Your chief competitor creates a breakthrough technology. Should you frame that event inside your company as a threat or opportunity? The answer in this Harvard Business Review excerpt by HBS professors Clark Gilbert and Joseph L. Bower just may surprise you.

CEOs wear the crown, which idiomatically, lies heavy. They are vested with authority (and of course, bear responsibilities) that comes with a very small margin of error. Clearly, they need to be well-adjusted. To ensure this, they must be open to change and have the will and the skill to do so. Professor Manfred Kets de Vries discusses the value of this process and how it plays a part in the annual leadership workshop conducted at INSEAD.

A look at 7 points to consider in setting the stage for effective team-work as outlined originally by Organization Development pioneer Richard Beckard.

"My thesis is that we are in transition from the Traditional, through the Transitional and into the rapidly emerging Transformational organizational culture model. To succeed, many managers and professionals will have to adapt to the inconsistencies associated with working in Mixed Culture organizations. The ability to read these mixed signals and to build effective power and influence support systems is crucial to maximizing career and indeed life potential - particularly when you are in a change leadership role. I show how Donald Peterson failed to do this at Ford and got fired and how David Kearns and John Clendenning both did this successfully at Xerox and gained power and influence through their successful organizational culture change leadership."

CEOs offer every excuse but the right one: their own errors. Here are ten mistakes to avoid.

"In the first issue of EBF (Spring 2000) we examined the meaning and relevance of a distinctively European management model. The issue of convergence around a single Anglo-Saxon approach remains contentious - and far from proven."

Entrepreneurs or a venture team often engage in a torturous, checkered process of nurturing and idea into a successful business. Professors Yves Doz and Peter Williamson show that alliances, at different stages of venture development, may help reduce the burn rate as well as improve the chances of success. Download the full text of this working paper to find explanations on an applied managerial level, with real-world examples of new entrepreneurial ventures.

How do you develop strategy in an uncertain economy? Meet TINA: There Is No Alternative. First, Royal Dutch/Shell pioneered the system of scenario planning to anticipate dramatic changes in the world. But when everything starts to change, the way to do planning is to focus on things that don't change.

It's your moment. You have 10 minutes to wow a captive audience of venture capitalists. How do you make the most of that time? If you're one of the 23 women entrepreneurs recruited by Springboard Enterprises, you spend five grueling weeks in the nonprofit's boot camp crafting the perfect pitch.

Find out what A.G. Breitenstein and two other female entrepreneurs discovered about themselves and their companies during the process. Plus, discover the elements of a winning pitch and the seven habits of effective presenters.

Fujio Masuoka says that Toshiba tried to demote him after he invented a $76 billion product. The loss was America's gain. Will Japan make the same mistake with the next innovation?

This paper discusses the basic definitions of knowledge and KM followed by KM events, practices, and challenges. It concludes with remarks on the future of KM.

How should smart companies position themselves in the global economy? By training a historical lens on the process of globalization and thinking about strategies that can take advantage of its current, intermediate state-what HBS professor Pankaj Ghemawat calls "quasiglobalization."

Business is at a crossroads. Scandal and recession have cast a pall on the way CEOs go about leading their companies. Three distinguished professors send this memo -- Five Half-truths of Business -- as a wake-up call.

The five:
1. We're only in it for ourselves
2. Corporations exist to maximize shareholder value
3. Companies need CEOs who are heroic leaders
4. Companies need to be lean and mean
5. A rising tide lifts all boats

Voyant Technologies was struggling to get ahead -- until the CEO persuaded his engineers and his MBAs to work together.

Many decisions CFOs make -- how to raise capital, where to outsource, whether to expand -- are deeply influenced by a network of politicians, financiers, and other individuals around the world. For the first time, CFO Magazine presents its list of fivescore bankers, investors, regulators, and rule-makers -- as well as gadflies, opinion leaders, organizations, and forces -- that have the greatest influence on the world of the CFO.

Editor's Note: You may also be interested in the related article on the Tech 20 at:
http://www.cfo.com/Article?article=7280

Consider this scenario: You establish a website and advertise products on it. When customers send in orders, you forward them to your wholesaler or distributor, who ships the orders directly to customers' homes with your company's label on them. You completely avoid the enormous costs and risks involved in inventory, warehousing, and fulfillment. Too good to be true? That depends, says a new paper by Wharton professor Serguei Netessine and two colleagues that looks at the pros and cons of drop shipping, which the authors also refer to as virtual order fulfillment.

Do you (or your company) deserve the loyalty of customers, employees, partners and shareowners? Think about your answer from their perspective.

If someone asked you to take a look at the level of competition in the technology market, you would normally begin by grouping obvious competitors and customers. But you might get a more accurate answer if you started the other way around - first considering the factors of the competition which subsequently indicate rival market boundaries. INSEAD professors Ron Adner and Peter Zemsky propose a new model to do just that, specifically for disruptive technology. They juxtapose new and established technologies, explore the competitive relationship between the two, and provide some indications about how firms' profit-maximizing behavior can shape competitive boundaries.

There's still no silver bullet when it comes to optimizing the connection between partners, customers and suppliers-but it's a must to stay competitive. And it's up to CEOs to make those big investments pay off. A Chief Executive Roundtable.

We all know it's true: Managing up is as important as managing down. That's especially true when you are starting a relationship with a new boss. HBS professor Michael Watkins discusses the importance of clearly defining goals with your superior.

Hundreds of major corporations are implementing a Balanced Scorecard in their quest to increase shareholder value. But success is in the details.

Want to know where to go for images, how to find and download them, and the copyright issues involved? Then focus in on this descriptive article by Nick Tomaiuolo and you'll get the picture!

Have you ever been in a situation where your competitor claimed a market share that was not even close to the calculations you gave to your senior management? Or where annual reports claimed market shares you could not retrace in your calculations? Understanding how you can calculate - and use - market shares can be extremely useful.

A look at how to prepare for the television interview Q&A process.

This article uses a hypothetical IT server project to illustrate the calculation of ROI. It also presents some arguments regarding the strength and weakness of the metric (and a specific example of how to calculate present value with Excel).

Editor's Note: Pretty basic stuff but a good read for the financially challenged.