Educational models for manpower development

In this paper a number of educational models are formulated and optimized. A single educational program multiperiod model is developed and optimized by means of dynamic programming. The type of results an educational administrator might obtain from this model and optimization are presented in an example which evaluates alternative future options. This single educational program model is extended to a multi-echelon model, allowing for the modifications to very realistic “compulsary-type” and “college-type” educational models. Linear programming generates the optimal decisions for the general multi-echelon multiperiod educational model.     

What's wrong with executive compensation? A roundtable moderated by Charles Elson

The value that many superpaid CEO superstars supposedly created has largely disappeared, and the likelihood that it will be recovered anytime soon seems remote. On top of that, a good number of top executives treated their companies like ATMs, awarding themselves millions of dollars in corporate perks. It's hard to dispute the idea that executives were corrupted by the sums of money dangled in front of them. What's wrong with executive compensation, and what can we do about it? HBR and the University of Delaware's Center for Corporate Governance convened a round-table of compensation experts last October on the university's campus in Newark, Delaware. The 12 panelists, from CEOs to investors, from the professionals who advise them to a chief justice who rules on their disputes, provided an extraordinary diversity of viewpoints. The panelist began by debating ways to align the interests of the senior executives with the long-term interests of the company-weighing the relative benefits of stock options versus stock grants, for instance. But the discussion expanded to cover broader questions of corporate governance and company values. "The main reason compensation increases every year is that most boards want their CEO to be in the top half of the CEO peer group," said Ed Woolard,Jr., a former CEO of DuPont. And compensation lawyer Joe Bachelder pointed out the danger of structuring pay in such a way that it dampens risk taking among executives. It was a lively and wide-ranging discussion of one business's most pressing issues.     

How business schools lost their way

Business schools are facing intense criticism for failing to impart useful skills, failing to prepare leaders, failing to instill norms of ethical behavior--and even failing to lead graduates to good corporate jobs. These criticisms come not just from students, employers, and the media but also from deans of some of America's most prestigious B schools. The root cause oftoday's crisis in management education, assert Warren G. Bennis and James O'Toole, is that business schools have adopted an inappropriate--and ultimately self-defeating--model of academic excellence. Instead of measuring themselves in terms of the competence of their graduates, or by how well their faculty members understand important drivers of business performance, they assess themselves almost solely by the rigor of their scientific research. This scientific model is predicated on the faulty assumption that business is an academic discipline like chemistry or geology when, in fact, business is a profession and business schools are professional schools--or should be. Business school deans may claim that their schools remain focused on practice, but they nevertheless hire and promote research-oriented professors who haven't spent time working in companies and are more comfortable teaching methodology than messy, multidisciplinary issues--the very stuff of management. The authors don't advocate a return to the days when business schools were glorified trade schools. But to regain relevancy, they say, business schools must rediscover the practice of business and find a way to balance the dual mission of educating practitioners and creating knowledge through research.     

The economic consequences of increased disclosure: Evidence from international cross-listings

We examine market behavior around earnings announcements to understand the consequences of the increased disclosure that non-U.S. firms face when listing shares in the U.S. We find that absolute return and volume reactions to earnings announcements typically increase significantly once a company cross-lists in the U.S. Furthermore, these increases are greatest for firms from developed countries and for firms that pursue over-the-counter listings or private placements, which do not have stringent disclosure requirements. Additional tests support the hypothesis that it is changes in the individual firm's disclosure environment, rather than changes in its market liquidity, ownership, or trading venue, that explain our findings.     

The Symbiosis of the Urban and the Political

Historically, the urban was the condition of possibility for the political, but the symbiosis of the two has been concealed by the rise of the state and the concomitant development of the social sciences. The effort to recover the connection by denoting a separate domain of ‘urban politics’ is self‐defeating, because it re‐instantiates an ontology of the political that consigns the urban to the domain of ‘low’ politics. The dominant ontology suggests that ‘high’ politics — the most serious politics or politics proper — is always in the domain of states and empires, and that everything else is subject to it. This view is constantly reaffirmed by the political theory that underpins the state system and the modern social sciences. Nevertheless, a different ontology of the political is always already implicit in the concept of the city, understood as a local phenomenon and a global way of life. To see the political through the city is to notice how proximate diversity stimulates self‐organization and self‐government, generates politics in and between authorities in different registers, and defers the sovereignty claims it produces. On this view, the urban is neither high nor low, but is instead the very form of the political, encompassing states and empires as much as anything else.