Management Review articles from April 1999

Management Review archives from April 1999

CUSTOMERS PROVIDE THE ANSWERS.
April 1, 1999... After years of being internally focused, companies in asset-intensive indus-tries such as materials processing, re-fining and mining have experienced depressed shareholder value. As a result, many do not recapture the cost of capital over...

GOODBYE DOOM, HAIL PROSPERITY.
April 1, 1999... The Dow is up. The Dow is down. Reports of bullish markets and rosy economic in-dicators are juxtaposed with de-tails of corporate downsizings and an Asian flu that is spread-ing like wildfire around a world perched for financial...

NEW ADA GUIDELINES.
April 1, 1999... Arecent decision in Aka vs. Washington Hospital Center by the United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit, now requires employers to reassign disabled workers to new positions on a noncompet- itive basis-or risk violating the...

CREATIVE 'GET-A-LIFE' BENEFITS.
April 1, 1999... Quality employees will be at a premium for the foresee-able future as the U.S. labor pool continues to shrink due to the aging of the population. Companies that manage to at-tract and retain star performers will benefit from a critical...

TO ACQUIRE OR DIE.
April 1, 1999... In today's cutthroat business climate, CEOs are forced to choose the fate of their com-panies: Get acquired or do the acquiring. In a study con-ducted by Christian & Tim-bers, a retained executive search firm in Cleveland, Ohio, more...

NEATNESS COUNTS FOR MANY EMPLOYEES.
April 1, 1999... Does an uncluttered desk bring peace of mind? Many workers seem to think so. That's according to a study conducted by Steel-case Inc., a designer and manufacturer of office products based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Thirty-three...

THE GENERATION 2001 WORKFORCE.
April 1, 1999... How will students graduat-ing at the start of the next century shape the American workplace? A survey of the first graduating class of the new millennium by North- western Mutual Life Insurance Co., Milwaukee, Wisconsin, shows that tomorrow's...

Knowledge Management
April 1, 1999... According to Ernie TrendWatch, subscriber questions on knowledge management focused on four key areas: online information services (57 percent); general knowledge management (16 percent); licens-ing intellectual assets (16 percent); and library...

LOOKING THRU' THE CRYSTAL BALL.
April 1, 1999... Once thought of as the purview of for-tune tellers and stock market play-ers, gazing into crystal balls has become a pursuit of many serious busi-nesspeople. A new subset of the consulting profession has even begun to emerge: strategic...

Mergers: Good or Bad?
April 1, 1999... Mergers and acquisitions are setting the stage for a large wave of corporate spin-offs and divestitures in the not-too- distant future. Already, a large number have occurred in-volving companies that have grown too big and diversified- largely...

THE RIGHT PEOPLE FOR THE JOB.
April 1, 1999... Akey question top managers should be asking themselves these days is: "Does my organi-zation have the talent mix to compete in the next five years?" Franco L. Vicino, president of Vici Associates International, a management consultancy...

Thirst for KNOWLEDGE
April 1, 1999... With knowledge management in full swing, will the use of technology help companies quench their thirst? In the technology hyperbole meter, knowledge manage-ment is right up there with heavyweights such as the Web. What's all the hubbub about?...

THE TECHNOLOGY BEHIND THE CURTAIN.
April 1, 1999... While knowledge management systems differ from company to company, most have the following technological underpinnings: Connectivity: Computer networks, including LAN, WAN or Internet access E-mail Containers-repositories of...

Achieving That 'EVEREST Feeling'
April 1, 1999... Many business turnaround stories resemble descriptions of the Civil War-sibling vs. sibling fighting amid unimaginable carnage and suffering-with, of course, a happy end-ing, at least for some. Turnarounds are never easy, but they need not be...

MOMKnows Best.
April 1, 1999... Nurture your business with a little motherly advice. Wear Clean Underwear: Business Wisdom from Mom by Rhonda Abrams Villard Books (Random House), 1999 227 pages Do motherhood and capitalism mix? Certainly the nurturing, motherly...

Behindthe Buzz
April 1, 1999... Knowledge management has become a red-hot buzzword in management circles since its emergence in the early 1990s. There's been much hype around the practice, which has led serious managers to ask if it has any substance. A preliminary...

Is 'Knowledge Management' an Oxymoron?
April 1, 1999... Most experts and practitioners in the field agree that "knowledge management" is a misnomer. Knowledge can't really be "managed." But rather than dwelling on the semantics, they approach the subject with a pragmatic attitude because they...

Measured for Success
April 1, 1999... A lot of companies engage in big talk about improving customer service, but at TNT UK the little details are a way of life. When the European Foundation for Quality Management held a gala ceremony in Paris in October 1998, it ended weeks of...

THE HARRIED BUT HUNGRY CONSUMER.
April 1, 1999... Paper or plastic?" Shoppers of the future may not even know what the phrase means. Imagine that tiny computers are built into your refrigerator, pantry and trash can. They automatically scan the bar codes on items and generate orders...

Car Lots of the Future
April 1, 1999... Most American consumers have experi-enced the trauma of buying a new car. They must travel to several showrooms, where their choices often are limited, and employ the skills of a seasoned negotiator to reach an acceptable price. It can be an...

Branding in the Information Age
April 1, 1999... Now that customers have virtually unlimited information about their choices, is brand loyalty on its way out? Will consumers buy on price alone? Not at all. The information age arms consumers with facts, prices, data, product reviews, advice...

THE DANGER OF RETAIL ARROGANCE.
April 1, 1999... In 1992, when Arthur Martinez joined Sears, Roebuck and Co. as head of the Merchandising Group (he became CEO in 1995), he saw the signs of rising consumer power immediately. For more than a century, Sears stores had been a retailing pillar...

The Etail Revolution
April 1, 1999... An era of unprece-dented consumer power is dawning. It will separate the winners from the losers in all types of retail fields. Retailers everywhere are talking about using "data mining" to learn more about consumers' habits, tastes and...

SO YOU WANT TO GO.
April 1, 1999... Doing business in the Caspian Basin re-quires careful planning. Here are some steps to take: * Define your objective and visit the target market to establish feasibility. Al-though economic statistical reporting in Caspian Basin...

RESOURCES.
April 1, 1999... 5 American Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce, Washington, D.C. Bob Pace, executive director Tel.: 202-828-2013 E-mail: aucc@erols.com Web site: www.erols.com/aucc 5 Butler University, Indianapolis, Indiana Peter Z. Grossman, professor of...

Pipeline to PROFITS
April 1, 1999... As the Caspian Basin comes on line, companies around the world are taking big risks for a chance to make big profits. This is the story of big oil. Really big oil that about doubles the proven reserves of the North Sea, Alaska and Texas. It's...

CAN WORKPLACE ROMANCE BE REGULATED?
April 1, 1999... In response to the growing number of sexual harassment complaints, more employers are implementing rules regarding workplace romances. Some employers, such as the New Jersey Attorney General's office, require any supervisor who has a...

FEDERAL COURTS DISAGREE ON MANDATORY ARBITRATION.
April 1, 1999... A hotly debated topic is whether companies may lawfully require, as a condition of employment, that employees waive their right to bring discrimination claims in court and instead agree in advance to arbitrate all employment disputes. Two...

INFERTILITY TREATMENTS THE NEXT BATTLEGROUND?
April 1, 1999... Class action complaints have been filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charging discrimination based on the denial of employer-sponsored med-ical coverage for infertility treatments. The claim is that plaintiffs are...

NOT FOR THEIR EYES ONLY.
April 1, 1999... An e-mail policy can help dispel unrealistic expectations of pri-vacy among employees. The hallmarks of an appropriate policy include the following: Put the policy in writing and (if practicable) consider having employees acknowledge...

Tangling with Technology
April 1, 1999... THE IMPLICATIONS: New technology has enhanced communication, but it also can be used to waste time, gossip with friends, ha-rass coworkers and violate intellectual property rights. EIMPLICATIONS ACTION PLAN: Increasingly, the use of new...

The Corporate Geneticists
April 1, 1999... Competitive advantage is something your company does better than anyone else. So it must make sense to put all your efforts into maintain-ing that advantage year after year. Or does it? An endless list of companies once had competitive...

When to Hire a CEO Coach
April 1, 1999... Here are five scenarios in which a CEO coach can prove most useful: * The company is growing rapidly. When a leader wants to take the company to the next level, a coach can help him or her develop new skills, upgrade the top team, set new...

Less Lonely at TOP The
April 1, 1999... CEOs don't have to go it alone when the demands of the job mount. A coach can help renew their energy and challenge them to be even more effective. As the former CEO of a national professional ser-vices firm, I once faced a touchy crisis that...

CEO Succession Crisis: Lessons Learned
April 1, 1999... In today's complex business environ-ment, a smooth CEO succession is be-coming more difficult. A thoughtful process is needed to develop an effective successor at the CEO level. Ideally, poten-tial successors are given multiple line and staff...

CALENDAR OF EVENTS.
April 1, 1999... APRIL AMA's 70th Annual Human Resources Conference & Exposition, The Mission Is Possible: Building Competitive Advantage Through Your People, Anaheim, California, April 18-21. The 4th International Human Resources Conference, Buenos...

Online Global Connections
April 1, 1999... AMA is committed to making best practices available to members at the best value, and part of that commitment is MWorld, the members only Web site for the individual mem-bers of AMA. MWorld is designed to link the global AMA community through...

The Spirit of Leadership
April 1, 1999... After mourning the loss of the familiar, true leaders move on to embrace change and mobilize others to do the same. In 1455, the Gutenberg Bible was produced on a crude printing press, which signaled a momen-tous shift in society and in...