Management in Practice

Economists have begun to use research into happiness to explore questions in economics, policy, and management. Betsey Stevenson of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania surveys the work in this emerging field.

A nonprofit is teaching business skills to East African farmers in order to let them enter the high-profit global market for specialty coffee. The project showed enough promise to get $50 million in underwriting from the Gates Foundation, and now aims to reach 180,000 growers. David Browning ’99 of Technoserve describes how to educate small-hold farmers to plug into the global market.

James Chanos, the founder and president of the hedge fund Kynikos Associates, is a noted short-seller. He was one of the early doubters of Enron and more recently questioned the sustainability of the housing boom. In these videos, Chanos discusses a series of issues critical to hedge funds and short-sellers. Chanos also presented a Leaders Forum lecture at Yale SOM on October 26, 2009.

The new field of neuroeconomics looks at how economic decision-making actually happens inside the brain. Jonathan Cohen, co-director of the Princeton Neuroscience Institute at Princeton University, describes insights that are emerging from the collaborative work of neuroscientists, psychologists, and economists.

John Hayes, chief marketing officer at American Express, discusses creating relationships with a global customer base that ranges from individuals to multinational corporations.

Mary Houghton is the president and co-founder of the ShoreBank Corporation, the largest and oldest community development bank in the country. She talks with Qn about how banking can be a powerful for-profit social venture.

The global nature of environmental issues demands collaboration across borders and across sectors. Mark Tercek became the President and CEO of the Nature Conservancy in 2008 after 24 years at Goldman Sachs. He discusses how finding business solutions to environmental problems is essential.

A number of economists, psychologists, and neuroscientists are using imaging studies to peek at the brain in action — trying to better understand why we make some of the choices we do.

Polaroid went from ubiquity to obsolescence as digital photography replaced the print. But as early as the 1960s, Polaroid had been doing research into digital imaging. Did mistaken assumptions keep the company from making the transition to the digital world?

Misunderstanding of risk was a major factor in the subprime crisis and ensuing recession. Andrew Lo argues that one has to look at both logical and emotional parts of the brain to grasp how people respond to financial risk.