TrendWatchers

It's still too soon to be sure, but tough financial times may be slowing down the meteoric rise in executive compensation seen during the 1990s. If so, it may lend support to those who claim that stock options and other strategies are successfully linking executive pay with performance. If not, the...

Over the next several decades, the continuing rise of so-called knowledge workers - especially "knowledge technologists" - will have an enormous impact on people management trends, according to renowned management philosopher Peter Drucker.Drucker coined the term "knowledge worker" about 40 years...

What U.S. jobs will be most in demand over the next decade? This question has become increasingly relevant to people who, in the face of job insecurity, want to retool their skills for the future. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) may provide help answering the question with the publication...

In today's age of uncertainty, managers are finding it hard to make important business decisions, often deferring them until there's greater "visibility" regarding the future. Yet, as online publication Knowledge@Wharton puts it, "If there's one thing worse than a deal that falls through, it is a...

In the future, the ability to innovate will be the only thing separating successful companies from unsuccessful ones, contends Tom Kelley, general manager of product development at IDEO, one of the world's leading product development firms. In the 1940s, design and marketing cycles, which include...

The merger tidal wave that kept building through the 1990s seems to finally have broken, due to a slowing global economy and the uncertainty surrounding terrorist events. Although this gives managers a breather from the frenzy of mergers, it creates problems of its own, such as the human resource...

Being a socially responsible corporate citizen is a complex challenge these days. "Beyond satisfying their shareholders, consumers and employees, [corporations] face a growing number of nongovernmental-organization-based watchdogs as well," writes Ethan Kapstein in Foreign Affairs magazine. "The law...

In the wake of the September 11th attacks, U.S. employers have been deciding how to handle military leave issues. While most large companies had a leave policy in place before the attacks, many have been considering revising their policies in recent weeks. Several surveys suggest that many employers...

Until September 11th, many experts considered the process of globalization to be as tough and resilient as a force of nature. Then a small group of box-cutter-wielding terrorists taught us that the fabric of globalization might be more delicate than we knew. In the long run, the current crisis may...

"Battle Underway Against Gender Discrimination in the Chinese Workplace." "Support Committee Backs Maquiladora Workers Fighting Pregnancy Discrimination." Such headlines from newspapers around the world tell the story of evolving rights for female workers. The end of sex discrimination, including...