If you seek a five forces analysis of Wal-Mart, please try this page.

From the Blogosphere

Sebastian Mallaby's Washington Post article continues to draw praise, this time from Robert over at the Cafe Hayek blog. Meanwhile, Dustbury tackles the "Wal-Mart is on corporate welfare meme", Mister Snitch argues that Wal-Mart is a convenient scapegoat for groups with other agendas, and FBSR piles on to the Wal-Mart cleaning crew scrum. In case you are wondering, FBSR stands for Feeling Blue, Seeing Red. The blog's devoted to a boycott of five corporations: Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Exxon-Mobil, General Motors, and Coca-Cola, but not Target, Burger King, BP, Daimler-Chrylser, or Pepsi. If you wonder why the first five and not the last, here's the answer:

Our concept is simple. We’ve chosen 5 corporations to boycott. Each of these corporations makes large contributions to the Bush administration. These corporations also behave in specific ways that are detrimental to the world in some way, such as damaging the environment, working with sweat shops, adamently preventing unionization, or supporting state terrorism, etc.

The must-read post comes by way of Steven Silvers over at Scatterbox who questions whether Wal-Mart's creation of a war room, led by former Reagan loyalist Michael Deaver, and its use of political campaign tactics against its critics are the right move. Steve notes that while it's appropriate for the company to get it's side of the story out, and forcefully, there's a fine line between courting swing voters and swing consumers- one that the may have been crossed in the company's rush to defend itself.

Continue reading "Wal-Mart Roundup, the Hot Air Balloon Edition" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (3)

If you seek a five forces analysis of Wal-Mart, please try this page.

On the off chance that there was still any doubt about the political agenda behind the recent anti-Wal-Mart documentary "The High Price of Low Cost", the director's recent interview with the San Francisco Chronicle should remove whatever remains.

He (Greenwald) takes no profit off the documentaries. "The reason was I knew that I would be attacked," he says. "I didn't want the Bush administration, Fox News or Wal-Mart to attack, saying I wanted to make a buck. That's always the first line of attack. This makes them silent, at least for a while."

Continue reading "Wal-Mart Roundup, the T-shirt Edition" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 4:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (3)

Welcome to the Carnival of Marketing on The Business of America is Business. Although the opportunity to host this week's Carnival came late in the cycle, I don't think it has had any impact on the quality of the contributions. The three posts below, as well as the four over at pc4media, cover a wide variety of marketing-related topics. All of them are worthy of being read in their entirety. When you are finished, I humbly invite you to peruse this blog's archives and my profile. Enjoy!

Louis Gudema of Magic Hour Communications takes note of an interesting phenomenon: rankings of major search engines agree that Google is #1 in market share, but differ markedly in their estimations of the size of Google's lead. Read "Google is Number One, but by how much?" to find out the implications of these discrepancies on your search engine marketing strategy.

Continue reading "Carnival of Marketing" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (3)

If you seek a five forces analysis of Wal-Mart, please try this page.


Nathan Gonzales, the political editor of the Rothenberg Political Report, examines the wisdom, or lack there of, of the Democrats' and the Left's war against Wal-Mart . In a nutshell, here's their beef with the nation's largest seller of it:

A recent Christian Science Monitor header screamed, "Is shopping at Wal-Mart immoral?" The sub-headline in the Monitor explained, "Big discounters help the poor make ends meet, but they create more poverty when they pay low wages and force local stores to close." That sums up the liberal conventional wisdom surrounding Wal-Mart's presence in communities, but it isn't entirely accurate. Other groups involved also have dogs in the fight and are protecting their own self-interest.

Continue reading "The Political Dimensions of the War on Wal-Mart" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 9:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (5)

Now that Angela Merkel has been installed as Germany's first female Chancellor I thought I might revise and extend a post of mine from last June about her.

***

Gotz Aly, writing in the Opinion Journal, raises the question that is increasing on many people's minds since the devastating electoral defeat of Gerhard Schroeder's party in last May's German elections: Can Angela Merkel transform Germany's stifling political culture?

Germany is on the brink of revolution. If the signs (and polls) aren't wrong, a woman will soon lead the country for the first time. She is Angela Merkel, a trained physicist raised in East Germany, a pastor's daughter who grew up under communism. With no power base of her own, she has managed over the past six years, with energy, clarity and tactical skill, to prevail over various long-established, conspiratorial old-boy networks in her Christian Democratic Party, the CDU/CSU. She lacks any of the trappings of the loyal party cadre; but she is capable of formulating political concepts that are unusually clear for Germany. That is why so much hope has been placed in her.

At stake is no less than the future of the German economy, Europe's largest and the world's third, behind the USA and Japan:

Continue reading "Grand Theft Otto" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (3)

Back in June, Krispy Kreme announced that it was dumping six of its executives:

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc., whose shares have dropped 62 percent the past year, ousted six executives in its biggest housecleaning since federal probes began into the company's accounting.

The six, who weren't identified by the company, are in finance, manufacturing and distribution, operations and business development and include four senior vice presidents. A board committee that recommended their dismissal is still at work and cooperating with the Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors, Winston-Salem-based Krispy Kreme said Tuesday in a statement.

The problem, it seems, is that the company was cooking more than donuts; they were also cooking the books:

Continue reading "What Else Was Krispy Kreme Not Telling Us?" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Barriers to Entry: This 4-page, 880-word report contains a "barriers to entry" analysis surrounding Wal-Mart's efforts to gain approval to build a store in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The report contains four bibliographic references. It also has an appendix with the titles of and links to seven (10) additional articles about Wal-Mart's need for approval from local governments to enter new geographic markets and to enter new markets for services, e.g. check cashing.

Rivalry: This 7-page, 2580-word report contains a "Rivalry" analysis on Wal-Mart. The report is based upon several news accounts of its recent low-cost, generic drug program. The report includes a discussion of how some of Wal-Mart's local, regional, and national rivals have responded with programs of their own. The report contains eight (11) bibliographic references. It also has an appendix with the titles of and links to six (8) additional articles about rivalry between Wal-Mart and French retailer Carrefour, Canadian grocer Loblaw, and Apple.

Reports are updated frequently. Please bookmark the above pages and check them regularly if you anticipate needing more examples. Reports on other forces are currently under development and will be made available over the next 7-10 working days. Please write to me at starling at mit edu for more details or for a complimentary copy of the above reports:

Original Post Date: 24 November 2005
Most Recently Updated: 07 October 2006

Tags: WalMart

Posted by Starling Hunter at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Brendan Koerner over at Slate provides an insightful analysis of why super-rap producer, Dr. Dre (nee Andre Young) continues to be one of the best in the music industry. Among the things that Koerner thinks deserve credit are Dre's creative or "aesthetic genius", his deep knowledge of the industry and its players (especially their over-sized egos) and his "innate grasp of two core business principles: quality control and the law of supply and demand. "

Take Dre's notorious perfectionism: He'll record literally hundreds of tracks for a single album, 95 percent of which end up in the trash. He could make a quick buck by releasing, say, several albums worth of 50 Cent outtakes, but he has wisely resisted the urge to dilute the Dre brand. Contrast that attitude with what Master P did at No Limit Records in the late 1990s when he released album after album by talent-free family members. Master P's name became synonymous with craven profiteering; Dre's quality control has preserved his reputation for churning out worthwhile material.

Continue reading "The Spin Doctor" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 2:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

Effective immediately, The Truth Laid Bear will no longer included trackbacks from Open Track Back parties in the TTLB Ecosystem rankings. I posted my thoughts on the matter in the comments section of his post on this matter. I have extended and amplified my reply below and have included images::

Speaking as someone who made use of Open Trackbacks and who also provides them once per week, I have no problem whatsoever with your decision. I see it both as a fair one and, even if unfair, well within your rights to implement. For anyone who has paid attention, it is not hard to see how the Open trackback phenomenon runs counter to the intent of the TTLB Ecosystem. Thus, I understand your motivations and respect them. I also recognize why other's do not or are disappointed with your decision.

Speaking as someone actively engaged in empirical research on blogs I see several important research questions here, all of which require empirical investigation. As you may be aware, there is a tremendous amount of research and theory in the area of social network analysis that cries out for application to the blogosphere. This is especially so for that research that examines the network structure of links, i.e. not the number so much as the position and function of certain nodes within networks. Let me provide a practical example to make this last point clear.

Continue reading "TTLB, Open TrackBacks, and Social Network Analysis" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (1)

Amy Joyce of the Washington Post writes about a new breed of organization consultant, the business-golf expert. According to the article, people like Hilary Brugen teach executives, as well as those lower down but climbing up the corporate ladder how and why "golf can be an important business tool"

Golf has long been a pursuit of the business elite. The golf course is the place for people such as former General Electric CEO Jack Welch to recruit corporate directors, or for the head of law and accounting firms to test the mettle of potential partners.

But now, golf is promoted as an important strategic tool for mid-level managers looking to advance, and even for business students.

University of Maryland students this fall will be able to earn three credits as they learn how to schmooze with potential employers, clients and executives.

In the "Golf: For Business and Life" course, students will spend the semester in lectures by area business leaders, and, of course, on the greens.

Continue reading "Business for (Golf) Swingers" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 9:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Peter Howe of the Boston Globe weighs in on how wireless carriers are rethinking the pricing structure of their services, in particular moving from post-paid to pre-paid models. The motivation, it appears, is to further their market penetration:

...to wireless companies, prepaid services -- whose subscriber numbers in the United States have been growing at an average 18 percent annually in recent years -- look like the main way they will reach the roughly 40 percent of Americans who have yet to get a cellphone. Non-cellphone owners generally have substantially lower incomes than current subscribers and include millions of young people whose phones would be paid for by parents. In both cases, prepaid plans offer an easier way to stay on a fixed budget for wireless.

''What we're learning as an industry is that it's also about choice and control," said Judy Cavalieri, vice president for alternate payment products with Cingular. ''They can get the freedom and flexibility of no contract and no credit check."

My guess is that this strategy will be somewhat but not totally successful. It will surely bring cell phone service within reach of that part of the market that wants in but has been priced out. It will have little effect, however, in reaching that segment that simply does not want to be reached, literally and figuratively by cell phones, that segment that wants to remain out of range. For them, the greatest amount of choice and control comes is that inherent in not having a cell phone at all.

Posted by Starling Hunter at 8:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Joseph Grundfest, writing in the New York Times, discusses the recent unanimous Supreme Court ruling overturning Arthur Andersen's conviction for obstruction of justice in the Enron case. Unfortunately for Andersen the vindication that the ruling bestows is of little consolation: the firm is now defunct:

The Supreme Court has overturned Arthur Andersen's conviction for obstruction of justice in the Enron case. But to Andersen, the court's ruling doesn't matter, the original trial at which it was convicted didn't matter and the verdict at any coming trial won't matter.

Andersen was destroyed when it was indicted. No exoneration at trial and no ruling by the Supreme Court will cause it to rise, Lazarus-like, from the dead. History will decide whether it was right or smart to destroy Andersen before trial. But Andersen's demise did serve as a stern reminder to corporate America that prosecutors can bring down or cripple many of America's leading corporations simply by indicting them on sufficiently serious charges. No trial is necessary.

Continue reading "Death by Indictment...A Higher Calling for Business Bloggers" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 4:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

Back in April, The Daily Star of Lebanon reports on a meeting in Doha, Qatar of 150 top Arab Business leaders. This first-of- its-kind gathering was called to discuss the 2005 edition of the World Economic Forum's Arab World Competitiveness Roundtable. The report " provides profiles for 12 countries and analyzes specific impediments to effective reforms in the region."

"This report is a contribution to the debate on the policy requirements for implementing a new vision for the Arab world," notes Augusto Lopez-Claros, director of the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Program.

"In centuries past, the Arab world was a thriving center of knowledge, learning and innovation. Its peoples long ago demonstrated their capacity for enlightened, creative engagement with the rest of the world, in ways that left an indelible mark on the course of civilization. A return to that golden age requires a clear comprehension of the problems and challenges which the region faces today, an acceptance of the need for change, and the formulation of viable paths of reform."

Continue reading "How do Arab Businesses Stack Up?" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Back in June I came across this article by economist Robert Samuelson about why EUrope's economic decline will not easily be reversed:

Europe as we know it is slowly going out of business. Since French and Dutch voters rejected the proposed constitution of the European Union, we've heard countless theories as to why: the unreality of trying to forge 25 E.U. countries into a United States of Europe; fear of ceding excessive power to Brussels, the E.U. capital; and an irrational backlash against globalization. Whatever their truth, these theories miss a larger reality: Unless Europe reverses two trends -- low birthrates and meager economic growth -- it faces a bleak future of rising domestic discontent and falling global power. Actually, that future has already arrived.

The contrasts with the US, Samuelson points out, are marked and its consequences profound:

Continue reading "All We Have to Lose is Our Chains(tores)" »

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Each year corporations spend billions of dollars on training their employees in any number of areas including, communication skills, teamwork, leadership, customer relationship management, computer literacy, company policies, even healthy lifestyle choices. For obvious reasons, workers in the airline industry, especially pilots, receive some of the most intensive, extensive, and expensive training around. That fact having been acknowledged, I do not believe, as the Mail & Guardian apparently does, that a lack of training, or even the wrong training, was in any way the cause of this egregious instance of pilot error:

Continue reading "Pilot, Air, or Pilot Error?" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 5:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (2)

Shirleen Holt, writing in The Daily News, has some common-sense advice for those whose career paths contain a few more potholes than they'd like or had expected:

With the job market returning and companies hiring again, now comes a new wrinkle: How do you write a resume that explains what you've been doing for the past four years?

This was a period, after all, when people with master's degrees drove cabs. When tech workers bounced from temp job to temp job. When the titles "self-employed" or "consultant" were euphemisms for "out of work."

Should you give job gaps a rosier tint? Should you list that stint at Domino's? Should you lie?

The answers are yes, maybe and never.

Continue reading "Resume Fudging" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 7:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (5)

Welcome St. Mary's University faculty and students! Please drop me a line to let me know how you found this blog. I always like to know what brings people here and what, if anything, brings them back again.

Earlier this week, in a post entitled "An Exchange of Ideas with BusinessPundit", I offered my opinion on whether "public interest" should be considered a "sixth" force, i.e. an addition to the widely-taught "Five Forces" industry analysis framework by Harvard Strategy Professor Michael Porter.

In short, I argued that the influence of public interest on firm performance is better understood as part of another less well-known strategy framework, the Four I's- issues, interests, institutions, and information. Whereas the Five Forces emphasizes the analysis of the "market" environment, Stanford strategy professor David Baron's Four I's emphasizes the analysis of the "non-market" environment. These ideas are most fully developed in his book Business and its Environment.

I have used both theories for a few years now and have found that they complement each other quite nicely. Since Baron is so much less well-known than Porter, I decided to provide a brief description of the 4-I's core argument and assumptions for the benefit readers who may not have heard of it. If there is sufficient interest, I'll do a follow on post.

Continue reading "Hey Four Eyes!" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 8:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A few months back, The Salt Lake Tribune contained an insightful article on the challenges faced by Oregon's hazelnut farmers as they attempt to stimulate demand for their product. Among the hurdles they face is foreign competition, the hazelnut's peculiar boom-bust growing cycle, a loss of acreage to blight, a long-standing and deeply entrenched preference among American consumers for peanuts, and concerns on the part of cereal and bread manufacturers about the growers' ability of supply to keep pace with potential demand.

Continue reading "Oregon is Full of Nuts" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 7:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

This summer saw the announcement by John Mack, the new chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley, that he is forgoing over $25 Million per year in guaranteed pay, choosing instead to base his compensation on the firm's performance. While an all-incentive compensation package like this is rare among top executives and CEOs, it is by no means novel. Nor is it, I suspect, either as altruistic or morale- boosting as the Mr. Mack and Co. would have us believe.

Continue reading "The Devil's in the Details" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 7:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

OVERVIEW
This past summer, just before leaving MIT for a teaching job outside Dubai, I collected some data for an empirical study on blog advertising. The specific objective of the study was to determine the strongest predictors of the revenue earned by ads appearing on blogs. In short, my findings are as follows:

(1) the number of weekly page views (WPV) is a much stronger predictor of weekly ad revenue and price than are either the number of inbound links or the number of blogs providing those links

(2) the number of ads has a negative impact on ad price and a largely positive effect on ad revenue, and

(3) the political orientation of the blog matters: on average left-of-center blogs significantly out-earn their right-of-center counterparts.

RESEARCH DESIGN
The study’s design is quite straight-forward. The first step was to gather data from the website of BlogAds, a North-Carolina-based company serving banner ads to over 1000 blogs covering a wide variety of topics and focus areas. One unusual feature of the BlogAds website is the wealth of detailed information it contains about each blog (page views, URL, topic/focus), its blogger (age, gender, state/country of residence, political orientation) and the blogs' ads (the number, kind, and position of ads, as well as their price). Two pieces of information- the price and the number of ads- were particularly valuable because together they can be used to calculate the total ad revenue for a given blog. I am aware of no study to date which has used this figure in analyses of blog or internet advertising.

DATA
With data in hand on 1357 ads appearing on 491 blogs, I next set about to develop and test a statistical model to estimate how well three groups of factors explain the differences in revenue across these blogs. Those factors were:

(1) the blog’s popularity, as measured by the number of weekly page views it receives and the number of sites that link to it

(2) the blog’s ad count, as measured by the number of ads appearing on the blog, and

(3) the blog’s political orientation, as indicated by my categorization of the blog as either right-of-center or left-of-center

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
(1) Traffic Is King. Page views are the strongest of the three predictors tested: it explains at least twice the variation in ad revenue that either the number of inbound linking sites, the number ads, or the political orientation do. Taken together, page views, the number of ads, and political orientation explain over 80% of the variation in the ad revenue, a very substantial amount. This indicates that the statistical model predicts ad revenue with a high degree of accuracy. Doubling the weekly page views results in a 50% increase in ad revenues.

(2) Space Matters, Even in Cyberspace. Holding page views constant, the average effect of adding one more ad is a 20% decrease in price and a 40% increase in revenue. Interestingly, the number of ads on most blogs is well below the number where returns to revenues become negative, i.e. the point where increasing the number of ads results in less, rather than more, revenue.

(3) Partisanship Pays, But Unequally. When controlling for both the number of weekly page views and the number of ads, politically-oriented blogs generate no higher ad revenue and command no higher ad prices than other blogs. However, revenues from ads on left-of-center (LOC) blogs are 40% higher than average while their right-of-center (ROC) counterparts’ revenues are 23% less. There are notable exceptions to this general trend, however. While LOC blogs dominate at both the lower (below 100,000) and the upper (above 1 million) ends of the weekly page views continuum, ROC blogs earn much more in the middle territory. Potential explanations for this difference, along with graphs, tables, statistical analyses, and a discussion of the other results, can be found in the full report.

UPDATE: Lately comes word that MSNBC is making a large BlogAds buy, over $1 Million. Check Outside the Beltway for more details.

Posted by Starling Hunter at 9:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (14)

Rob over at BusinessPundit recently raised an interesting question about Porter's Five Forces model, arguably the most influential management theory of the last quarter-century:

The Public Interest - Is it Porter's Sixth Force?

One of the things we discuss in the class I teach is Porter's Five Forces. The model helps managers understand the strategic forces that come into play in their industry, and how they affect profitability. ...

Nicholas Carr wants to add a sixth force, the public. In a paper entitled The Public Wants Your Profits..., Carr argues that the public now influences the generation and distribution of profits. He cites Wal-Mart as an example. He states that managers need to recognize that the public interest now manifests itself as an economic interest - and hence must be a core concern of business strategy. That is true, but I'm not sure it is as important for most companies as Carr makes it out to be.

My initial reaction to this is that yes, it is a real pheonomenon, but it almost exclusively effects large consumer product companies. I'm not convinced that it matters for small businesses, or for say... IBM. What do you think? Is this a sixth force?

I posted my answer to Rob's question in the comments section. It appears in its entirety below:

Ever since Porter's Five Forces was published, there have been people attempting to add forces to it. I have serious misgivings about this tactic, in general, and with Carr's recommendation, in particular.

I had no problem accessing the linked document and, after reading it, I must say that Carr's core argument doesn't hold up to careful scutiny. That having been said, he does raise at least one interesting point, i.e. where in Porter's Model does "public interest" fit.

One place, quite obviously, is in the realm of "Buyer Power." But, as you are no doubt aware Porter doesn't deal with this as explicitly as he could have or would have if he were writing today.

The issue that Carr raises is one that has come up in several of my classes as well. The way I have dealth with it is to include an additional strategy framework that treats the topic of "public interest" specifically. It is the 4-I's framework of David Baron, a strategy professor at Stanford. The title of his book is "Business and its Environment."

In many ways Baron's book picks up where Porter leaves off. That is to say, it is devoted to the examination of how firms compete in the non-market sector and how non-market actors influence firm performance.

The four I's of Baron's framework are Issues, Interest, Institution, and Information. I have used it for many strategy cases in the last several years and have found that it complements Porter very well.

To conclude, my thought regarding 6th forces is this: Let Porter be Porter and find other frameworks to fill in the gaps that we and Porter all know the theory has.

Continue reading "An Exchange of Ideas with BusinessPundit" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Note: A slightly different version of this post originally appeared on my Blogger site on June 20th, 2005.


Chief executive Judith A. McHale of Discovery Communications Inc.

Annys Shin, writing in the Washington Post, provides a fascinating and insightful glimpse into the "exotic" and apparently quite profitable strategy of The Discovery Channel, now 20 years old.

According to Shin, the runaway success of shows like American Chopper, Virtual History, and MythBusters is attributable not to luck but to coherent strategic vision, one Discovery's CEO, Judith McHale, describes as "conservatively aggressive". As the article spells it out, the strategy includes a judicious mix of overseas expansion, related and unrelated diversification, a focused product/market scope, targeted acquisitions, and perhaps most importantly, the creation of compelling content:

(McHale attributes) the company's success to several strategic decisions, including an early move to own its content, which allowed Discovery to expand internationally and into other media, and a later choice to stick to factual programming and not be "distracted" by offering traditional entertainment.

The advantage of sticking to the stories of bugs or motorcycle makers, McHale said, is that by doing so, Discovery "taps into a common human characteristic to explore places and to say, 'I didn't know that.' "

If only all twenty year olds were as well-adjusted, globally aware, and goal-directed!


myth busters ceo executives
Open Track Backed At:

Cao's Blog

Jo's Cafe
Outside the Beltway

10ft2ft

Posted by Starling Hunter at 8:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you seek a five forces analysis of Wal-Mart, please try this page.
USA Today reports on results presented at a recent seminar on "The Economic Impact of Wal-Mart" hosted by the economic forecaster Global Insight. According to the article, Wal-Mart's impact is, on the whole, beneficial and can be attributed to its skillful use of IT and not to its willful abuse of employees:

An independent study of Wal-Mart's (WMT) impact on the economy found the giant retailer's lower prices result from a savvy technology system that helps lower distribution costs and makes suppliers more efficient — not from underpaying its workers.

"There's no denying the company has had an impact, but the economy is better off and there's no evidence that that came about by paying less than minimum wage," says Chris Holling, executive director at economic forecaster Global Insight.

The retailer's efficiency has also had an indirect effect on the economy because competitors have been forced to rethink ways to lower costs and prices as well, he adds.

The article also states that results were presented from studies conducted by several other economists and academics who focused on Wal-Mart's impact on a state or region. Interestingly, these researchers weren't privy to internal Wal-Mart data. And while their findings were described as "mixed", on the whole they cast Wal-Mart in a fairly good light:

Continue reading "The Economic Impact of Wal-Mart" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (4)

In 1998, shortly before I graduated with a PhD in Management from Duke's Fuqua School of Business, a then-recent Duke Law School grad from China told me something interesting about my name and how Chinese people would react to it. In short, she said that they would like it and, by extension, like me too. The reason, she said, was that to her fellow citizens' ears, my name, Starling, would sound like "Stalin", someone whom many Chinese revere to this day as a great leader. I found this hard to believe and told her so. She assured me that she was not mistaken about this. As it turns out, events which transpired later proved that she had it right and I, wrong. Here's the story of how my figuring this out came to pass.

Continue reading "Schools Rush in, Schools Russian" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 8:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Forbes Magazine has released its yearly list of highest-earning dead celebrities.

They're famous across the globe. Their work is treasured by millions. And they're rolling in cash--they just can't spend any of it. The 13 members of our annual Highest-Earning Dead Celebrities list brought in a collective $186 million in the last year. They, or more accurately, their estates, earned that money by selling their work--both written and recorded--or just the rights to use their likenesses on T-shirts, posters or in advertisements. Sometimes their life stories themselves are worth something: Musician Ray Charles makes the list for the first time this year, in part because of income related to his 2004 biopic. Johnny Cash, who also makes his first appearance this year, has his own movie out in November.

According to the article, the "Lucky 13", i.e. the top 13 earners in the last year, are in order:

Continue reading "The King is Dead, Long Earn the King" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I have written two papers in the last few years on intellectual property. Both concern the question of the quality of data processing patents, in general, and patents on software-enabled business processes, in particular. And while I claim no deep expertise in the fine points of patent law or in guiding applications through the US Patent and Trademark Office, one thing I do know is that in order for a patent to be granted by the USPTO, an invention must meet four criteria, four statutory requirements: the invention must be useful, i.e. it must accomplish something or produce a result, even if in theory; it must be novel ; and it must be non-obvious. Additionally, the subject matter must be patentable.

Continue reading "Novel, Nonobvious, Useful, and Scary
" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This question from a reader in Denmark came in repsonse to the "Business Models of Business Schools" post:

Interesting piece of information. I attended an MBA event a couple of weeks ago in Northern Europe, and was surprised to see the number of US B-schools present. I suppose they are increasing their efforts to attract international students. As a perspective B-school applicant, I found the BusinessWeek article particularly interesting. I am in a limbo; not sure if MBA is worth its money, especially when the MBA hiring is in the decline recently. What would you suggest to a 26 year Electronic Engineer who wants to do an MBA to get into consulting/banking?

Here's my answer:

Continue reading "Ask the Professor" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 9:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)