A person who works exclusively in staff jobs throughout a career is less likely to develop important leadership competencies than a person who works exclusively in line jobs (or in a combination of staff and line jobs). Life as a staff professional is developmentally impoverished. The consequences of having developmentally deprived staff professionals are serious. It means it is more difficult to find strong staff leaders, with all the implications for staff performance that this entails. This article offers 22 ways development of staff professionals can be greatly enriched. It also discusses five types of experiences and jobs by which successful executives develop and 11 elements that make any experience developmental.

No two clıents are the same. Your servıces shouldn't be, either.

ManyWorlds takes a look at the work of William Damon on ethics and morality in business. In particular, it examines the four dimensions of morality and three underlying ethics assumptions.

Who is better equipped to set the corporate agenda: a small and homogeneous top management team of like-minded individuals, or a larger, more heterogeneous team of individuals from a wider variety of backgrounds and perspectives?

There are many opinions on this issue, but very little hard data exists to recommend one approach or the other. As a result, in collaboration with the Center for Effective Organizations (part of the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California), the authors sought to address the issue by analyzing 66 peer-reviewed studies of top management team composition and performance conducted since 1984.

In this manifesto, clinical psychologist John Gartner hypothesizes that "American entrepreneurs are largely hypomanic." Where mania is a severe illness, hypomania is not, in and of itself, an illness. It is a temperament characterized by an elevated mood state. And it is largely responsible for entrepreneurial success.

Editor's Note: this is really an interesting article, and not just for those interested in psychology or entrepreneurship. After discussing hypomania, Gartner goes on to explain why immigration-friendly countries like the U.S. and Canada might have a disproportionately high rate of hypomanics which provides economic benefits and explains cultural attitudes towards business.

In new research, Stefan Stremersch and a colleague explore the pattern of product growth after the takeoff point to determine if growth differs across countries, whether such differences can be explained by culture or economics and the implications of these results on new product strategy. The paper entitled, "Understanding and Managing International Growth of New Products," was recently published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing.

When companies choose to benchmark against other organizations, they sometimes find that they run into nomenclature problems. The simple process of classifying activities causes confusion when two organizations don't speak the same language and therefore cannot determine if they are indeed speaking about the same thing. APQC's Process Classification Framework (PCF) is a detailed, process-driven system that provides numeric classification and makes it easier for companies that wish to share information to do so. Download this informative white paper to learn more.

Decades after Milton Friedman framed the debate over the social responsibility of business with an article in the New York Times Magazine, the discussion continues. Should businesses concentrate on achieving socially desirable outcomes? Can business be guided by the rule of law when governments are sometimes corrupt? How does operating globally affect a company's behavior? These and other issues were the focus of one of the sessions during Stanford's 75th anniversary celebration in May 2000. The participants included business leader Bowen "Buzz" McCoy, Stanford Business School faculty members Kirk Hanson and David Brady, and Nobel economist Milton Friedman.

You may distribute more business cards at conferences, luncheons, and meetings than a clown does confetti, but are you overlooking one of your most obvious networking locales - your own association's staff? This article discusses why and how you should network in your workplace.

What is the secret to creating real competitive advantage? Michael Tanner's analysis, which reflects the approach of the Chasm Group popularized by Geoffrey Moore, goes beyond Michael Porter's foundational work. Whereas Porter's framework brought competitive forces into focus, it assumed relatively fixed industry boundaries. Tanner's approach has the advantage of enhancing a company's view across multiple, differing competitive situations while connecting these strategic positioning issues to front-line marketing strategy. This involves much more than merely identifying core competencies since you may need to acquire competencies, and you may find it productive to outsource or partner for real competencies that fall outside the core of your business model. The approach explained here emphasizes identifying both current core competitive advantage (GAP) and what is needed for future advantage (CAP, or competitive advantage period).

In addition to GAP and CAP, a third source of competitive advantage comes from how your company executes. In this content, Tanner mentions the three value disciplines of Product Leadership, Operational Excellence, and Customer Intimacy identified by Treacy and Wiersema. Tanner adds a fourth source of advantage: managing disruptive innovation. [ManyWorlds Annotation]

Instead of sifting through data-filled spreadsheets, turn on a filter and let the spreadsheet program search for the information you require.

Many agree that the true test of leadership is being able to take people in a direction where they would not go on their own. Passing that test, and enabling the organization to live another day, is never more critical than in a time of crisis. This Ivey professor has found that great leaders exhibit six types of behaviour in a crisis, and in this article, he describes each behaviour and recommends what leaders need to do to manage the crisis successfully.

1. Create an Interview Plan
2. Set the Stage for Being at Ease
3. Assume the Best
4. Be Objective
5. Tread lightly with trick or trendy questions
6. Encourage Balance
7. Review the CV Last
8. Schedule a Half Hour Between Candidates
9. If Possible, Take Notes
10. Make Time for Questions and Information

read the article for more details...

The global spread of technology can improve nations' productivity and growth. Oftentimes, multinational companies are the ones that trade or carry technology across borders. To better understand this phenomenon, Pedro Mendi has studied how Spanish multinationals transfer technology to their subsidiaries. His paper, "Contracting for the Transfer of Technology Within Multinational Corporations: Empirical Evidence From Spain," sheds light on important considerations such as contracts, methods of payment and royalty rates.

Ran Kivetz and Itamar Simonson have embarked on a broad research effort to understand why customers join loyalty programs and how they use them. They recently completed a paper that examined how the amount of effort consumers must expend to get a reward-how many miles, points, or purchases they must accumulate-affects the types of rewards they prefer. Kivetz and Simonson found that the more effort required, the more consumer preferences shifted from necessity rewards, such as a grocery or gasoline voucher, to luxury items, such as spa certificates, gourmet dinners, or cruises.

There's an old saying about rolling out a successful new product: "It always takes longer and costs more." Many company executives are resigned to this state of affairs, determined to ride out the tough phase of the new product cycle on the path to positive cash flow.

But it doesn't have to be that way. By learning from the mistakes of the past, start-ups can build cost-effective, successful sales teams that burn through a minimal amount of cash on the road to breakeven.

Business thinking starts with an intuitive choice of assumptions. Its progress as analysis is intertwined with intuition.

Showing that leverage leads to underinvestment is standard fare for any corporate finance class. However, as Lyandres and Zhdanov point out, it might be better to say that leverage influences investment, but that the direction of the bias is firm-dependent.

Good decisions arise from constructive conflict. Here's how to use debate to build a sound decision-making structure. Excerpted from Why Great Leaders Don't Take Yes for an Answer.

The decision by a rock group in Northern Kentucky to call itself 6 Sigma suggests that process management programs may definitely be part of mainstream consciousness. But does the continuing popularity of such programs hide the fact that they can end up suppressing innovation? "The risk is that you misapply these programs, in particular in areas where people are supposed to be innovative," notes Wharton management professor Mary Benner. "Brand new technologies to produce products that don't exist are difficult to measure. This kind of innovation may be crowded out when you focus too much on" the statistical measurement of outcomes. Benner and Harvard Business School professor Michael Tushman look at the evolution, and potential misuse, of process management programs.

This article considers the sources of first-mover advantage, how often first-movers win, how this advantage relates to other factors such as learning and innovation, and why the first-mover advantage must-if it is to work at all-be only a small part of a more sophisticated strategy.

Leading companies now recognize that commitment to the environment can help them not only avoid costly problems or liabilities, but also identify environmentally based opportunities for competitive advantage. These opportunities take two forms: cost reduction and differentiation of products, processes, or services. For example, Du Pont reports saving $1 million a year in one plant by using less of one raw material, cutting the plant's waste by two-thirds. Similarly 3M's Pollution Prevention Pays (3P) program has saved the company more than $500 million since 1975 through process adjustments to avoid waste. And ICI has recently made a commitment to reducing its waste output by 50 percent by 1995. Meanwhile, manufacturers such as Procter & Gamble and retailers such as Loblaw in Canada and Walmart in the United States have developed product and retailing strategies that build on environmental strengths. Loblaw, for example, has developed a full line of environmentally sound products under the Nature's Choice brand name.

The 2005 Nobel Prize for Economics went to two researchers who advanced the science of game theory. Defined as "optimal decision-making in the presence of others with different objectives," game theory as a strategic tool is used in business as well as a required element for MBA students. Professors at Goizueta discuss the theory and explain why its applications in business are worth a second look.

After decades of turnaround work, Gary Sutton has seen five - and only five - ways businesses fall into trouble.

Fielding calls from strategic buyers expressing an interest in acquisition can be great news. However, as an entrepreneur you have to be skeptical as many of these calls end up as just another fishing expedition from the strategic buyer. In fact, you have to recognize and assume that many of these initial calls are just fishing expeditions where a strategic buyer is just trying to get as much information as they can about a market and the competitive landscape. You have to assume that they are talking to all of your competitors as well. Before taking your first meeting, make sure you get as much information you can to gauge the real interest in your company. Here are some questions you should be asking or thinking of during your initial conversation.