European Business Forum articles from March 2005

European Business Forum archives from March 2005

The art and craft of strategy.(Letter from the editors)
March 22, 2005... Strategy is a word with myriad meanings. For many, it is about developing a vision, charting a course or setting a direction. For others, it involves relentless innovation and continuous change. Still more believe that it is about understanding...

What do strategists actually do?(EBF Debate)(Cover Story)
March 22, 2005... Geopolitical uncertainty, rapid globalisation and faster business cycles mean that companies must be more flexible and responsive to changing conditions. But what does this mean for strategy? How should strategy be defined and, importantly, who...

Does humour travel?(Cartoon)
March 22, 2005... UK "Working from home is great--but I miss all the chat round the coffee machine." BARBARA SHORE [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ITALY "Your resume is great, and you have all the experience you need. Still, something worries...

Insights on alliance management, accountability, Sarbanes-Oxley, marketing theory and leadership competencies.(In depth)
March 22, 2005... EDITOR'S NOTE The in-depth section of EBF--which you will find in the next 26 pages--represents a change of style and pace for the reader. While the preceding EBF debate dealt with a specific theme, here we broaden the focus to look at a...

The globalisation of business schools: international business school students share many common values, but those values are not always reflected in the cultures of the institutions where they study.(EXECUTIVEEDUCATION)
March 22, 2005... Do business schools reflect the distinctive national cultures of the countries in which they are located, or have institutional cultures become similar under the impact of globalisation? What are the perceptions and preferences of our...

Innovations in the classroom: simple techniques to foster participation by students can improve learning at all levels.(EXECUTIVE EDUCATION)
March 22, 2005... Student-centred university classrooms not only support student learning but also provide a forum in which to practise the skills of democratic participation, a particularly important set of skills for citizens in young democracies like Turkey....

How going global compromised Parmalat.(CASE STUDY)(Company Profile)
March 22, 2005... The Italian giant Parmalat imploded during a financial crisis, resulting in a police investigation, a suicide, a series of arrests and shockwaves throughout the international financial community. The role of corporate governance, auditors and...

Anthropology as a lens for business.(RESEARCHBRIEFS)(The Business of Ethnography: Strategic Exchanges, People and Organizations )(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... Can anthropology help to explain the world of business? According to a new book by Brian Moeran, The Business of Ethnography: Strategic Exchanges, People and Organizations (Berg, 2005), anthropology offers explanations about how people and...

Creating and managing knowledge.(RESEARCHBRIEFS)
March 22, 2005... How do firms create knowledge? Ten years ago, in their well-known book The Knowledge-Creating Company, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi described the importance of knowledge creation and how vital it is to long-term competitiveness. In a...

Putting CSR at the heart of business.(RESEARCHBRIEFS)(corporate social responsibility)(European Academy of Business in Society)
March 22, 2005... A major new initiative in research into corporate social responsibility has been launched by the European Academy of Business in Society (EABIS). The CSR Platform Project, which will last for three years and has significant funding and support...

Ethics and financial markets.(RESEARCHBRIEFS)
March 22, 2005... Can financial markets reform themselves, or must codes of conduct be imposed? In a working paper entitled 'Financial Markets Beyond Good and Evil', Peter Norberg of the Centre for Ethics and Economics at the Stockholm School of Economics...

The limits of legal sanctions for managers and directors.(RESEARCHBRIEFS)(ethical behaviour)
March 22, 2005... A working paper from the London Business School (LBS) Centre for Marketing, entitled 'Breaking the Rules: The Failure of Moral and Legal Prohibitions Against Corporate Crime', shows that despite increased penalties for law-breaking by managers...

The cost of email.(email users)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... Over a third of employees spend in excess of an hour a day emailing friends and relatives during working hours, according to latest research from internet security group Clearswift. The survey of 4,500 workers (based in the UK, Germany and US)...

Shop where $1m is not enough.(luxury outlets)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... Only oligarchs will be welcome at Moscow's latest and brashest luxury outlet. They're calling it the multimillionaires' supermarket--a one-stop shop offering every oligarchic accessory from luxury yachts and private jets to Pacific islands and...

A London call centre is to host the first performance of live music to entertain callers on hold.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... A London call centre is to host the first performance of live music to entertain callers on hold. Those who telephone the technical help desk of IT firm Universal Support will be able to listen to a string and flute quartet perform 'on hold'...

Is email making bosses ruder?(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... In an age of text messaging, emails and instant messaging, business writing is taking a battering. Garbled syntax, tortured grammar and poor punctuation are increasingly facts of business life. According to some experts, the rise of email is...

Russian stakes claim on clouds.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... A Russian lawyer has staked a claim on the world's clouds. Vladimir Osipiv is using the same law that allowed an American man to claim the moon. He is hoping clouds will be snapped up by environmentalists who will then take legal action against...

Redundancy 'worse than divorce or widowhood'.(employment)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... Losing your job is worse than getting divorced or losing a loved one, a study claims. The unemployed are scarred for life, and even those who return to work often never recover previous levels of happiness. In contrast, those who are divorced...

The world's most expensive hotel.(Emirates Palace)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... The doors have just opened on the world's most expensive hotel, the Emirates Palace, costing a rumoured [pounds sterling]2 billion to build. Its owner, the government of Abu Dhabi, knows that the hotel will never make a profit. That doesn't...

Ikea to flog flat-pack flats.(IKEA UK Ltd)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... Furnishing giant Ikea is launching a new range of flat-pack homes. The budget houses and apartments go on sale next month at the firm's 13 UK stores, starting at [pounds sterling]70,000 for a one-bed unit. Ikea's subsidiary, 'BoKlok', will...

Oh, the waste!(waste management )(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... * Producing a quarter-pound of hamburger requires 100 gallons of water, 1.2lbs of feed grain and energy equal to a cup of gasoline, causing the loss of 1.25lbs of topsoil and producing greenhouse gas emissions equal to a 6-mile drive in a...

A single mum-to-be is auctioning off her bump as advertising space on eBay.(Did You Know?)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... A single mum-to-be from Atlanta, Georgia, is auctioning off her bump as advertising space on eBay, in a bid to try to raise money to bring up her baby daughter. She got the idea after another eBay user raised nearly [pounds sterling]20,000 by...

Little green women a success at traffic lights.(Did You Know?)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... Little green women on traffic lights in Germany are a success with motorists and pedestrians. The trend began in a town in Saxony last year where the female figure in a short skirt and with long hair was introduced at various traffic lights....

More EU money against smoking.(Did You Know?)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... The EU is going to spend [euro]72m until 2008 to try and get people off cigarettes. The campaign is called 'HELP--For a life without tobacco'. More than 650,000 Europeans die every year from the effects of smoking and the average age of taking...

Italian firm sells shoes individually.(Did You Know?)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2005... An Italian firm has started selling shoes individually instead of in pairs. Simone Cassola and Jack Ray say business has been booming since they allowed customers to mix and match their shoes, with special offers if they buy two in different...

Ukraine creeps westwards as Russia looks on: the electoral victory of the westward-leaning 'Orange Revolution' in Ukraine's elections is reshaping Europe's economic and political landscape. Many believe Ukraine may even leapfrog Turkey to become a member of the EU.(Sounding Board)
March 22, 2005... Last December, Viktor Yushchenko was elected president of Ukraine, changing the post-Soviet political landscape with as much force as the tsunami that struck South-east Asia the same day. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] President Putin had...

French enlightenment: the 35-hour working week; The French experiment with the 35-hour week has helped dual-career couples balance their lives but other countries have been slow to follow. Now new legislation threatens to undermine what was widely viewed as a progressive innovation for the French workforce.(Sounding Board)
March 22, 2005... It's a normal Wednesday in Paris. Marcel Dupont is spending the morning taking his children to tennis and riding lessons. Mme. Dupont will devote the afternoon at home helping them with their homework. Both parents are employed full-time. ...

Route to a brand's best strategy: new findings challenge the belief that market share alone correlates with profitability. Bain & Company's analysis of 200 brands shows that products at the high end stand to earn considerably more with a smaller share of the overall product category.(Sounding Board)
March 22, 2005... Conventional wisdom holds that market share alone determines profitability for branded consumer products. But that masks the full story. Consider what happened to The Gillette Co. after its main competitor Bic introduced low-cost disposable...

How to institutionalise dissatisfaction: companies in trouble tend to embrace change, but companies that are doing well often resist. Ironically, when your company is thriving it is probably the best time to shake things up. You may want to start by making dissatisfaction part of your company culture.(Sounding Board)
March 22, 2005... Most executives have found that bringing about change is much more difficult when the organisation is doing well than when it is facing a crisis. They have a point. A clear-cut crisis helps establish that change is unavoidable, while good...

Is the regulatory burden becoming too much for financial institutions? 'Know Your Customer' procedures are beginning to have an impact on financial institutions worldwide, and regulators are not shy of clamping down on non-compliance. Reputational damage sometimes exceeds even the heavy fines being levied.(Sounding Board)
March 22, 2005... Tough new regulatory regimes are costing financial institutions millions of dollars in fines plus incalculable damage to reputations as regulators attempt to get a grip on international money-laundering. The US is the most aggressive, with...

Innovation 'reality-TV' style: instilling a culture of continuous innovation in a traditional company need not take years. If the exercise is fun, employees enjoy it. At Quill Corporation the solution was to create a 'reality TV show'.(Sounding Board)
March 22, 2005... Innovation--it's the buzzword of the moment, and for good reason. In today's highly volatile business environment, the need for companies to reinvent themselves repeatedly and rapidly is the only way to ensure long-term survival. Although many...

Where scientific management went awry: Taylorism laid the foundations for science-based management more than 100 years ago. But early implementations led to worker resistance and distortions that have never quite gone away.(History Lesson)
March 22, 2005... More than a century after its inception, scientific management remains one of the most controversial management theories of all time. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] To its supporters, it brought professionalism based on knowledge and...

An eco-friendly pioneer: EBF talks to Hiromoto Sekino, chief operating officer, Sanyo electric company.(View from the top)(Interview)
March 22, 2005... Sanyo's recent European investments formed the centrepiece of EBF's relaxed interview with International COO Hiromoto Sekino during his tour of European operations. Sitting down to a large sushi lunch in London, he spoke openly about why Sanyo...

Post-tsunami, will there be a field-day for the corrupt? Indonesia took the brunt of the tsunami and will collect the largest share of international aid. Donors should make sure their funds are not siphoned off.(Letter from Boston)
March 22, 2005... For the past five years, my colleagues and I have been studying 48 countries to rank their level of corruption and several other factors that contribute to a country's overall level of risk. We have been presenting our findings at international...

News from EBF founders.
March 22, 2005... PricewaterhouseCoopers is active in understanding the evolving global business environment and its implications. Here are some recent examples: UK New frontiers in the Entertainment & Media industry: Doing business in China. Free...

CEMS.(News from EBF founders)(Community of European Management Schools)
March 22, 2005... CEMS is a community of talented individuals who strive to make an alliance with international companies a success. Without the commitment of many people within different stakeholder groups (academics, corporate partners, students and alumni),...