In his latest article, titled “How Metaphors & Analogies Influence Your Thinking,” Schoemaker details the ways in which figures of speech can distort or hide information that may be useful to understanding complex subjects like the economy, competition, or teamwork. In addition, he provides several steps one can take to…Read More
Mack Institute News
Wharton Magazine Reports on Our Fall Conference 2012
“Game changing innovation is not just the domain of start-ups,” commented Wharton Magazine’s Matt Brodsky after attending our Fall Conference. His blog post Disrupt my Business! covered Inder Sidhu’s and Roy Rosin’s afternoon session presentations, concluding with a choice remark from Rosin: “Ideas are pretty worthless unless they’re quickly made…Read More
Wipro Chairman Azim Premji: ‘The Next Challenge Is to Globalize Our Leadership Much More’
Wipro, India’s third-largest software services firm, announced in April the appointment of Girish Paranjpe and Suresh Vaswani as the company’s co-CEOs. At the 2008 Wipro Mandala event (an annual meeting that brings together Wipro employees and clients), held in Miami last month, India Knowledge@Wharton and Ravi Aron, senior fellow at…Read More
Paul Schoemaker Gives Advice on How to Be a Great Leader
Mack Center Sr. Fellow Paul Schoemaker has written an article for Inc Magazine, reproduced below, in which he describes six ways to become a credible leader. His advice includes strong vision, involvement, being part of the solution, and high integrity. He also makes the case that credibility is an important…Read More
Wharton and Engineering School collaborate on Y-Prize
What would it look like if Wharton and engineering students came together to innovate new applications for Penn Technology? It would look a lot like the Y-Prize Competition, co-sponsored by the Mack Center. The Y-Prize is a chance for a team or individual with the strongest idea to win $5000…Read More
FDI in Indian Retail: The Big Benefits Will Come Tomorrow, Not Today
The Indian government recently announced a slew of reforms, including allowing foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail up to a level of 51%. A policy requiring that single-brand retail multinationals source 30% of products and materials from small businesses and craftsmen was changed to mandating that the same amount…Read More
Paul Schoemaker Talks to the Wall Street Journal about Brilliant Mistakes
Inventors from Archimedes to Thomas Edison and Jonas Salk have made mistakes that caused their discoveries to develop in surprisingly helpful directions. Now the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School is trying to capture mistakes like this, with the idea that making mistakes on purpose is something that all of us…Read More
Saikat Chaudhuri Weighs in on the Smartphone Shakeout
In a Knowledge@Wharton article, Professor Chaudhuri says that hardware companies (such as HTC and Nokia) end up playing second fiddle to software in the smartphone industry, where the distinguishing factor is often the community of developers and applications that are available to the phone.
Paul Schoemaker Explains What Makes a Mistake “Brilliant”
There will never be a shortage of dumb mistakes. Fortune magazine once compiled a list of the “101 Dumbest Moments in Business” that included Merrill Lynch’s investment in subprime mortgages just before the market meltdown in 2008, Mattel’s recall of 20 million toys treated with lead paint in China and…Read More
Harbir Singh Speaks at the World Economic Forum in Davos
Wharton organized a session on “new creative models for job growth and creation” during which faculty explored what companies can do in both the West and the East to create more jobs and better manage risks to job growth. Wharton faculty speakers include Professor of Management Michael Useem, Professor of…Read More
Wharton professor Saikat Chaudhuri joins other thought leaders in offering advice for surviving 2012
The past few years were undoubtedly challenging for most firms the world over, as they faced economic uncertainties unparalleled in the recent past, and companies continue to stare into a nebulous future as 2012 approaches. But the reality is, even when the present crises subside and we are poised for…Read More
Harbir Singh Leads a Faculty International Seminar to South Africa
In July and August 2011, a team of Wharton faculty visited Kenya and South Africa to learn how Africa is evolving within the global economy. They gained precious insight from local entrepreneurs and alumni. The group was in Africa as part of Wharton’s Faculty International Seminar (FIS), which takes groups…Read More
Wharton Magazine Interviews Karl Ulrich about the Impact of Innovation on the Wharton School
Wharton Magazine: With the establishment of Dean Robertson’s “three pillars”— innovation, global presence and social impact—why is innovation such an important component, and what is the role of the Innovation Group?
Harbir Singh Discusses the Future of India’s Mobile Phone Industry
This market is burning hot — 200-plus brands, 2,000-plus models and more being added quickly, even as existing models are looking at obsolescence every year and a half. The mobile handsets market is crowded, noisy and fast-paced as brands — international and Indian — slug it out. As Naveen Mishra,…Read More
George Day’s Book Has Been Awarded the Berry – AMA Prize for the Best Book in Marketing
We are pleased to announce that the book, “Strategy from the Outside In: Profiting from Customer Value” by George Day and Christine Moorman, has been awarded the Berry – AMA Prize for the Best Book in Marketing. This annual prize is awarded by the American Marketing Association to an exceptional…Read More
Saikat Chaudhuri discusses how Apple carried out Jobs’ succession
Mack Center Core Team member Saikat Chaudhuri talks about how Apple deftly handled the succession of the recently departed Steve Jobs, a process that begun years ago as the gravity of Jobs’ illness became apparent. Chaudhuri compares the succession favorably to IBM and GE. Both of those companies had legendary…Read More
‘Trusted Ties’: Is Your Company a Spider Web or a Snowflake?
An excerpt of Knowledge@Wharton’s article about Rob Cross’s presentation during our annual Spring Conference on June 3, 2011. Companies spend millions recruiting top talent and pushing innovation. Yet even when talent pools in large organizations overflow, innovation too often just trickles out. Untangling knots in company networks could be the…Read More
Wharton Technology Conference 2011
The 11th Annual Wharton Technology Conference was held on April 22-23, 2011. A special feature of this year’s conference was a panel discussion on technological change and industry evolution – with Sid Winter, Phil Anderson, and Rebecca Henderson. Anita McGahan, Lori Rosenkopf, Jackson Nickerson, Dan Levinthal, and Michael Lenox served as discussants. Darwin and…Read More
Daniel Zweidler on the Benefits of Sharing Failures
See Knowledge@Wharton‘s article on Daniel Zweidler’s (Mack Center Senior Fellow) case for how pharmaceutical companies could benefit by sharing their failures as well as their successes, in order to make research and development more efficient and improve the pharmaceutical pipeline. Why Sharing Failures Can Speed Up Innovation When it comes to innovation, most…Read More