Knowledge@Emory -- Managing Technology

Uncharted Waters: Navigating the Transition of Television Technology

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:01:04 EST

As more television viewing moves to the Internet, the questions of who controls the video content and how to keep customer demand satisfied continues to plague TV execs from all arenas. With so much money at stake, the major players want to avoid the mistakes the music industry still faces in the aftermath of challenges like Napster. During a recent panel discussion on the "Future of TV: Disruptive Changes in Video Services” held at Emory University's Goizueta Business School, industry experts shared opinions on the likely outcome of this new transition in technology.

The Net Impact of Netbooks? It Depends on Who Uses Them for What

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 17:24:51 EST

Small, inexpensive netbooks -- portable computers smaller than notebooks but dependent on the Internet for file-storage and software -- are likely to have a disruptive impact on the PC industry, but there are many questions to resolve, experts say. Will netbooks poach sales of laptops? Are they replacements for smartphones? How will a weak economy affect sales? Will the devices increase the popularity of cloud computing? Stay tuned as this new technology continues to evolve.

3D Movies: Adding Depth or Falling Flat?

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:36:10 EST

DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg called the latest 3D movie technology "the greatest innovation to occur in the movie business in 70 years." A bevy of theater chains are exploring or installing digital cinema and 3D systems in the second half of 2008 into 2009. Intel and others are creating tools for companies to make a new generation of 3D animation films. Experts at Wharton say 3D movies are back in vogue, but it's unclear whether the latest greatest technology can give theaters a sustainable competitive advantage over other forms of entertainment.

Driving Adobe: Co-founder Charles Geschke on Challenges, Change and Values

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:05:35 EST

With PostScript, PDF and Flash, Adobe Systems introduced technologies that laid the foundation for desktop publishing, electronic document interchange and interactive web content. But the difficulties Adobe faced during its 26-year history were many: shifting business plans, Apple aligning with Microsoft to compete with key Adobe technologies, a hostile takeover attempt from a leading competitor, and a management crisis that led to the firing of four top executives. Adobe co-founder and co-chairman Charles Geschke spoke with Knowledge@Wharton about how the company's core values helped Adobe address these challenges and position the company for the future.

From Toys to Tools: Exploring Virtual Worlds in the Classroom

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:01:09 EST

Virtual worlds are transforming the way business operates by creating new templates for accomplishing tasks from training and collaboration to product design and marketing. In a new course offering from Emory University and its Goizueta Business School, “Virtual Worlds and New Realities,” students and faculty explore issues surrounding emerging types of virtual worlds and immersion technologies while participating as avatars in Second Life and other virtual world environments. According to Benn Konsynski, a chaired professor of information systems and operations management at Goizueta who co-taught the course with Emory Vice Provost for International Affairs Holli Semetko, the expanding use of rich immersion technologies is “creating unlimited opportunities for business.”

Virtual Worlds: Mapping a New Business Reality

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:12:46 EST

Virtual worlds are poised to play an ever greater role in business, politics, and day-to-day life. Though less than one percent of the world’s population currently participates in virtual worlds, the actual number is higher than the number of Internet surfers in 1994, says Benn Konsynski, a chaired professor of information systems and operations management at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School and co-chair of a recent conference entitled, “Virtual Worlds and New Realities in Commerce, Politics and Society.” The conference invited academics, gamers, entrepreneurs, social scientists and information technology specialists to discuss the growth and future of virtual worlds such as Second Life and Kaneva. The technological demands and opportunities they present will lead to rich, immersive media, says Konsynski, transforming the business landscape both online and in the office.

Supporting Decision Making with the Power of Excel

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:49:28 EST

Delving into the world of Excel and its various applications can be an explorative and, believe-it-or-not, fun way to enhance knowledge and productivity contends, Elliot Bendoly, an associate professor of information systems and operations management at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. In his new book, Excel Basics to Blackbelt: An Accelerated Guide to Decision Support Designs, Bendoly provides a compilation of information he’s used to teach management courses cloaked in a user-friendly format that will help bridge the developers’ divide between the available basic reference materials and the more advanced programming guides. Notes Bendoly: “The reader who goes through the book as a novice to application development will come out with a strikingly novel way of thinking about solving problems in the real world.”

Do Innovations Ever Pay Off? The Value to Investing in Innovation

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:24:54 EST

Management has often been criticized for an earnings-focused short term orientation in order to boost the firm’s stock price, while, unfortunately, reducing or delaying investments in risky, long term innovation projects. The underlying assumption is that stock markets do not value investments with long term payoffs. Not true suggests Ashish Sood, an assistant professor of marketing at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, and Gerard J. Tellis, a professor of marketing at the Marshall School of Business, University of California, in their paper “Do Innovations Really Payoff? Total Stock Market Returns to Innovation,” forthcoming in Marketing Science, the top journal in the marketing field. Sood and Tellis have devised a new metric that will help businesses calculate the total payoff to an innovation project by assessing the stock market returns to the entire innovation project via event study analysis and, in turn, recognize the utter importance of preserving their R&D budgets.

Will IPTV Revolutionize or Further Fragment the Television Viewing Audience?

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:24:54 EST

More than 50 years ago, CBS aired the first U.S. coast-to-coast color television program—coverage of the Tournament of Roses Parade. But as TV and the Internet converge, the TV of today, along with its hundreds of channels and on-demand capabilities, may soon join CBS’s inaugural coverage as a bullet point in the annals of TV history. Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) has the power to rock television viewing the same way music downloads changed the recording industry and the way we listen to music. Recently, a diverse panel of industry experts gathered at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School to discuss the recent progress made in the area of IPTV. According to event organizer Benn Konsynski, a chaired professor of information systems and operations management at Goizueta, IPTV “isn’t just about convergence of media; it’s about convergence of life practices.”

Gadgets at Work: The Blurring Boundary between Consumer and Corporate Technologies

Wed, 14 May 2008 19:19:17 EST

The boundaries between work and play are beginning to disappear as consumer technologies -- including social networking tools, user generated content and wikis -- are increasingly adopted by corporate America. For technology companies, this emerging "consumerization" trend represents an opportunity, but it also brings new management challenges as companies struggle to embrace these technologies in a way that doesn't limit their usefulness but also doesn't result in lost time or money. And while there may be productivity gains for corporations that experiment with integrating the latest consumer gadgets, security remains the deal breaker, say experts at Wharton.

Put on Hold: Why Telecoms Can't Get Consumers to Bond More with Their Cell Phones

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:53:49 EST

As the price of wireless transmissions drops, telecom carriers need to focus on new applications that will engage consumers more deeply with their mobile devices -- and encourage them to pay a premium for wireless services, according to speakers at the recent Wharton Business Technology Conference, whose theme was "Enterprise Agility: Lead with Speed."

Sony's Blu-Ray Victory: Learning to Catch the Technology Wave?

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 22:06:43 EST

Determining when and what technological innovation to adopt can be a bit like predicting the outcome of the stock market on any given day. Sony’s recent win with its Blu-Ray technology over Toshiba’s High Definition DVD is the latest example of a firm learning from past mistakes and capitalizing on an existing product, the Sony PlayStation 3. But if knowing when to adopt a new technology is tricky, how is a company to stay competitive? Experts at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School discuss the role of strategy and luck in making the winning moves with new technologies.

Exploring Knowledge 'Stickiness' in the Healthcare Setting

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 01:57:01 EST

Introducing a new process into an existing system, even when it is better, can cause some difficulty or “stickiness” in managing the transition. In their new paper, “Exploring Stickiness in Knowledge Transfer Processes: The Case of Evidence-based Medicine,” doctoral candidate Roopa Raman and Anandhi Bharadwaj, associate professor of Information Systems and Operations Management at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, examine the impact of knowledge transfer breakdown in the healthcare setting. The authors offer ways to spot trouble early and show how the use of information technology can play a key role in getting people to accept new knowledge and change their behavior.

Why Leveraging Technology Should be an Ongoing Business Strategy

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 17:33:28 EST

The ability to harness technology and gain competitive and organizational advantage depends on how effectively IT is managed in an organization, says Maryam Alavi, vice dean and a chaired professor of information strategy at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. During a recent lecture at the annual Executive Women of Goizueta Conference in Atlanta, Alavi advised executives that gaining such advantage requires a constant alignment between technology and a firm’s business model and processes. “Technology can really change, diminish or render your business model obsolete,” explains Alavi. “If your business model and technology are misaligned, it’s going to have negative consequences.”

A Sunny Outlook for Cloud Computing?

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 17:33:28 EST

In late 2007 information technology giants Google and IBM announced a joint venture aimed at addressing “the emerging paradigm of large-scale distributed computing,” also known as cloud computing. Under this evolving approach to information-technology, computer applications and activities are migrating away from individual machines and onto the Internet, where they can be easily distributed, updated and shared. Good news for consumers who must shell out money for each new upgrade, but how would the tech companies make money? In an interview with Knowledge@Emory, Benn Konsynski, a chaired professor of business administration for information systems and operations management at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, discusses this evolving technology and admits Google and IBM face at least two big challenges as they adapt to cloud computing: toppling entrenched business models and overcoming the basic nature of the Internet itself.

Career Crisis: Monster.com Has Choices to Make as It Approaches 'Middle Age'

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 01:47:03 EST

When the Internet was young, pioneering online job recruitment firm Monster.com rocked the way people looked for work. Now, Monster itself has hit a rocky patch, marked by the resignation of three top officers, a major security breach and the rise of new competitors, including Craigslist. According to Wharton faculty and analysts, Monster is confronting the "middle age" that all veteran firms of the Internet's early days must face. The company remains a force in employment advertising, they say, but as it settles into maturity, Monster must find new ways to protect its established markets and expand overseas.

The Silver Bullet Market: Academia's Role

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 16:45:34 EST

Decision Support Systems (or DSS) have the potential for providing managers with powerful tools for compiling useful information from raw data, facilitating the comparison of results and solutions and ultimately solving complex business problems. However, for those seeking quick answers or the so-called �silver bullet,� these technologies can be easily misappropriated and misused, almost in an addictive sense. The problem, warns Elliot Bendoly, associate professor of decision and information analysis at Emory University�s Goizueta Business School, is that DSS are designed to complement the decision process, not overtake it - yet that distinction is too often underemphasized. In the soon-to-be published paper �Silver Bullet Junkies and the Codifiers that Love Them,� Bendoly and a coauthor examine the vulnerability of a support system design that fails to account for real-world issues such as human behavior. The pair also discuss the ethics surrounding academia's role in this arena.

Why �Everyday Low Prices� May Not Be Such a Deal

Wed, 09 May 2007 21:11:57 EST

Comparison shopping is the joie de vivre for many consumers. But do these same savvy buyers practice such diligence when they surf the Internet? Not always, says Ramnath K. Chellappa, associate professor of decision and information analysis at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, who studies pricing, in particular, airline pricing on the Internet. Research by Chellappa and colleagues reveals that the online strategy of offering an “Everyday Low Price” is so persuasive that many consumers will not bother searching elsewhere to comparison shop.

Identifying the Soft Skills Needed to Leverage B2B Commerce

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:02:16 EST

Supply-chain strategy is changing with the times�becoming more high-tech and Internet-driven. Yet, in order to use Internet-based technologies most effectively to develop the right kinds of relationships with customers and suppliers, manufacturers need to recognize the need for other changes that support this new environment. Research by Eve D. Rosenzweig, an assistant professor of decision and information analysis at Emory University�s Goizueta Business School, and co-author Aleda V. Roth identifies the managerial skill sets that are fundamental to leveraging technology in the world of Internet-enabled Business-to-Business (B2B) commerce. Rosenzweig uses empirical research methodologies to define and measure the competencies associated with the seller-side of Internet-enabled commerce.

Can Michael Dell Reinvigorate the Computer Giant?

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 11:56:23 EST

The news that Michael Dell was taking back his old job as CEO of Dell Inc. has been met with cheers and doubts. At one time exceedingly entrepreneurial, the computer giant floundered under its hand-picked successor Kevin Rollins. Although Michael Dell�s name may add some cachet to the company, is he the right choice to catapult the company to the next level? Marketing and operational experts at Emory University�s Goizueta Business School discuss the challenges, including whether the company can change its business model and differentiate itself from competitors.