Knowledge at Wharton

Africa’s political leaders are taking major steps to build a better foundation for investment one of its most influential business leaders told the recent 14th annual Wharton Africa Business Forum. Mamphela Ramphele a former managing director of the World Bank said that the continent ”has made historic efforts to affirm good governance build strong institutions and fight corruption.”

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Graeme Wood is director of acquisition integration at Cisco the leading worldwide supplier of networking equipment and network management for the Internet headquartered in San Jose Calif. Since In this role he has overseen the integration of 30 Cisco acquisitions -- the most notable of which is Scientific Atlanta. The $7 billion deal completed earlier this year allows Cisco to offer an end-to-end data voice video and mobility solution for carrier networks and the digital home. During a recent visit to campus Wood spoke with Wharton management professor Saikat Chaudhuri about how acquiring a global company like Scientific Atlanta fits into Cisco’s overall acquisition strategy and the lessons learned about integrating on a large scale.

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As the polls had widely anticipated Democrats defeated the Republicans in Congress and also gained control of the Senate by a narrow margin in the U.S. mid-term elections in early November. As attention now turns to the Presidential elections of 2008 President George W. Bush will need to find ways to increase bi-partisan cooperation with Democrats like Nancy Pelosi who is poised to become the first female Speaker in U.S. history. What do the mid-term elections mean for investors and the stock markets? How will they affect American relationships with emerging economies like China and India? What will be the fate of Bush’s tax cuts? To discuss these questions and more Wharton finance professor Jeremy Siegel who leads Wharton Executive Education’s Securities Industry Institute program spoke with Knowledge at Wharton.

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One of the biggest complaints employees have according to Wharton management professor Sigal Barsade is that ”they are not sufficiently recognized by their organizations for the work they do .... When employees don’t feel that the organization respects and values them they tend to experience higher levels of burnout.” Barsade and doctoral student Lakshmi Ramarajan look at the role of respect in a paper titled ”What Makes the Job Tough? The Influence of Organizational Respect on Burnout in Human Services.”

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The recent elections have made Business Roundtable chairman Harold (Terry) McGraw III hopeful that a less partisan political atmosphere can lead to real progress in addressing America’s economic challenges. In a Wharton Leadership Series talk two days after the November 7 elections McGraw who is chairman president and CEO of The McGraw-Hill Companies called for measures to lower trade barriers improve the competitiveness of the country’s work force modernize health care and ”level the playing field” for U.S. companies abroad -- subjects he elaborated on during an interview with Knowledge at Wharton before his talk.

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High definition televisions are expected to be hot sellers this holiday season but consumers are likely to have a tough time sorting out the newest generation video discs and the players that go with them. The culprit: Two competing high definition DVD formats -- Blu-ray and HD-DVD -- and no sign of a clear winner.

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Contrary to rumors about its imminent ”death” following the transfer of power from the British Hong Kong has emerged as the financial intermediary through which foreign investors seek to invest tens of billions of dollars into mainland China. Meanwhile once-booming Shanghai’s star is starting to fade. What happened? According to Wharton faculty and other experts while Hong Kong was crafting a strategy to position itself as both a legal and financial services center for China Shanghai was weighed down by corruption and a largely state-run financial services sector.

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To drive home the subject of his speech at the recent third annual Wharton Marketing conference Michael Polk president of Unilever United States flashed up a definition straight from the dictionary: ’Innovation: a new idea or method; a change in something established.’ Polk who manages such brands as Dove Axe Slim-Fast Country Crock Wishbone and Q-Tips said innovation not invention lies at the heart of successful marketing campaigns.

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Church pastors last year had a chance to win a free trip to London and $1 000 cash -- if they mentioned Disney’s film ”The Chronicles of Narnia” in their sermons. Chrysler hoping to target affluent African Americans with its new luxury SUV is sponsoring a Patti LaBelle gospel music tour through African-American megachurches nationwide. Advertising has begun to seep into churches according to religious marketing and academic experts pushing the boundaries by selling products with no intrinsic religious value.

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In mid-October the Chicago Board of Trade agreed to be purchased by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange for about $8 billion topping a wave of exchange mergers in the U.S. and Europe. Two factors drove the deal: the enormous growth in the use of futures options and other derivatives to hedge risks and speculate and the need for economies of scale to compete with exchanges that have grown through mergers. Wharton professors analyze the deal.

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