement after months of fitful negotiations. Hosted on Acast. S...
Aug 05, 2009•11 min
Ford reported its first sales gain in 20 months thanks to the U.S. government’s ”cash for clunkers” rebate program that gives consumers a rebate of up to $4 500 to trade in older cars for new and more fuel-efficient models. Other manufacturers said their continuing sales declines would have been worse without the program. All in all the officially named Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) provided taxpayers with a good return on their investment Wharton management professor John Paul MacDuffie sa...
Aug 05, 2009•17 min
From California to Connecticut the global recession has squeezed state finances forcing many state governments to slash services raise taxes or find unusually creative ways to close the gap. According to experts the widespread budget shortfalls -- expected to continue through at least 2011 -- threaten to put a drag on the nation’s economic recovery and undermine President Obama’s stimulus plan. ”The states aren’t really playing the game like Obama hoped they would ” says one Wharton finance prof...
Aug 05, 2009•16 min
Why is Hollywood in love with tried-and-true sequels and established franchises rather than producing original scripts? According to Wharton faculty the industry’s embrace of the sequel is an attempt to minimize its risk during an uncertain time when the motion picture business finds its usual sources of funding and revenues under pressure from the recession. ”If studio [executives] launch a movie where ... the merchandizing channels already exist they are less likely to walk into a big box offi...
Aug 05, 2009•14 min
According to Wharton finance professor Richard J. Herring more than half of the lending to households over the last five to six years ”has come from the securitization market not from banks’ balance sheets.” For that reason Herring and Allen Levinson founder and principal of Credit Risk Advisors say that the Obama administration’s efforts to resuscitate the ailing economy should be focused not only on restoring bank lending but also on enabling ”the flow of securitizations.” This can be accompli...
Aug 05, 2009•38 min
As the global recession drags on new concerns are rising about commercial real estate. Loans taken out during the boom years are coming due but commercial property owners are contending with higher vacancy rates lower rents and a less-than-receptive environment for refinancing their obligations. Industry analysts and politicians suggest that commercial real estate is about to become the next high-profile casualty in the ongoing economic meltdown. ”The shoe has already dropped ” says one Wharton ...
Jul 22, 2009•13 min
The cable television industry’s answer to the increasing threat from Internet video sites such as YouTube and Hulu focuses on a clear-cut strategy: Make cable subscriptions portable to any Internet accessible device such as a laptop computer or even a mobile phone for no additional charge. Experts at Wharton say the move is a promising early step in meeting the Internet video challenge but they expect more such experimentation ahead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jul 22, 2009•13 min
Corporate leaders in the United States often draw leadership lessons -- good and bad -- from the examples set by American presidents. But in looking to the White House it’s important to recognize that history’s take on presidential performance is subject to change according to presidential historian Richard Norton Smith who spoke at a recent Wharton Leadership Conference. He offered 10 rules for presidential evaluations that stand the test of time. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more...
Jul 22, 2009•13 min
Financial advisors face difficult challenges given the global economic and financial crisis. Yet advisors can not only survive the downturn but also thrive during it according to the authors of a new book Marketing for Financial Advisors: Build Your Business Bring in Clients and Establish Your Brand. Indeed Wharton marketing professors Eric T. Bradlow and Patti Williams and Keith Niedermeier director of Wharton’s undergraduate marketing program suggest that the struggling economy provides an opp...
Jul 22, 2009•28 min
In separate interviews Wharton finance professors Franklin Allen and Jeremy J. Siegel offered contrasting reactions to the large second-quarter profits at Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan. Allen said that while the firms’ quarterly results reflected overall gains on Wall Street ”by and large you can’t make large sums of money without taking risks.” He worries that the government’s intervention in the financial sector last fall which benefitted these firms and others created an environment of moral ...
Jul 22, 2009•21 min
In their new book titled Innovation Tournaments: Creating and Selecting Exceptional Opportunities Wharton professors Christian Terwiesch and Karl Ulrich point out that identifying new opportunities shouldn’t be seen as a luxury but a necessity. They note that creativity and process-driven rigor can go hand in hand when it comes to vetting and managing new ideas. One way to do this they explain is by making new ideas compete with one another in numerous rounds of vetting -- that is by running the...
Jul 15, 2009•20 min
As the recent financial crisis has showed so dramatically networks exist everywhere. Global inter-linkage of loans and mortgages -- which were intended to distribute risk -- actually ended up spreading it far and wide. Similar network-based impacts are at work in fields as diverse as information security and supply chain management. But while networks create new risks they also generate new opportunities write Paul R. Kleindorfer Yoram (Jerry) Wind and Robert E. Gunther in their new book ”The Ne...
Jul 15, 2009•31 min
When Nandan Nilekani was the CEO of Infosys one of India’s top IT and outsourcing firms he often found himself being forced to answer questions not just about his company but also his country. Sometimes global business executives who visited the company’s sprawling campus in Bangalore would raise issues to which Nilekani had no answer -- such as ”Why does Infosys have such a beautiful campus but also large slums in other parts of the city?” So when Nilekani decided to write a book unlike other C...
Jul 15, 2009•18 min
When multinational companies want to tap into the massive pent-up consumer demand in emerging markets the first countries that they usually think of are China and India. But what about Africa asks Vijay Mahajan author of Africa Rising: How 900 Million Consumers Offer More Than You Think (Wharton School Publishing). Though often overlooked in global corporate growth strategies Africa as a whole has enough consumer power to give China and India a run for their money he argues. Mahajan a marketing ...
Jul 15, 2009•32 min
The federal government has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into the banking system and most experts seem to agree that the financial crisis is closer to its end than its beginning. But as attention shifts from fire fighting to rebuilding many are worrying about the ”moral hazard” that may remain with an apparent government safety net encouraging a new round of foolish risk taking. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jul 08, 2009•12 min
In 2005 three major hurricanes -- Katrina Rita and Wilma -- struck the U.S. Gulf Coast area causing not just death and destruction but also leading to insurance payments and federal disaster relief of more than $180 billion. Today say the authors of a new book titled At War with the Weather: Managing Large-Scale Risks in a New Era of Catastrophes the U.S. is even more vulnerable to catastrophic losses. Written by Howard Kunreuther and Erwann Michel-Kerjan with colleagues Neil Doherty Martin Grac...
Jul 08, 2009•26 min
U.S. recessions since the oil crisis in the early 1970s each had their own special causes and victims but they also had something in common: They were over relatively quickly. The current downturn however is deeper and already longer than any since World War II. This spells trouble for one especially vulnerable group -- managers in their 40s and early 50s. What can they do when the industry they made their career in downsizes or goes bust? And how should they go about picking themselves up and g...
Jul 08, 2009•22 min
Thirty-nine executives -- from countries as diverse as Nigeria India Russia South Africa and The Netherlands -- were challenged to devise a profitable business plan to address social ills around the globe. The effort part of the Aresty Institute of Executive Education’s Advanced Management Program called on participants’ expertise in such fields as oil aerospace finance fashion entertainment and HIV/AIDS education. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jul 08, 2009•15 min
Do you want to communicate a corporate message effectively? Turn it into a story says Mandalay Entertainment Group chairman Peter Guber. He argues that stories are more memorable and engaging than slide presentations memos or sales pitches. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jun 24, 2009•30 min
Risk managers armed with the most sophisticated quantitative tools available did not foresee the biggest development in a generation -- the systematic breakdown and global contagion of financial markets. In an interview with Knowledge at Wharton John Drzik president and CEO of the Oliver Wyman Group Richard J. Herring a finance professor at Wharton and Francis X. Diebold a Wharton professor of economics finance and statistics discussed how to build a more informed risk management model. All thre...
Jun 24, 2009•26 min
Now that it’s clear the recession will not turn into a depression stocks are poised for a recovery says Wharton finance professor Jeremy J. Siegel. In an interview with Knowledge at Wharton he said last week’s market decline in response to rising commodity prices -- especially for energy -- and fear of the ever-growing federal deficit was no more than a short-term setback. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jun 24, 2009•15 min
Raghda Shaheen who works for the Dubai International Finance Centre recently completed a four-week business and legal fellowship program at Wharton and the University of Pennsylvania law school. The program funded by the U.S. Department of State Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) and supported by America-Mideast Educational and Training Services (AMIDEAST) teaches management business and legal skills to women from the Middle East and North Africa. This year 22 women from 11 countries atte...
Jun 23, 2009•23 min
Stocks have rebounded on Wall Street during the past two months. The pace of job losses seems to be slowing down. Even quarterly reports from banks suggest that the banking sector is slowly struggling back to its feet. Do these signs portend the first indicators of an economic recovery? Not yet according to experts at Wharton and elsewhere who insist that despite some of the hopeful data the recovery will be weaker and take longer to gain momentum than past slowdowns. Hosted on Acast. See acast....
Jun 10, 2009•14 min
Large financial institutions have failed with much higher frequency than is generally perceived says Andrew Kuritzkes a partner at Oliver Wyman and head of the management consulting firm’s public policy practice in North America. In this interview with Knowledge at Wharton Kuritzkes suggests some new guidelines that would greatly improve the financial system’s ability to absorb the inevitable if individually unpredictable shocks of big failures. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more in...
Jun 10, 2009•21 min
Venture capitalist consultant and former Apple software ”evangelist” Guy Kawasaki talked about ”the art of innovation” during a recent visit to the University of Pennsylvania. He offered 10 rules for entrepreneurs and innovators. Among them: Make meaning not money. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jun 10, 2009•11 min
In a world where jobs can be sent overseas tasks can be automated and the feverish pace of technology can render even last year’s innovation obsolete students will have to learn how to think differently than their parents in order to survive and prosper says Daniel H. Pink author of three bestselling books about the changing work environment. He spoke at the recent Wharton Evolution of Learning Symposium. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jun 10, 2009•11 min
