WP: HP Stock Falters In Spying Scandal

Professor Paul Argenti via The Washington Post about how HP executives are handling the "spying" scandal.

"People will reserve judgment on the company for a few weeks, but if there isn't a big change, with someone of high credibility brought in, it's going to start to affect business," said Paul Argenti, a professor of corporate communication at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. "When a breach in ethics happens in a senior group of managers, it calls into question the management of the company."
"It takes years and years to build up a reputation and a few weeks to lose it. They're doing a very good job of losing it right now," Argenti said.

Source: The Washington Post by Yuki Noguchi and Brooke A. Masters, September 22, 2006

WP: Growth Slows in Housing Market

Professor John Vogel via The Washington Post about the housing market in the US cooling off after a six-year boom.

The housing market also had been "artificially propped up" by speculators and "mortgage gimmicks," said John H. Vogel Jr., professor of business administration at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business. "You just see all these for-sale signs out there," he said. "If you're a buyer . . . it makes you question, 'Do I really have to stretch that far to buy a house?' "Vogel thinks this is just the beginning. Housing prices have become so out of line with people's ability to buy, he said, that barring a wage spurt, it won't be possible to escape significant price declines. "It won't be just prices flattening," he said. "I think it's going to be a pretty hard landing."

Source: The Washington Post by Tomoeh Murakami Tse, September 6, 2006

WP: Job Security Wanes in Executive Suites

Professor Constance E. Helfat via The Washington Post about the high CEO turnover making chief-executive jobs less attractive:

"If you ask CEOs to take the risk of having to resign in a fairly public manner . . . people might be less willing to take the job and want higher compensation, which means you shrink the pool," said Constance E. Helfat, a strategy professor at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business who studies chief-executive turnover.

Source: The Washington Post by Brooke A. Masters May 18, 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

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