Management in Practice

Are there leaders in everyday life? A long body of literature argues that a small number of individuals have an outsize influence on what the rest of us buy, wear, and consume. But marketing professionals and scholars have been debating how to make use of these opinion leaders.

Combat leadership involves making countless decisions, with limited information, shifting variables, and extreme time constraints. Colonel Rich Morales ’99 and soldiers from his battalion describe their 15-month deployment in Iraq.

Yale SOM alumni weigh in on the question "Who needs leaders?"

The massive problems associated with sustainability, from climate change to resource preservation, require coordinated, society-wide responses. Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom argues for the importance of giving local institutions enough power to better manage common resources—though it’s not easy.

Yale University is striving to integrate sustainability into the institution's operations, as well as its educational and research functions. Julie Newman, the director of Yale's office of sustainability, discusses the efforts at Yale and across higher education.

Hilary Pennington '83 is the Gates Foundation's director for special initiatives. She talked with Qn about leading the foundation’s effort to build the country’s social capital by rethinking postsecondary education and the challenges faced by the nonprofit sector in this economic climate.

Yale SOM finance professors Frank Fabozzi, Gary Gorton, and Will Goetzmann discuss what caused the financial crisis, what we have learned since then, likely impacts of the financial reform legislation, and proposals to address unresolved issues in the housing and securitization markets.

Harish Hande is the founder of SELCO, a social enterprise established in 1995. The company provides sustainable energy solutions and services to under-served households and businesses in rural parts of Karnataka and Gujarat. Can this "open-source organization" provide a model for powering economic development without devastating the environment?

Media businesses must make decisive strategic choices even as the only market certainty is that some of the old revenue models aren't holding up. Jeff Bewkes, chairman and CEO of Time Warner, talks about the prospects for television, movies, and magazines.

As more and more companies integrate environmental concerns in their business functions, the role for sustainability professionals has grown. The founder of Sustainability Recruiting comments on this developing field and provides advice for people interested in working in the area.