articles 1 to 10 of 48
Why Innovation Is Tough to Define - and Even Tougher to Cultivate
While most people would agree that they are in favour of innovation, providing a succinct definition or example of it is a tougher question, noted participants in a panel on the topic at the recent Wharton Economic Summit 2013. In addition to offering their personal definitions of game-changing discoveries, panellists also discussed the role of the government and the U.S. education system in fostering a new generation of entrepreneurs and innovators.
From: May 07, 2013
Innovate or Bust: Creating Business Cultures Open to Change
What does it take to be innovative in a changing global economy? That was a key question posed at the 35th-anniversary conference of the Australian Graduate School of Management. A highlight of the conference was three business leaders – Gerhard Vorster, chief strategy officer at Deloitte Australia and Asia Pacific; Andrew Stevens, managing director of IBM Australia and New Zealand; and George Frazis, CEO of St George Banking Group – sharing their insights into embracing the challenges of innovation, now and into the future.
From: February 19, 2013
Future Shocks: Dan Levinthal on Sustaining Competitive Advantage
Dan Levinthal is a professor of management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the Michael J. Crouch Visiting Professorial Fellow at the Australian School of Business where he will be giving a series of seminars on innovation and the experimenting organisation. Levinthal says that companies seeking to foster new possibilities need a mix of discipline and some element of tolerance for at least partial failure. It is about balancing exploration and exploitation. Levinthal recently spoke with Knowledge@Australian School of Business.
From: February 19, 2013
Family Values: Catherine Harris on Leading Harris Farm Markets
What entrepreneur wouldn't dream of turning a single store into a thriving chain of outlets? Few succeed, but someone who has is Catherine Harris, chair of Harris Farm Markets. With her husband David as CEO, Catherine co-founded the business in 1972 with a small fruit and vegetable shop in the western Sydney suburb of Villawood. It has since grown into an operation with a chain of 22 stores and three butchers across the state of New South Wales and more than 1000 employees. Harris Farm Markets was a trailblazer in being the first Australian fresh produce business to serve its customers in the style of a supermarket. From the start, the family-run concern has bought its goods from the Sydney Markets at Flemington, near the site of the 2000 Olympics. Harris Farm Markets continues to be based there.
From: February 05, 2013
How Seemingly Irrelevant Ideas Lead to Breakthrough Innovation
At Reebok, the cushioning in a best-selling basketball shoe reflects technology borrowed from intravenous fluid bags. Semiconductor firm Qualcomm's revolutionary colour display technology is rooted in the microstructures of the Morpho butterfly's wings. And at IDEO, developers designed a leak-proof water bottle using the technology from a shampoo bottle top.
From: January 31, 2013
From the Altar to IPO: The Highs and Lows of Married Business Partners
For Julia Hartz, co-founder and president of Eventbrite, the event and ticketing web platform, starting a company with her husband, Kevin, was not exactly part of her master plan.
From: January 31, 2013
A 'Sigh of Relief' at Davos: Confidence and Caution Shared Centre Stage
Wharton management professor Michael Useem, returning from his 11th trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, reports that confidence in the global economy is back "in the world's inner circles of business and policy". But he also suggests that the challenge ahead lies in efforts to avoid the arrogance and excesses responsible for the 2008 financial crisis. Below is his commentary on the recently concluded Forum.
From: January 31, 2013
'For the Win': How Gamification Can Transform Your Business
Can work be fun? Is it possible for customers to have the same deep engagement with an organization's products or services that they might experience when playing a game? Can things game designers have learned about what makes games effective from the 40-year-old video game industry, which generates $70 billion annually, be applied to meet business objectives? Wharton legal studies and business ethics professor Kevin Werbach and New York Law School professor Dan Hunter say yes.
From: December 05, 2012
MOOCs on the Move: How Coursera Is Disrupting the Traditional Classroom
During the past decade, the distribution of content over the Internet and its consumption on computers and mobile devices has disrupted several industries - newspapers, book publishing, music and films, among others. Now education joins that list, thanks to the emergence of massive open online courses, or MOOCs. These courses, which are offered for free to tens of thousands of students, cover topics ranging from artificial intelligence and computer science to music and poetry appreciation. As millions of students around the world flock to participate in MOOCs, universities are being compelled to rethink what it means to teach and to learn in a networked, globally connected world. During the past 18 months, many educational institutions have initiated or joined ventures that can help them explore, experiment in and gradually understand this phenomenon.
From: November 08, 2012
Google's Osama Bedier: Why the Digital Wallet Is Key to the Marketplace
How will customers pay for goods and services in the future, and how will they manage their money? How will access to the Internet via smartphones change consumer shopping habits? How will companies and customers integrate the online and offline worlds? These are some of the questions taken up at the first-ever Money 2020 Conference, held in October in Las Vegas, Nev.
From: November 08, 2012
