Knowledge@wharton

”He who takes medicine and neglects to diet wastes the skills of his doctors.” This proverb highlights the findings of a new study by Wharton marketing professor Lisa Bolton and two colleagues that explores how consumers in China choose between traditional Chinese remedies and Western medicine when seeking treatment. According to the study Chinese consumers tend to prefer traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) but will opt for Western medicine in particular situations such as when they are hoping to quickly alleviate their symptoms. While the study has implications for marketers of Western medicine and TCM alike the researchers found that remedy choices also have broader consequences for consumer health and well being. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

It is a scene millions of Americans have been in -- sitting next to a real estate agent at closing to sign the papers for a new home. Often the buyer has spent months with the agent. And to hear agents tell it they are indispensable guides through the hazardous home-buying terrain. How is it then that millions of borrowers took on toxic subprime mortgages that could cost them their homes? Why did their agents not warn them off? While much criticism has been leveled at subprime lenders and mortgage brokers some experts say that real estate agents have managed to escape their share of blame for the subprime mess. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Former Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca once noted ”You can have brilliant ideas; but if you can’t get them across your ideas won’t get you anywhere.” In their new book The Art of Woo: Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas Wharton legal studies and business ethics professor G. Richard Shell and management consultant Mario Moussa provide a systematic approach to the problem Iacocca identified. Using relationship-based emotionally intelligent persuasion to secure both individual and organizational buy-in everyone from CEOs and entrepreneurs to team leaders and mid-level managers can sell their ideas -- a skill that everyone needs to learn if they want to be effective in their organizations the authors say. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When the AARP recently announced its seventh annual ”Best Employers for Workers over 50” awards the winners didn’t get there by offering the traditional fringe benefit trio of health life and disability insurance. Instead the AARP recognized companies for providing workers over 50 with ”forward-looking” benefits packages that include for example alternative work schedules and lifelong learning and career training opportunities. But are companies interested in offering jobs or job security to older workers? And why aren’t these workers following the retirement path their parents did? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

After a terrible August when the U.S. stock market appeared to be headed for the pits October 1 saw a massive rally that sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average soaring above 14 000. The following day however stocks began to fall again mainly due to a sharp drop in home sales. In short Wall Street still seems to be sending out mixed signals. What will be the long-term effects of the Fed’s decision to cut interest rates? Will the U.S. economy move past the sub-prime mortgage mess? How will these developments affect the European market? Knowledge at Wharton spoke with Wharton finance professor Jeremy Siegel and Jacob Wallenberg chairman of the board of Investor AB and vice chairman of Sweden-based SEB. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The 57 members of AHRMIO the Association for Human Resources Management in International Organizations range from the UN UNICEF and OECD to the World Health Organization the World Bank and the International Labour Organization. Mary Jane Peters executive director and Roger Eggleston president emeritus were at Wharton recently for the group’s 7th annual conference. They talked with Knowledge at Wharton about their successes -- such as the introduction of paternity leave and policies regarding sexual harassment -- as well as their major challenges starting with the lack of qualified young people to carry out the missions of AHRMIO’s member organizations. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Online retailers may be shooting themselves in the tail -- the long tail that is according to Kartik Hosanagar Wharton professor of operations and information management and Dan Fleder a Wharton doctoral candidate in new research on the ”recommenders” that many of these retailers use on their websites. Recommenders -- perhaps the best known is Amazon’s -- tend to drive consumers to concentrate their purchases among popular items rather than allow them to explore and buy whatever piques their curiosity the two scholars suggest in a working paper titled ”Blockbuster Culture’s Next Rise or Fall: The Impact of Recommender Systems on Sales Diversity.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When the Internet was young pioneering online job recruitment firm Monster.com rocked the way people look for work. Now Monster itself has hit a rocky patch marked by the resignation of three top officers a major security breach and the rise of new competitors including Craigslist. According to Wharton faculty and analysts Monster is confronting the ”middle age” that all veteran firms of the Internet’s early days must face. The company remains a force in employment advertising they say but as it settles into maturity Monster must find new ways to protect its established markets and expand overseas. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Forget what you learned about markets in your introductory economics class. In a new book titled The Tyranny of the Market: Why You Can’t Always Get What You Want Wharton professor Joel Waldfogel challenges the conventional thinking that markets will provide adequately if left to their own devices. His book makes the case that while markets do a good job of offering products that a majority of people desire they can fall short in meeting the needs of consumers with less prevalent preferences. Potentially left by the wayside are African Americans Hispanics people with unusual medical conditions and residents of remote areas among others. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

After an unusually long 23-year tenure as chief executive Reuben Mark who is still chairman of Colgate-Palmolive sees corporate leadership like a baseball game that is won not by spectacular homeruns but by singles and doubles. In a recent Wharton leadership lecture titled ”The Essence of Colgate’s Leadership Training ” Mark said effective leadership at the $12.2 billion consumer products company pays off in incremental and consistent gains. ”The essence of leadership is the idea of continuous improvement. No matter what you can always coach people to do a little better and if everyone does that the whole organization moves up.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

CBS launches an online editing studio called EyeLab so fans can edit short versions of video programming. ABC distributes full versions of its television shows on its own site and via AOL for free. NBC Universal teams up with Amazon.com to distribute its shows. The frenetic wheeling and dealing for digital distribution of TV programs -- just as the fall season is gearing up -- reflects the television networks’ attempts to find Internet business models that can be profitable and still protect both their intellectual property and brand identity. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When Apple dropped the price of its iPhone by a third after only two months on the market even its most loyal buyers complained bitterly forcing CEO Steve Jobs to apologize and offer a partial rebate. According to Wharton faculty and analysts the iPhone episode reflects an evolving marketplace where innovation fierce competition and globalization are changing strategic approaches to pricing. Meanwhile pricing is gaining new interest as management looks for ways to increase revenues after years of focusing their attention on downsizing and cost-cutting. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When mortgage default rates started to climb earlier this year many experts thought the damage would be confined to the minority of issuers that had binged on subprime lending. It hasn’t turned out that way. Consumer spending is off the credit crunch is spreading and the housing market is in a slump. ”The degree and the extent of the harm done were not expected. It surprised me. But the fact that this would end badly was not surprising ” says Wharton real estate and finance professor Susan Wachter. Wachter and colleague Richard K. Green trace the evolution of the home-financing market over the past decades in a new paper titled ”The Housing Finance Revolution.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Among the U.S. auto industry’s many challenges are the ongoing negotiations between General Motors and the United Automobile Workers union aimed at coming up with a new contract to replace the one that expired on September 15; the recent takeover of Chrysler by private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management; and a possible slowdown in consumer spending as a result of fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis. Meanwhile industry watchers are awaiting the outcome of reported efforts by India’s Tata Motors to take over two of financially plagued Ford Motor’s luxury brands Jaguar and Land Rover. Wharton management professor John Paul MacDuffie co-director of the International Motor Vehicle Program spoke with Knowledge at Wharton about these and other issues. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Men are bigger tightwads than women; younger people are more likely to be spendthrifts than older people; and the more educated a person is the more likely he or she is to be a tightwad. While ”tightwad” and ”spendthrift” are not exactly labels that most people would welcome in a discussion of their spending habits they are valuable as predictors of consumer behavior. Indeed Scott Rick a visiting professor at Wharton and two colleagues recently came up with a scale to determine the extent to which people are tightwads or spendthrifts -- and what the implications are for retailers trying to more accurately target potential buyers in their stores and on their websites. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sam Zell the master real estate investor has built a fortune on the cycles that shape his industry. These days he believes the current turmoil in financial markets is more an emotional reaction to yet another period of excess rather than a true credit collapse. In a talk at Wharton moderated by real estate professor Peter Linneman the Chicago-based investor said markets currently are spooked by problems with U.S. subprime lending. However they still have capital to deploy unlike other real estate downturns. ”We’re not really in a ’credit crunch.’ I think what we are in is a ’confidence crunch ’” Zell told his audience. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Because the U.N. has an aggressive agenda for gender equity you might think it would ensure that women play a prominent role in its high-profile peacekeeping arena. According to Rachael Mayanja an assistant U.N. secretary-general and special advisor on gender issues and advancement of women you would be wrong. At the 2007 annual conference of the Association for Human Resources Management in International Organizations (AHRMIO) held at Wharton this month Mayanja noted that none of the U.N.’s 18 peacekeeping missions around the globe is currently directed by a female. Her message: ”It’s high time HR examines itself and does something to make sure that gender balance becomes a reality.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The corporate apologies are piling up. Mattel CEO Robert Eckert apologized on September 12 for lead paint found in millions of the company’s toys. TD Ameritrade CEO Joe Moglia apologized on September 14 for a database breach. Apple CEO Steve Jobs apologized on September 6 for cutting the price of the high-end iPhone. Dell executives apologized in August for delayed deliveries of certain models. JetBlue apologized in February for canceling flights and leaving passengers stranded during an ice storm. While executives moved quickly to stem damage to their companies’ reputations it takes more than speed to manage a crisis. As Wharton experts and others point out the rules governing crisis management have changed. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Pop singer Britney Spears would seem to have little to teach candidates for the U.S. presidency. But her lame performance at the MTV Video Music Awards on September 9 -- she forgot the words to a lip-synched song -- is a cautionary tale about the speed with which news travels in a wired world. Indeed news reports and video clips of political gaffes travel just as fast as bad music reviews and elicit judgments just as quickly. For presidential candidates it leaves little room for error in how they package themselves and their message. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

If you don’t yet know about the Webkinz craze you soon will especially if you have children of your own or at least know one or two on your block. Webkinz are essentially stuffed animal ”pets ” but what makes them different from other hot toys of years gone by -- Cabbage Patch Kids Beanie Babies Tickle Me Elmo and even the century-old teddy bear -- is the business model behind them. By melding the old-fashioned bricks-and-mortar world of toy retailing with an opportunity to participate in an online community Webkinz taps into the kiddie zeitgeist and shows a deep understanding of how to use the concept of virtual worlds to full advantage according to marketing experts at Wharton and elsewhere. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.