European Business Forum articles from March 2001

European Business Forum archives from March 2001

The risks of bad governance.(Letter from the Editors)(Editorial)
March 22, 2001... Increased interest in corporate governance in the last decade is linked in part to the wave of financial scandals in the mid to late 1980s, which provoked governments, stock exchanges and business organisations to develop a plethora of new...

Is corporate governance delivering value?(At the forum)(Cover Story)
March 22, 2001... Interest in corporate governance--the foundation on which companies set their goals, assign responsibilities and measure performance--has exploded throughout the world in the last few years. Is governance best practice something that should be...

The rediscovery of articulation: it has become increasingly fashionable to emphasise the 'tacit' and 'sticky' nature of knowledge over its more 'explicit' forms. This paper seeks to redress the balance.(Knowledge management)
March 22, 2001... The current, and justified, fascination with the tacit component of knowledge... must not cloud the fact that organisations to a large extent are 'articulation machines,' built around codified practices and deriving some of their...

In my opinion ...(Knowledge management)
March 22, 2001... "We can know more than we can tell," says Polanyi. This article by Professor Lars Hakanson on tacit knowledge is a most thought provoking read, and I very much agree with what he says. The power and logic of tacit knowledge articulation is...

In our opinion ...(Knowledge management)
March 22, 2001... "Over the years, man has taught himself to hoard knowledge to achieve power. Today, we have to reverse the tendency. Today, the most powerful individuals will be those who become a source of knowledge by sharing what they have, or what they...

Europe's models--a business view: if Europeans can resolve the tensions between their national business models there is a huge prize to be won. This article discusses the findings of a new survey of around 30 senior business executives.(Business models)
March 22, 2001... The Anglo-Saxon business model will not win an outright victory in Europe. Instead, a distinctively European style of capitalism will emerge--drawing on many facets of the Anglo-American approach but preserving an eclectic European identity....

Value reporting: it's time to act; Companies today can no longer give a full picture of their value using traditional methods. There is now no excuse for failing to give the market what it wants.
March 22, 2001... The economy, the stock market and business practices have all evolved beyond recognition over the last hundred years, but corporate reporting, in many ways the cornerstone of capital markets, has significantly failed to keep pace. Technology,...

Privacy on the internet: Europe and the US converge; The days when companies could do pretty much as they pleased over privacy are disappearing. Pressure from governments and customers to comply with new rules is intensifying.
March 22, 2001... The internet and e-commerce have transformed the way many companies look at how they conduct business. But the relative ease with which enterprises have been able to move into this arena--in large part because the internet has been essentially...

In my opinion ...(Privacy on the net)
March 22, 2001... In recent months Europe and the United States do indeed appear to have been on convergent public policy paths in response to increasing public demands on both sides of the Atlantic for the preservation of personal privacy in the digital era....

Why business should support a risky political enterprise: companies need EU enlargement in order to secure the opportunities which have flowed from economic and political reforms in Eastern Europe. By taking the initiative now they can be good corporate citizens as well as wise investors.(EU enlargement)(European Union)
March 22, 2001... For two compelling reasons, executives of international firms should take an active interest in how the European Union manages its Eastern enlargement. The first is that despite the marginal role East European economies still play in world...

In my opinion ...(EU enlargement)
March 22, 2001... This article highlights the significant but often overlooked benefits of EU enlargement. The business opportunities will be enormous in a single market of half a billion consumers, with open borders to trade across 27 countries. For most of the...

In my opinion ...(European Union enlargement)
March 22, 2001... For those living in the East, enlargement is the only 'realistic utopia'. The road is steep right now and the period of transition is imposing pain and sacrifices on peoples whose only fault was to be born on the wrong side of the Wall. Without...

Does national culture induce a style of management? Or is management style the product of economic necessity? This article considers the arguments for and against the culture-contingent explanation of managerial diversity.(Cultural styles)
March 22, 2001... Over the last four decades, ideas about management styles have been dominated first by the American management model and later by the Japanese. The underlying assumption has always been the existence of a country specific management model as a...

Choosing the right option in the B2B marketplace: there are four different models for B2B between consumer goods manufacturers and retailers. The authors describe an approach that helps managers find out which model suits their company best and how to implement it.(Sounding board)(Business to business market)
March 22, 2001... From fish auctions to furniture clearance, B2B models are now becoming important marketplaces for consumer goods companies. It is no longer a question of whether e-commerce makes sense for retailers and consumer goods manufacturers. Today's...

Think local--act local: is it time to follow Coca-Cola's lead and slow down the pace of global marketing?(Sounding board)
March 22, 2001... Just over a year ago (March 2000) Douglas Daft, CEO of Coca-Cola, announced that the next big evolutionary step for the company would be "going local". Coca-Cola, he had concluded, was operating as a big, slow and sometimes insensitive "global"...

Lafarge's new green building block.(Sounding board)
March 22, 2001... In many ways they seem unlikely bedfellows--Europe's biggest construction materials business on the one hand and an international nature conservation organisation best known to millions for its cuddly Panda logo on the other. A year ago,...

Environmental benchmarking: paybacks and pitfalls.(Benchmarking)
March 22, 2001... Benchmarking is a frequently used buzzword that merely glamorises a simple idea. It means comparing the performance of products, activities, processes or organisations ('systems') against a selected standard: the benchmark. Experience suggests...

Drucker's disciple eyes Europe: EBF talks to John Bachmann of Edward Jones.(View from the top)(European Business Forum)(Interview)
March 22, 2001... Merrill Lynch and Paine Webber may be much better known--but one of the most consistently profitable private client stockbrokers in the United States is the St. Louis-based partnership Edward Jones. Described by Fortune magazine as "the...

A change agent transformed: EBF talks to Ron Weil of Krauthammer International.(View from the top)(European Business Forum)(Interview)
March 22, 2001... Psychologically appropriate might be one way to describe last October's employee buy-out of Krauthammer International, a Brussels based training and consulting company which specialises in helping top management teams cope with significant...

Does humour travel?(Cartoon)
March 22, 2001... 'Mind if I smoke?' PLANTU, TM-ENVIRONMENT, FRANCE [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 'One thing bothers me: is our debt in dollars or euros?' NICOLAS VADOT, BELGIUM [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 'I think I've found your share options,...

From 'online to frontline'.(Entrepreneurs)(Samsari Education)(ExpertPlaza)(WordAppeal )(Squeaker.NET)
March 22, 2001... In the last issue of EBF (Winter 2000, pp. 92-95) we introduced four companies newly created by alumni of the Community of European Management Schools (CEMS). Three months on, how are these dot-com pioneers getting on? How does reality compare...

A 'New Economy' in Europe?(European Economic Outlook)
March 22, 2001... There has been much talk of a 'New Economy' emerging in the US since the mid-1990s, associated in particular with advances in information and communications technology (ICT). Initially this view was largely championed by journalists and stock...

Reasons to doubt the conventional car wisdom.(Daimler-Benz AG's merger with Chrysler Corp)(BMW AG's merger with MG Rover Group Ltd.)
March 22, 2001... Bill Vlasic and Bradley A Stertz, Taken for a Ride: How Daimler-Benz Drove Off with Chrysler William Morrow [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] David Waller, Wheels on Fire: The Amazing...

An American on Europe.(Book Review: Investing in the New Europe)(Book Review)
March 22, 2001... Eric Uhlfelder, Investing in the new Europe Bloomberg Press [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] With the American economy heading rapidly towards recession, and with global capital markets falling sharply in value, it is an interesting time to...

The ideal dot-com combination?(Book Review: Clicks, Bricks and Brands)(Book Review)
March 22, 2001... Martin Lindstrom, Clicks, Bricks and Brands Kogan Page [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The last few months have not been good for European dot-coms. Open a newspaper or a magazine these days and the debate still rages as to why this has...

The EU on the web: find your way through the European Union's websites.(Web.europe)(European Union)
March 22, 2001... The European Union has a very extensive web presence with material in 11 languages on its Europa portal site http://europa.eu.int/. As you would expect it's a mammoth task keeping up to date information about everything that's happening, and...

Dot-com graveyard.(Did you know?)(Downsizing in web related companies )(Brief Article)
March 22, 2001... Those of a morbid disposition may care to follow The Wall Street Journal's daily updated catalogue of job cuts and closures among Web-related companies (http://interactive.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/dotcomlayoffs.htm). The list includes...

Street stories.(Did you know?)
March 22, 2001... Dog excrement on Parisian pavements causes 650 hospitalisations per year. (Times 26/02/01) Central London parking meters make more money per hour than a fast food worker. (Observer 11/02/01)

Ostrich takes off.(Did you know?)(imports)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2001... European consumers are switching to imports of ostrich, shrimp and other meats from South Africa, Australia and Thailand as 'mad cow' and foot-and-mouth diseases take their toll. "Suddenly millions of Germans are eating ostrich", Francois...

Phone a pharmacist.(Did you know?)(Apotheek 0800DocMorris N.V.)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2001... A Dutch online pharmacy which sells medicines throughout the European Union has run into problems in Germany. DocMorris.com has got round Germany's ban on mail-order pharmacies by having its customers pay for a courier to collect their...

Shining a light on opacity.(Did you know?)(opacity index)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2001... Economists brought together by PricewaterhouseCoopers have produced an 'opacity index' which measures the effects of unclear legal systems and regulations, macroeconomic and tax policies, accounting standards and practices, and corruption on...

And finally ...(Did you know?)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2001... Individuals are now generating more information than businesses: 500 times as much data is contained in emails than exists on all the world's websites. Arnold Schwarzenegger, film star and former Mr. Universe winner, has a degree in...

Step backwards for takeovers.(Letters to the editor)(Letter to the Editor)
March 22, 2001... Dear Sir As it stands, there is no legislation at European level regulating takeovers. Companies currently face a barrage of conflicting legislation in the event that they attempt a cross-border takeover, with uncertainty as to which...

Enlightenment over the last mile.(Letters to the editor)(Letter to the Editor)
March 22, 2001... Dear Sir In EBF Issue 4 ('Building the last mile to the consumer: how to solve logistics conflicts in e-business', pp. 66-70) you carried a provocative article by Nirmalya Kumar and Thomas Vollman proposing a radical solution for...

News from EBF founders.(European Business Forum)(PricewaterhouseCoopers L.L.P.)
March 22, 2001... PricewaterhouseCoopers is active in developing new ideas for business and disseminating them through a variety of channels. Here are some recent initiatives: For Davos Promoting thought, proposing action for Retail & Consumer CEO's...

CEMS is a strategic alliance of leading universities and international companies whose objective is to shape Europe's management education and research.(News from EBF founders)(Community of European Management Schools)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2001... The CEMS Master's Degree already enjoys a reputation as the pan European standard of excellence in management education. In addition to a degree from their home school, over 2250 graduates hold the CEMS Master's. As well as fulfilling the...