This article looks at the management approach used in two different types of projects:
An IT project for an automotive parts manufacturer and a construction project for the same automotive parts manufacturer. The author argues that there are real-world tactics from the construction side that can be applied to the management of an internal IT project and that by comparing these projects, it's clear that an internal IT department would benefit from adopting common management practices that are more typically used in outsourced projects, such as in the construction industry.

The legendary business guru says over 85 percent of e-commerce-based companies will bite the big one and that the real issue is whether companies have the guts required to succeed.

Mike Dolan is leading a long-shot crusade against the new economy's most widely shared belief: that global economic integration -- of countries, companies, currencies, and markets -- is both virtuous and inevitable.

The European Union today consists of 15 members and it will expand significantly in years to come with the addition of countries from eastern and southern Europe. Europe's economies are, on the whole, strong, and companies there have lately demonstrated uncharacteristic aggression in acquiring other firms. Yet stumbling blocks to closer cooperation remain: Not all EU members, notably Britain, have embraced the euro, which recently hit new lows against the dollar, and deep differences exist over the question of whether Europe would benefit from a written constitution. For an update on European developments, Knowledge@Wharton sought the perspective of one of Europe's most prominent executives, Henning Schulte-Noelle, chairman of the board of management of Allianz AG, a global insurer and provider of financial services based in Germany.

Cynthia Typaldos, president and CEO of RealCommunities, has built a site for aspiring community builders. Does your community meet her standards?

Fortune set out to discover why incubators aren't the model for creating the next wave of great companies. Incubators claim that they provide an atmosphere that encourages growth, but what happens if a company falls behind? Equity is the price of admission, as is potential loss of control and maybe your job. Incubators can confer instant credibility on startups--but which ones, and for how long? Entrepreneurs get access to highly touted Internet "geniuses" who offer strategic advice, but is the counsel really building long-term winners? Incubators deliver a built-in network of willing business partners, but who really benefits? And do incubated firms ever stand on their own--or only when it's expedient for the incubator? Measure the hype against the reality.

Let's face it. Anyone reading this article thinks that information about how to reward highly-regarded employees applies to them. And we all have ideas about what these rewards should be (more money, bigger title, bigger office, etc.) But short of giving out stock options that will be worth $500 zillion in six months, how can managers provide meaningful incentives, and rewards, for star performers? Wharton management professor Anne Cummings makes some suggestions.

What do the Firestone Tire crisis, the Watergate scandal, Three-Mile Island, and most airline crashes have in common? Quite simply, it would have been almost impossible for each of these disasters to have occurred without a serious chain of unchecked errors leading up to the catastrophe. Whether it is a physical disaster, a political blunder or a serious corporate misstep, the ensuing investigation inevitably reveals that a unique set of errors combined and compounded to make the crisis front page news. The difference between organizations that are portrayed by the media in a negative light, those that are portrayed in a positive light and those that you never read about in the first place has much to do with the process of "managing multiple mistakes (M3)." Robert E. Mittelstaedt, Jr., vice dean and director of Wharton's Aresty Institute of Executive Education, explains why the M3 concept is critical to every organization.

For companies that want to approach entrepreneurial opportunities on the Internet seriously-and with a view to turning profits-a new research paper by Sendil Ethiraj, Isin Guler and Harbir Singh offers useful insights. The researchers provide a conceptual framework to analyze Internet strategies, and they also look at business models and examine their components. In addition, Ethiraj, Guler and Singh explore what makes some business models more effective than others. Follow link at bottom for complete .pdf format research paper.

Project teams constantly face a barrage of new products and technologies, and have a difficult time differentiating marketing slides and grand promises from deliverable products when making strategic IT acquisitions. The solution is to create a structured, repeatable process for evaluating technology solutions and the vendors that provide them.

The Standard's first-ever review of compensation, culture and job satisfaction in the Internet workplace. Includes nine articles.

Follow the founder of ArtPassion.com from the building of his vision, to his first dismal PowerPoint presentation, then through the reality checks of asset valuation and business model tweaking. Will his more solid, revamped presentation win the bucks?

The whys of electronic procurement are obvious. But the wheres of electronic procurement may not be quite so obvious, because E-procurement needs to be thought about in a way that is different from most other applications. For most applications, while there may be inputs coming from outside the company or data sent to the outside, the core of the application - the way we think of where it is -- lies well within the enterprise. With E-procurement the focus is on the transaction, which lies between two different organizations.