Stay ConnectedThe Knowledge at Wharton feed features standout episodes from across the Wharton Podcast Network. Discover timely conversations and expert insights on business, markets, leadership, innovation, and the forces shaping the global economy.
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Copyright: © 2013 The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
As baby boomers retire and start spending their nest eggs they will need new financial products to make their money last according to speakers at a recent Wharton Impact Conference titled ”Managing Retirement Payouts: Positioning Investing and Spending Assets.” The conference explored emerging patterns in spending during retirement and debated new ideas to help retirees manage their finances after leaving the workforce.
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When it comes to rolling out new goods and services companies tend to choose one of two strategies as a way of generating interest in their products whether it’s Apple’s iPhone or Microsoft’s Surface Computing effort. One is pre-announcing the product to give customers partners and even competitors advance notice of what’s to come. The second approach is the surprise unveiling where a company hopes to make a big splash by giving few advance hints about an upcoming release. Which approach is best? It depends -- on the product the company and its position in the market say experts at Wharton.
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Lucrative deals are hard to come by these days for investors looking to extract value from distressed companies around the world. As global markets become increasingly sophisticated success will be determined by those who know how to navigate local corporate legal and cultural terrains. At the 2007 Wharton Restructuring Conference turnaround consultants and distressed asset investing experts noted that calibrating strategies for individual markets obtaining accurate information and building trust are more important for a successful outcome than spreadsheets and financial models. ”What you don’t know will kill you ” one panelist said.
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Last week the United States’ first major immigration reform bill in two decades collapsed in the Senate. Buried in the ongoing debate was the potential economic impact of a measure that could change the composition of America’s workforce in significant ways: By cracking down on illegal immigration the legislation could constrict the future supply of low-skilled workers while a move to skill-based visa evaluations could provide more workers for booming high-tech industries. Meanwhile it isn’t exactly clear what impact the country’s 12 million illegal residents have on its economy. Experts from Wharton and elsewhere weigh in.
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Earlier this month Cerberus Capital Management bought 80.1% of Chrysler Group from German auto maker Daimler-Chrysler effectively ending a nine-year marriage between the two that never quite worked out. The expectations created by this acquisition are huge and revolve in part around Cerberus’s ability to make a deal with the United Auto Workers union that would include restructuring billions of dollars of retirement and health-care benefits -- a burden that both Ford and GM -- but not Toyota -- also carry. We asked Wharton management professor John Paul MacDuffie co-director of the International Motor Vehicle Program to give his views about Chrysler Cerberus high gas prices and other auto-related issues.
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Some shoppers just can’t help themselves and buy mostly on impulse without regard to price. Others are die-hard bargain hunters who only open their wallets for a discount. Then there are the strategic consumers who are willing to buy full-price sometimes but at other times they will wait for a bargain. According to new research by Gérard P. Cachon professor of operations and information management at Wharton and doctoral student Robert Swinney it’s these customers that retailers need to focus on in order to reap the full benefits of lean retail inventory management and variable pricing.
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According to estimates micro and small businesses contribute almost 50% of South Africa’s total employment and 30% of its gross domestic product. Until recently however the impact of poor health and in particular HIV/AIDS on these enterprises -- ranging in size from single owner-workers to companies with 100 employees -- has been largely overlooked by researchers. A new study by Li-Wei Chao from the University of Pennsylvania’s Population Studies Center Mark V. Pauly Wharton professor of health care systems and others examines how owner health determines the fate of small businesses in South Africa and impacts the larger economy as well.
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”The U.S. pursues securities law violations with a regulatory intensity unmatched elsewhere in the world ” according to John C. Coffee Jr. director of the Center on Corporate Governance at Columbia University Law School. At a recent Wharton Impact Conference on international corporate governance Coffee said that although securities law enforcement can lower the cost of capital it may deter some foreign firms from cross-listing in U.S. markets. Still he argues strong enforcement is critical for creating good governance and adding value to corporations and investors stand to gain from it.
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Dana Gioia (pronounced Joy-a) claims to be the only person in history who went to business school to be a poet. Having earned a degree from Stanford’s graduate school of business he worked 15 years in corporate life eventually becoming vice president of General Foods. In 1991 Gioia wrote an influential collection of essays titled ”Can Poetry Matter?” in which he explored among other themes the nexus between business and poetry. Since 2002 he has been chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts where he has overseen programs aimed at making Shakespeare and poetry recitation more popular in the U.S. Gioia who is a speaker at the Wharton Leadership Conference in Philadelphia on June 7 talked about these ideas with management professor Michael Useem and Knowledge at Wharton.
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Microsoft buys aQuantive; Google acquires DoubleClick for $3.1 billion; Yahoo purchases the 80% of Right Media it doesn’t already own and ad firm WPP gets 24/7 Real Media for $649 million. And that’s just in the last six weeks. The common thread: All the takeover targets are online advertising companies. The race to consolidate the online advertising industry is heating up at the same time that advertisers are demanding more return on their marketing dollars. Wharton professors and others analyze how this will play out for tech companies ad companies and consumers.
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