Articles

The country's largest corporations have hit a road bump on their way toward factoring sustainability into their transportation choices. Despite pressures from customers and investors--and the prospect of evervolatile energy costs--just 9% of Fortune 500 companies include environmental goals in their public documents. A study of those 44 companies reveals some of the best practices that can help a business go the distance, ultimately working with its partners to rethink its entire transportation infrastructure. Companies must demonstrate three distinct levels of integration before they can embed the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions into their transportation strategies: establishing a foundation (acknowledging the problem), changing internal company practices (building an environmentally aware culture) and impacting supply chain practices (such as better vehicle utilization or more efficient routing). Within these categories, the tactics need to be measured by carefully calibrated metrics that can track both environmental and financial progress. As employees begin adapting their own decision making to the new priority--by, for instance, choosing videoconferencing instead of traveling--executives should spread such success stories, reinforcing the institutional preference.

Andrew McAfee's new book looks at Enterprise 2.0 tools as a way to span organizational networks.

Ads that complement online content can be effective — but not if they rouse consumers' privacy concerns.

What role does reputation play in a R&;D worker's decision whether or not to share knowledge with a colleague? To study this question, the authors surveyed more than 200 scientists in 63 different pharmaceutical companies. The authors' findings suggest that, even among R&;D workers in the same company, information is not always shared freely. Instead, a potential knowledge source's assessment of a knowledge seeker's reputation affected whether or not information was offered. The authors found that a variety of factors affect scientists' assessment of a colleague's reputation. Not surprisingly, the duration of two parties' past interaction was positively related to the likelihood of current knowledge sharing occurring between them. Also, proximity influenced how positively reputations were perceived. But, if the person seeking information was already indebted to the potential knowledge source, knowledge sharing was less likely to occur. In addition, the study found that scientists are more likely to share information with a colleague in the same company if the know-how is unique and vital to accomplishing a task.

GM and Toyota launched their joint auto plant where GM's work force had been at its worst. Here's what happened next.

Despite the importance of innovation to a business's success, only recently have companies not only established internal environments conducive to innovation but also begun identifying, cultivating and taking advantage of a wide variety of external sources for innovation. Among such sources, suppliers are recognized as having especially large innovation potential because they know what the companies that is, their customers--are doing and need and also because mechanisms for knowledge transfer from supplier to customer are typically in place. However, while it is one thing for a mechanism to be available by which suppliers may transfer innovation to customers, it is quite another for the suppliers actually to do the transferring. The customer, the prime mover in building and maintaining the relationship, can move in two different ways to encourage the supplier to innovate to the customer's benefit. First, it should reduce or eliminate three kinds of problems: (1) conflicting objectives among the customer's functional areas, (2) excessive and often late engineering or specification changes and (3) price-reduction pressures on suppliers that consider only the customer's financial needs. Second and most importantly, the customer should initiate directly positive and trust-building activities.

For most companies, the single largest cost category is the total spend with suppliers. However, figuring out how to identify the best areas for supply savings--and then how to measure and report them--presents major challenges. Both understatement and overstatement of supply savings gaps signal the wrong reality, leading to an overemphasis on low-yielding cost saving initiatives, misdirected corporate resources and employees being rewarded for the wrong behavior. Moreover, supply savings gaps conceal the strategic contribution suppliers can provide. In studying the supply management practices at 30 large North American and European companies, the authors identified a variety of measurement and reporting practices for supply savings. They conclude that correct measurement of supply savings is almost impossible and that there are frequently gaps between reported savings and reality. They explore why gaps exist, what practices lead to under- and overstatement of savings, the consequences of poor supply savings measurement and what can be done to recognize supply savings gaps. To overcome the measurement and reporting challenges, the authors recommend that executives do three things: Focus on the total cost of ownership; categorize the different types of savings; and hardwire savings to the budget.

Supply chains should be designed and managed to deliver one or more of six basic outcomes.

A new book examines the challenges — and potential benefits — of government programs designed to foster entrepreneurship.