Business school rankings are big business, but they provide little information about the quality of education.

Uncategorical Insight

Fast Competition and Flat Denial

As central figures in mergers and acquisitions, today’s chief financial officers are redefining the practices of their profession.

Investing in a capabilities-driven strategy will equip your company for growth in uncertain times.

How structured finance contributed to the meltdown.

Foreign banks can find opportunity in Russia if they are willing to navigate the risks.

Corporate venture capital efforts are most successful in firms with strong internal research and development programs.

Self-policing measures can aid performance in firms that have good compliance records, but aren’t likely to improve the standing of companies with a history of regulatory issues.

The operational benefits of acquisitions often aren’t apparent for 10 years or more, and the best indicator of success is approaching them as one piece of a larger corporate strategy.

Amid the tightest credit conditions in decades, the market for corporate control is favoring low-leverage, growth-oriented transactions.

Economies that depend primarily on a single resource are exposed to ongoing shocks, but an export-based diversification strategy can alleviate the tremors.

On the appeal of logos, the impact of downsizing, the contagiousness of crisis, and the value of IT.

There is no accepted standard for appraising the worth of nonphysical assets like brands, human capital, and managerial expertise. Yet these are the essence of 21st-century business.

Compensation consultants, often hired by companies with deficient corporate governance, rarely prevent the boards of such companies from overpaying executives.

Before entering into job negotiations, women should determine how much they expect to earn and what type of work situation would be most advantageous for all parties.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act has forced CFOs to be more answerable for their firms’ accounting, and to pay a steep professional price for reporting trouble.

Health-related investment funds are not the best hedge against the rising cost of consumer health care.

High-performing CEOs do not shy away from tension between long-term and short-term goals.

The news this year is that even those chief executives who deliver subpar returns are showing unexpected staying power.

The turbulence of financial markets is reversing the sequence of an optimal planning process.

Regulation Fair Disclosure has curbed selective disclosure of private information in the United States.

Consumers may be more inclined to try a product if it’s positioned as something they could benefit from in the future.

Executives must be aware of the ownership and governance structure of companies they are considering partnering with in foreign markets.

Because the market widely corroborated the inflated values of subprime instruments, plaintiffs face an uphill battle.

CEOs must learn to manage the media if they want to influence how their stories are told.

A market’s openness can affect a company’s viability.

The region in which a company chooses to do business can have a serious impact on the way that company is perceived and on its likelihood of success.

Cross-boundary disruption requires leaders who can spot opportunities outside their industry, build strategies beyond their core competence, and act entrepreneurially regardless of the size of their company.

People tend to misjudge precise prices as being less than round prices of similar value. This discovery could have significant implications for buyers, sellers, and pricing strategists in any number of industries.

Building relationships with public and private institutions can help emerging businesses upgrade their operations and gain access to knowledge, technology, and contacts — all of which can lead to substantial improvements in quality.

Contrary to some expectations, liberalizing restrictions on interstate bank branching has diminished income inequities for many workers.

One share–one vote systems, by weakening insiders, make it more likely that value-increasing takeovers will occur. Often, insiders are the only shareholders who will resist such takeovers, and other investors are out of luck if they don’t have voting power.

From a strict loyalty perspective (ignoring the benefits of higher margins), many stores have already overdone private labels. But for value-oriented chains, the loyalty effects are less pronounced; their goal should simply be to convince customers that their private-label goods are of high quality.