Knowledge at Wharton

Free gourmet food 24-hour gym yoga classes in-house doctor on-site haircuts dry cleaner nutritionist swimming pool ... .These are just some of the perks Google -- and many other organizations -- offer employees. Companies have their reasons of course: They want to attract and retain the best knowledge-workers they can help them work long hours by feeding them gourmet meals on-site and handling time-consuming personal chores and show them that they are valued members of the team. But as Wharton faculty point out there may be a potential downside to all this largesse.

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The Economist called it ”a snort from a dragon’s nostrils.” At the end of February as China’s stock market index fell by more than 8% stock markets tumbled around the globe in their steepest decline since the attacks on September 11 2001. Adding to the anxiety were concerns about a possible shakeout in the U.S. sub-prime mortgage market and former chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan’s comment that the U.S. economy could face a recession. Since then markets have recovered only to drop again and then climb once more. What is causing this volatility and what does it mean for investors? Knowledge at Wharton asked for comments from Wharton finance professor Jeremy Siegel whom we spoke with first and Wharton management professor Marshall Meyer who closely follows China’s economy.

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In one sense Frank Abagnale Jr. might seem an odd choice as a featured speaker at a cutting-edge computer-ruled event like the Wharton Technology Conference 2007. That’s not just because Abagnale -- the subject of the 2002 Steven Spielberg movie ”Catch Me If You Can” -- was one of the most notorious con men of the 20th century but also because his technique was so decidedly low-tech. But that was in fact part of Abagnale’s message: Vigilance against fraudsters and con artists he said should be even more of a priority now than it was then because Abagnale’s 1960s schemes were harder work.

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Viacom and CBS have pulled videos from Google’s YouTube. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently requested that some Oscar footage be taken down from YouTube as well. And Google’s efforts to sell radio and print advertising have not met expectations. In short Google’s ability to navigate the traditional media landscape doesn’t seem to be going particularly well. What’s the problem? While Google has the resources to create deals with content companies it still must contend with a number of confounding crosscurrents including content owners’ concerns over intellectual property and a clash of advertising models.

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When the Lilliputians came upon the sleeping Gulliver they didn’t know if he was friendly or hostile but he was so big it seemed prudent to tie him down. Should the 9 000 hedge funds -- the secretive investment pools controlling $1.4 trillion in assets -- be treated the same way? The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets doesn’t think so. In a late-February report the group urged vigilance but concluded that new regulations are not needed. Was this the right decision? Wharton faculty weigh in on the issue.

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Kenneth Shropshire knows sports. He is director of Wharton’s Sports Business Initiative president of the Sports Lawyers Association a former executive with the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee and a football player during his undergraduate days at Stanford. He has written The Business of Sports; In Black and White: Race and Sports in America and Basketball Jones: America Above the Rim. His newest book is titled Being Sugar Ray: The Life of Sugar Ray Robinson America’s Greatest Boxer and First Celebrity Athlete. He spoke with Knowledge at Wharton about why he wrote the book and what impact Sugar Ray Robinson has had on sports society race relations and business.

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As recently as 1990 nearly 70% of newspaper carriers in the U.S. were teens. But that number dropped to 18% in 2004 and more declines are likely. Although reasons for teens being edged out of this formerly youth-dominated profession are specific to the newspaper industry the end of the boyhood (or girlhood) paper route reflects a dramatic but little-noticed trend: Teen unemployment has hit historic highs in the last three years. Experts in the field say employers who want to ensure a quality workforce down the line should sit up and take notice.

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According to a new study by Wharton professors Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers marriage and divorce rates in the United States are both at historic lows. When Stevenson and Wolfers began to analyze the changing market forces behind these new statistics one thing became clear: The same forces that play a role in marriage and divorce statistics -- namely birth control partial closing of the gender wage gap the rising age of first marriages and dramatic changes in home technologies -- have also had a significant impact on businesses and employees.

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Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has set an ambitious goal: He wants the country to become one of the world’s top 20 economies during the next two decades. To accomplish this he has mandated that all university students in Nigeria study entrepreneurship. That is one of the factors that brought Peter Bamkole General Manager Enterprise Development Services at Lagos Business School to Wharton where he recently spent time with The Wharton Small Business Development Center exploring how to set up an entrepreneurship program in Nigeria. Bamkole -- who often goes by the more informal ”Banky” -- spoke with Knowledge at Wharton about the challenges that entrepreneurs face in his home country.

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The issue of using hardware- or software-based digital rights management or ”DRM” to restrict how music and movies can be copied or shared has spurred fierce debate between those who think DRM is essential to protect content from unauthorized use and those who believe it undermines consumers’ rights to do whatever they want with the content they purchase. On February 6 Apple CEO Steve Jobs added to the controversy by posting an open letter on Apple’s web site in which he proposes that the recording industry simply do away with DRM all together. Knowledge at Wharton asked marketing professor Peter Fader and Don Huesman senior director of information technology for their views on the subject.

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