FT: Good times for Tuck

Dean Paul Danos via Financial Times attributes Tuck's success among MBA schools to its strategy:

"We are small and personal and that leads to a loyalty factor," he says. "We say that everyone is important." Tuck students he adds are team players. The closeness of the school community means that its MBAs develop an affection for the school which translates into support when Tuck students return to the world of business.

Source: Financial Times by Linda Anderson April 28, 2006

WSJ: China Raises Interest Rates To Rein In Galloping Growth

Professor Andrew Bernard via Wall Street Journal about China's central bank move to increase banks' lending rates.

Inflation in China is low -- by official measures only about 1% a year. But Andrew Bernard, professor of international economics at the Tuck Business School at Dartmouth College, suggested the Chinese were acting pre-emptively to prevent an inflation problem. "They're worried about the economy a year from now having inflation and excess capacity," he said.

Source: Wall Street Journal by Andrew Browne and Michaerl M. Phillips April 28, 2006

WSJ: New Sun CEO Is Unconventional, Controversial

In Wall Street Journal, Eric Johnson, director of the Center for Digital Strategies at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business in New Hampshire, comments on the promotion of Jonathan Schwartz to the post of Sun CEO:

Eric Johnson argues that Sun needs to deliver a simpler, clearer message to companies that buy its technology, but he concedes that Mr. Schwartz is a good fit for Sun's engineering culture. "He has the religion and Sun theology, and will play well internally, but he has his work cut out for him to get out and talk to the large enterprise firms and get Sun back on the technology map," Mr. Johnson says.

Source: Wall Street Journal by Don Clark and Christopher Lawton, April 26,2006

WSJ: Bosses Who Fiddle With Employees' Work Risk Ire, Low Morale

Professor Len Greenhalgh via Walls Street Journal about the managerial piddling in the modern office environment driven by "perfectionism, egotism, a control fetish, territory marking, the need to justify a high salary to oneself or others and/or a fear of disappearing."

"One of the problems with management is the sheer invisibility of consequences. You put in a whole day's work and what do you have to show for it?" says Len Greenhalgh, a professor of management at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. "If you have a perfectly smooth running department, nobody else in the corporation knows you exist."

Source: Wall Street Journal by Jared Sandberg April 25, 2006

WP: The Challenge in Parting Ways With Top Executives

Professor Constance E. Helfat via Washington Post about the practice of forcing CEOs to leave their companies:

It's tough to pinpoint how many were forced out because many leave without explanation. But once in a while, a firm boots its chief executive in a very public way for practical reasons, said Constance E. Helfat, a corporate strategy professor at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business. "If a company is doing poorly, then disruption may be good because you need a clear signal that 'we're going to change,' " Helfat said.

Source: The Washington Post by Dina ElBoghdady April 24, 2006

BW: The World's Most Innovative Companies

Professor Vijay Govindarajan via Business Week defining the innovation in business:

In the 1990s, innovation was about technology and control of quality and cost.
Today, it's about taking corporate organizations built for efficiency and rewiring them for creativity and growth. "There are a lot of different things that fall under the rubric of innovation," says Vijay Govindarajan, a professor at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business and author of Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators: From Idea to Execution. "Innovation does not have to have anything to do with technology."

Source: Business Week by Jena McGregor and others April 24, 2006

LAT: Doll Unit Avoids Growth Spurt

Professor Eric Johnson via LA Times about Mattel's American Girl, which will open a store in L.A. and try to keep its grip on the upscale niche partly by limiting its expansion:

"Mattel has certainly understood that whatever American Girl is to girls in the U.S., it is not Mattel blazed on the side," said Mr. Eric Johnson, a professor of management at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and an expert on the toy industry. "If you go on the Web site, you have to really dig around to even find a Mattel logo."

Source: Los Angeles Times by Abigail Goldman April 17, 2006

WP: No Need to Feel Threatened

Dean Paul Danos via The Washington Post about the Tuck School of Business' focus on teamwork as one of the key factors for career success:

At Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, about half the grades are handed out for work that's done in teams; members of each team provide one another with anonymous feedback, and the school has hired counselors to help students absorb the lessons from this criticism. "In the past, you could go through business school and nobody would say you were coming across as a jerk," says Paul Danos, dean of the Tuck School. "But that might have been the most important factor in your future success as a manager."

Source: The Washington Post by Sebastian Mallaby April 17, 2006

BW: Bausch & Lomb: Crisis Management 101

Professor Paul Argenti via Business Week about how Bausch & Lomb initially managed the scandal with the infections linked to contact lens solution:

"This is a classic crisis communications problem right out of my textbook. They should be able to take out the playbook and just handle it...You don't wait five days to do something [recall the product] that you knew you had to do on Day One....
In the first days of a crisis, you should be managing communication. Figure out the problem, explain it, and apologize to customers. People will forgive you when you admit your mistakes. The problem happens when you dig in your heels and don't get out there and say: 'We screwed up.' Bausch & Lomb hasn't done that...People's memories are short and their forgiveness is large." -- Paul Argenti, professor of corporate communication at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

Source: Business Week by Phil Mintz and Francesca Di Meglio April 17, 2006

AP: How illegal workers affect the economy

Professor Andrew Bernard via Associated Press about illegal work force in the United States:

Still, they [illegal workers] expand the nation's overall labor pool and productivity. "We can make more stuff and that can add to overall economic activity," said Andrew Bernard, professor of international economics at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business.

Source: Associated Press via MSNBC April 4, 2006