Note: CEO Refresher articles are no longer free...

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A look at two different and complementary strategic planning models:
1. Industrial Organizational (I/O) Model
2. Resource-Based Planning Model

When Congress enacted the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA), many financial institutions bristled at the thought of additional regulatory oversight, particularly when it would require the industry to lend to low-and moderate-income neighborhoods. In the 25 years since its enactment, does the CRA still inspire resistance from banks? Given its turbulent beginning, how effective has the CRA been and how can it be improved? Wharton finance lecturer Ken Thomas examines these issues in a new paper entitled, "CRA's 25th Anniversary: The Past, Present and Future."

Poor team players? Here's how to get employees to play well with others using the "GRIP" model.

Note: TWM articles ARE still available BUT: (1) you must be a member (free for existing members, not free for new members)   (2) you must be logged-in for the link to work. If you get an error page, visit the homepage, login and then try the link again.

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In organizations today we need to be able to learn together from collective experience. And, insofar as knowledge today is in constant flux, it is equally important for us to be able to (un-learn) prior beliefs that have become barriers to perceiving things fresh.

Editor's Note: article offers an interesting (mostly common sense) list of organizational learning disabilities.

As the chairman of Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers, and subsequently as the chief economist of the World Bank during the East Asian financial crisis, Joseph Sitglitz was deeply involved in many of the economic-policy debates of the past ten years. What did this experience tell him? That much of what we think we know about the prosperity of the 1990s is wrong. Here is a revised history of the decade, by the winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics

Editor's Note: This otherwise excellent article needlessly interjects many political slings against Republican administrations so if you lean toward that tendency you may find the article less than appealing (though that doesn't in fact disprove the economic points made).

Welcome to the world of global back-office operations, or as it is often called, cross-border business-process outsourcing. While companies have long outsourced manufacturing operations and other tasks such as IT maintenance or software development, the trend has now expanded to include other kinds of business processes such as customer contact, bill processing and medical transcription. Companies are moving such work to locations in India, the Philippines and Jamaica, arguing that they can cut costs by 20% to 40%. As a result, cross-border business process outsourcing has grown into a massive market. Consulting firm Gartner estimates that cross-border business process outsourcing will grow into a $178.5 billion business by 2005 from $123.6 billion in 2001.

Knowledge@Wharton presents a two-part special report examining this phenomenon. In the first part, we look at the pros and cons of business process outsourcing arrangements, examine some human resources issues, and also present some findings from a Wharton research project led by professors Ravi Aron and Jitendra Singh. The second part explores management and financial issues in BPO transactions.

strategy+business asked twelve opinionated, acclaimed strategists, scholars, and writers to identify and assess the most important business books in strategy, management, and various other categories.

Editor's Note: A few of these pieces offer more than just listings of recommended books. In particular, I recommend you read:

Strategy (by David K. Hurst)
http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/14556

Leadership (by Bruce A. Pasternack)
http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/14575

Corporate Governance by (Jay A. Conger and Edward E. Lawler III)
http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/14639

Knowledge (by Jan Dyer and Chuck Lucier) http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/14690

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Also read s+b's Top 25 Business Books for 2000-2001 at:
http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/14785?pg=0

Read the 2001-2002 edition at:
http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/21254?pg=0

Read the 2003 edition at:
http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/03408?pg=0

When used as a strategic planning tool, decision analysis can help managers address issues such as how to allocate resources to ensure that the project meets specific deadlines, when to scale up or delay investments, and when to exit a project.

Change, change, change. Management is constantly seeking change, yet most companies fail to convert these efforts into real value-creating results. This month Prof. Phil Dover reviews the change agent program at a well-known company to identify useful learning points.

Note: CEO Refresher articles are no longer free...

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The landscape of organizational life suggests change has become a way of life. Change has also changed. Change is continuous and discontinuous. Change is accelerating. This article presents a number of change failure themes. Their avoidance may serve to prevent an organization's change process from ending up in the "change effort graveyard."

This article takes a look at distinctive characteristics of the high-performing companies, focusing on cultural, people and systems issues.

European stock exchanges may be aggressively marketing to foreign firms. But U.S. companies need a good business reason to list overseas.

A look at Army leadership framework as presented in the U.S. Army's Leadership Manual.

Editor's Note: View a complete copy of this manual online at
http://155.217.58.58/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/22-100/toc.htm

As the recent proposed sale of Hershey Foods shows, any action a company takes that affects the well-being of its employees and community, among other stakeholders, should be made by a board interested in more than the bottom line. Wharton marketing professor Scott Armstrong urges boards of directors to be democratic and more representative of stakeholder interests. The result, he says, would be fairer and more efficient business decisions.

A personal guide (12 principles) to listening to, working with, and learning from the most important person in our business - the customer!

Who you know and how you're connected to them may be vital to your firm's success when times are tough or turbulent. In this recent working paper, Professors Martin Gargiulo and Andrej Rus consider the effect of social networks on individual and firm performance after external market shocks. They formulate a new model of social capital, then test it on data drawn from Slovenian firms in the early 1990s.

How to turn innovation, often viewed as a haphazard occurrence, into a discipline

Note: CEO Refresher articles are no longer free...

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Understanding the tendency to resist can be the first step in more effectively giving and receiving feedback.

See other articles in this series:
Part 2: Delivering the Message
http://www.mbadepot.com/redir.php?ID=2469&file=links
Part 3: Getting the Message
http://www.mbadepot.com/redir.php?ID=2542&file=links

Competency models are descriptions of strong individual performance, and are the yardstick against which all performance is evaluated. A Penn State professor says that these models work.

Note: Darwin Magazine is now dead. Some articles are moving to CIO. I will try to update the links when I have time...

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Ever wonder why your IT staff acts a little clannish? There's a perfectly good reason - one you should know.

Editor's Note: I can't argue with too much in this article but I also don't think it really says anything new, is not too specific and mostly offers advice that is equally applicable to non-Einsteins. Nevertheless, the commenters seemed to find the article very valuable so I leave it up to you to decide...you can also find another in this series, titled 'Motivating Einsteins' at
http://www.darwinmag.com/read/100102/motive.html

A new CFO survey suggests why new rules for auditors may be a wise idea.

Note: TWM articles ARE still available BUT: (1) you must be a member (free for existing members, not free for new members)   (2) you must be logged-in for the link to work. If you get an error page, visit the homepage, login and then try the link again.

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This article discusses the Enneagram, a simple model of nine personality types and how you can spot these types in team members, co-workers, etc. The article also presents five traits of outstanding managers, as determined by the Gallup organization.

Update: You can now find out what Enneagram type you are with a short 10-question exercise (ignore the fact that it suggests 2 hours to take - it took me 6 minutes) at:
http://www.theworkingmanager.com/Achievement/TF/default.asp?Type=RO&QuestionnaireNo=26

A look at the power of intutive decision-making; induction, deduction and abduction; and matching decision-making to the four types of problems.

Article, an excerpt from the book On Being Nonprofit, examines the three features of nonprofit and voluntary organizations:
(1) they do not coerce participation;
(2) they operate without distributing profits to stakeholders; and
(3) they exist without simple and clear lines of ownership and accountability

Internet marketing has been a shot in the demographic darkness. Effective e-tailing must target not just users, but usage - a methodology called "occasionalization."