Knowledge at Wharton

If a traveling salesman has to visit a set number of cities in a set number of days what is the shortest route he can take to cover all his stops and then return home?  And does the answer to this question relate in any way to the manner in which a shopper navigates her way through a grocery store? In a new paper Wharton marketing professors Peter S. Fader and Eric T. Bradlow and doctoral student Sam K. Hui use a concept known as the ”Traveling Salesman Problem” to study the efficiencies -- and inefficiencies -- of grocery shoppers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wharton marketing professor Josh Eliashberg has a message for Hollywood: Get geeky. The use of statistical analysis and computer models he says can help managers in the movie industry understand why ratings on a given film will vary from country to country. Even more radically they can lead to the better evaluation of scripts. And using these sorts of techniques he insists won’t dim the magic of the silver screen. Eliashberg Wharton colleagues John Zhang and Sam Hui and Mark Leenders from the University of Amsterdam explore these topics in two research papers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Emerging real estate markets in India and China along with recovering property industries in Germany and Japan are among the top destinations for global real estate investors according to panelists at the Samuel Zell and Robert Lurie Real Estate Center’s fall meeting. During a session titled ”Global Hot Spots -- How to Think about Hot Foreign Markets ” Wharton real estate professor Peter Linneman called on each panelist to describe the markets they find most intriguing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michael J. Critelli isn’t one of the business world’s high-profile CEOs. But his tenure at Pitney Bowes has lasted over 10 years more than twice the average survival rate for Fortune 500 company heads. And those two facts he noted during a recent Wharton Leadership Lecture are probably not unrelated. ”I have deliberately downplayed my role as a leader ” he said in describing how he helped take the firm from ”a hardware company” to a diversified technology company. ”I went the route of not being out front.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After conquering the advertising frontier in cyberspace Google Yahoo and eBay are now turning to traditional media for future growth by brokering ad sales for offline media like radio television and print. The Internet players’ foray into offline advertising could drive down rates but advertisers and media companies may not completely abandon the current system of relationship-based sales for Internet auctions according to Wharton faculty and industry executives. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.