Harvard Business Review

What Sells When Father Knows Best

Articles — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 09:38:00 -0500

The comedian Dick Cavett once quipped, “If your parents never had children, chances are you won’t either.” It’s a funny thought, but it gets at something real.

People who are social, religious, or political conservatives tend to have more children, and that fact has profound implications for culture, for politics, and for business. In the United States, for example, fertility rates are 12% higher in states that voted for George W. Bush in the most recent presidential election than in the more liberal and secular states that supported his opponent. Indeed, if the John Kerry states seceded and formed a new… more

What Should USTech's Sourcing Strategy Be?

Articles — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Greg should consider himself lucky. The cozy relationship between USTech and TaiSource was speeding toward a crisis even before he hired Morris. But thanks to what he learned from that questionable decision, Greg now has an opportunity to fix USTech's sourcing strategy before disaster strikes.

USTech and TaiSource have become so interdependent that USTech must establish either a more formal alliance with the supplier or a more strictly defined arm's-length relationship. Given the distrust on both sides, the only real option is the latter. Greg can now choose to diversify USTech's ODM relationships; source directly in China and Taiwan,… more

A Homestead Act for the Twenty-First Century

Articles — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 00:00:00 -0500

The United States owes much of its status as the first mass middle-class society to enlightened social policy designed to broaden asset ownership. To this day, a quarter of all adult Americans enjoy a legacy of asset ownership traceable to the Homestead Act of 1862, which awarded 60 acres of land in the American West to families who lived on the land for five years. Likewise, the GI Bill, the Federal Housing Administration, and mortgage deduction policies paved the way for one of the highest home-ownership rates in the world.

But America's middle class has begun to atrophy. Poverty has… more

Vanishing Jobs? Blame the Boomers

Articles — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 00:00:00 -0500

To all the brouhaha over offshoring in America, one rejoinder is that any unemployment is temporary. When the mass of baby boomers starts retiring in the next few years, the argument goes, there will be plenty of work for anyone in the baby bust generation whose job went overseas. That may be a comforting thought for U.S. baby busters, but it's probably wrong. Despite their small numbers, the busters may paradoxically see unemployment get worse, not better.

Without a crystal ball, we can't say definitely what will happen as baby boomers start retiring. But we can… more