In Germany there is a political discussion going on about women’s quota for positions in management boards and top management. This is a political discussion and mainly refers to large businesses, i.e. for DAX-companies, for the time being. Currently, political parties and even ministers have varying opinions about this topic. Ideas range from critical positions [...]

This is a quote from the famous zoologist and animal film-maker Bernhard Grzimek. I liked this quote right from the beginning because it made me smile and it seemed to have the potential for a running gag. I want to make one thing clear right from the beginning. I am sure the ocelot is an [...]

Subscribers to the Real-World Economics Review Blog have awarded the Dynamite Prize in Economics to Alan Greenspan, Milton Friedman and Larry Summers. It says at the Real-World Economics Review Blog: ‘Alan Greenspan has been judged the economist most responsible for causing the Global Financial Crisis. He and 2nd and 3rd place finishers Milton Friedman and [...]

I just discovered a new early indicator. You may remember that I like the sort of indicators that are not scientific but can be observed in ordinary life. Now I have one more of this sort. We participate in the amazon-associates program with our management portal. We recommend books on the portal and when one [...]

A banana skin may be slippery and may cause you to stumble or even fall when you Stepp on it. Hence, ‘Banking Banana Skins 2010 – After the ‘quake’  is the name of a new study from the CSFI Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation   which is sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers. As PwC describes it, [...]

As you might remember, our team was completed by our baby last year. Our little daughter is now 14 months old and makes us very happy. Looking back at the time with her, I see some parallels between living with a baby and strategic management: Let’s start with the time before the baby arrives. The [...]

This is a little story from my daily travel to work that happened some years ago. I went to work by car and had to refuel about every two weeks. There was a gas station that was situ-ated very conveniently on my morning route. Thus, I was a regular customer there. I did not care [...]

There is a saying that nothing is as old as yesterday’s news. This week I read a newspaper article about much older news. As it seems, these can be quite interesting again. Most people, including me, did not even notice it: one of Germany’s most popular TV news formats – Tagesschau – has been broadcasting [...]

Last week I was asked about my opinion about Porters Generic Strategies during the current financial crisis. My first spontaneous thought was: Why ask that question? Is it less important to have a distinctive strategy during a crisis than it is during a boom? I think the contrary is true. However, my discussion partner expected [...]

From time to time I receive mails from MBA-students asking me some more or less specific questions that are related to management and strategy. Normally, I reply to such mails with only a few sentences since I am not going to help them out with significant parts of their MBA assignments. However, the last one [...]