Terrorism has put managing risk back where it belongs-in the boardroom. But risk management isn't something directors, or CEOs, should try by themselves.

CIOs grappling with remote user connectivity issues and those at small enterprises should pay close attention to the evolving cable modem standards that are geared toward making cable modems more viable.

Do your company communiqués seem to get lost in the void? You need a system of feedback that crosses the T's, dots the I's and closes the loops.

In today's complex global manufacturing environment, managers face tough questions. What's the best way to implement integrative strategies for plant networks? How is know-how created and transferred? Drawing on in-depth case studies, Professors Ann Vereecke, Roland Van Dierdonck and Arnoud De Meyer create a typology of plants in global manufacturing networks, offering both technical analysis and practical advice.

Compared with the previous peak of global capital, the amount of money flowing to poorer countries today is already small. Maurice Obstfeld and Alan Taylor, two economists, point out that less-developed countries' share of total global debt is at an all-time low. In 1900, these countries accounted for 33% of the total; in the 1990s, the figure was down to 11%. In 1913, the countries in the bottom fifth of income per person received around 25% of the world stock of foreign capital, much the same as the countries in the richest fifth. By 1997, the poorest fifth's share was down to under 5%, compared with 36% for the richest fifth. According to Messrs Obstfeld and Taylor, today's capital transactions seem to be "mostly a rich-rich affair, a process of ‘diversification finance' rather than ‘development finance'...foreign investment in the poorest developing countries lags far behind the levels attained at the start of the last century." Why?

On May 10, 1996, five mountaineers from two teams perished while climbing Mount Everest. Is there anything business leaders can learn from the tragedy? HBS professor Michael A. Roberto used the tools of management to find out. Plus: Q&A with Michael Roberto

European companies lag behind U.S. corporations in starting new businesses. A few best-practice companies show how the continent can compete.

Editor's Note: though a bit topical and ostensibly focused on Europe, the article lays out a general guide for any company considering setting up a corporate venturing initiative.

Combining financial and nonfinancial measures to get a true picture of business performance requires an understanding of how four basic perspectives of the Balanced Scorecard click.

The Balanced Scorecard has helped Boeing, Sears and other companies achieve radical improvements in their management systems' performance. The key to capitalizing on this tool is customizing it for your company's needs.

This article looks at the typical lack of formalized marketing planning programs and offers some thoughts on developing one, including possible problems.

Editor's Note: This is a longer article that contains some good information but also a lot of useless rambling. I recommend a basic skim first. I personally found the second half of the article much more valuable than the first.

Front-line level employees with any company tend to be in a very good position to observe the good behaviors and the not-so-good behaviors of their leaders. Consider this to be a view from the flip side!

In this issue of Spotlight Professor A 'Parsu' Parasuraman speaks to editor Sarah Powell about the concept of techno-ready marketing and the implications of techno-readiness for marketers.

Analysis of France over the last 20 years suggests that the Bourse is playing a bigger role in the economy - but the link to innovation and productivity is more complex.

May 22nd, 2002 saw the start of the third Innovation Management Roundtable (IMR). Coming from across the US and across the ocean, innovation leaders from organizations as diverse as BMW and the U.S. Navy gathered in Cambridge, Massachusetts to learn and apply new ideas about innovation. The theme of this IMR was "Strategic Exploration," focusing on how organizations can more effectively search for and identity significantly new opportunities, evaluate them, and then act to capitalize on them effectively. This was no training seminar, it was a learning forum, where the two dozen gathered academics, practitioners, and consultants co-created a deeper understanding of this topic. Facilitated by David Sutherland of the Business Innovation Consortium (http://www.bicnow.com)and Rudy Ruggles of the CGEY Center for Business Innovation, the group pushed forward their collective understanding of the difficult but vital process of Strategic Exploration.

As with all IMRs, the event combined case studies, theories, and prescriptions to create specific approaches to addressing difficult innovation challenges. The focus of this event was how organizations can more effectively move beyond their current boundaries into new domains.

We have just published a full report on this event, containing overviews of each session, presentation thumbnails, and pictures of the graphics. A 1.6mb low resolution version pdf of this document is available online for easy downloading (paper copies can be requested as well).

Here's a great summer project: Gather your sales brochures, product bulletins, Web page copy, white papers, news releases, sales presentations, annual and quarterly reports...and so on. How clearly and consistently is a differentiated position expressed? Does it read like fodder from several different companies? Well, it doesn't have to.

Josef Lakonishok says stock prices are driven by gut-wrenching emotion that smart investors can exploit. Eugene Fama says an efficient market governs prices, which means stock picking is a cruel illusion. When both invest, who does better?

Editor's Note: See another article on this theme, 'Is That a $100 Bill Lying on the Ground? Two Views of Market Efficiency', at
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/articles.cfm?catid=1&articleid=651

Despite growing interest in building up bases of customers who research online and shop offline, such consumers might actually not be worth the effort.

The 2002 Working Capital Survey (sixth annual conducted jointly with REL Consultancy Group) reveals ways to reduce working capital without punishing customers or suppliers. But the alternatives aren't totally pain-free.

Editor's Note: I find the 2002 Working Capital Survey Charts (last page) a very useful benchmark/CI tool.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what would an animation be worth? The answer could be the cost of Camtasia, a program that can make training or troubleshooting videos of computer screen movements. Read our review of this easy-to-use program.

Editor's Note: Free registration required to access

Since the 1980s, wage inequality has increased in many OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries, with a shift in demand towards skilled labor. Most economists do not attribute this change to international trade, but Professor Vanessa Strauss-Kahn argues that it's important to examine the problem from a different angle. Here, she analyzes the effect of globalization on inequality and develops a general equilibrium model of production and wage premia. This paper addresses the following questions: - When does vertical specialization (outsourcing) occur? - In which country and under which conditions does agglomeration take place? - How does globalization affect the wage premium in different locations? - By considering trade in intermediate inputs and firms' location decisions can we reconciliate facts and theory?

Tom Peters galvanized a free-agent nation with his manifesto, "The Brand Called You." But there is something missing from his vision: us.

Efficient capital markets require that companies that have raised money in the capital markets must file detailed, timely and sometimes intimate information with regulators. These filings are open for everyone - not only investors in the company. Prior to the www, these filings were available to the public, but the means for everyone to access this information easily was not available. The free flow of information of capitalism combined with the reach of the internet gives you, the CI analyst, very powerful information.

In this article, we will be looking at some methods of accessing this powerful information.

Can an international alliance of global corporations win a war on poverty? Yes, if such an alliance is well planned and formed soon, according to HBS professor emeritus George C. Lodge.

While CEOs realize they can count on financial executives to know the value of the company's tangible assets, they may not be so sure that their CFO has a firm grasp on how the company stacks up when it comes to intellectual capital, new product effectiveness or relationships with customers. If you haven't made any effort in measuring the value of these assets, maybe it's time you did.

Accountancy used to be boring. If only it still were.