Living in a state of true accountability
Despite the difficulties, one should be accountable more for outcomes than for the decision process.
Why the last shall be first and the first shall fade away
Being the first to innovate is rarely the road to riches many presume. Business history is paved with industries dominated by followers.
Shame and kudos are the spur
Trying to assess lecturers, doctors, and teachers is difficult. But that doesn’t mean it cannot, or should not, be done.
Economic forces and the hairdresser
Do not believe those who tell you that concentration or globalisation is inevitable. Think of your hairdresser.
The Role of Business in Society
The view of business as necessarily selfish, narrow and instrumental, is, as it always has been, nonsense. Business which is selfish in motivation, narrow in outlook, and instrumental in behaviour is rarely successful business.
When consensus does not really mean agreement
Just as universities need to tell people to stop quibbling and work towards a common objective, companies need to realise that clustering around a corporate conventional wisdom that has not been subject to analysis and debate is also not a recipe for success.
Getting to the truth behind the one-stop shop
Doctor’s surgeries, supermarkets, and travel agents are all one-stop shops - which should tell us that there are different justifications for one-stop shopping.
A world of difference
While accounting firms are “going global”, their rationale for doing so does not apply to other industries.
Produced to price
For many people the role of manufacturing industry is an emotional issue rather than an economic one - meet the manufacturing fetishists.
Lemon economics
Tobacco companies are allowed to make no claims for their product at all, except that it is bad for you. An economist’s perspective on advertising may explain why.