General Leadership

• Leadership in E-Commerce:  What Does it Take to Lead and E-Commerce Venture?:  
  Rick Berry, CEO of ICGCommerce, William Kelvie, CIO of Fannie Mae, and others identify the leadership qualities that make a difference in e-commerce at the Wharton Forum on Electronic Commerce (Wharton Leadership Digest, June, 2000). 
  
• How Executives Grow
  Most companies are poor at developing their executives, and most of them acknowledge this:  only 3 percent of the 6,000 executives occupying the top 200 positions at 50 large US corporations examined by a recent McKinsey survey strongly agreed that their organizations developed talent quickly and effectively.   (McKinsey Quarterly 2000 Number 1)
  
  
• "The Dot-Com World Opens New Opportunities for Women to Lead," Leslie Kaufman, New York Times, March 9, 2000, p. C1. 
  
  
• Digital Leadership
  Consultants from Spencer Stuart interviewed top executives from more than 55 companies nationwide at different stages of Internet deployment.  The results of their findings indicate that “digital leadership demands living by the enduring principles that make for success, and augmenting them with new qualities that enable speed, flexibility, risk-taking, an obsession with customers and new levels of communication inside the organization.”  (Strategy & Business, First Quarter, 2000)
  
  
• Opinion:  How to be a CEO for the Information Age
  The authors describe seven types of CEOs, their behaviors and attitudes toward IT, and explain why all but one are decidedly unfit to lead companies in the Information Age. Only the "believer CEO" is ready to play a constructive role in his or her company’s use of information technology. Believers understand that IT enables strategic advantage and demonstrate such beliefs in their daily actions. Believers are involved in IT decision making and are proactive in addressing IT problems and opportunities. They seek advice from a variety of sources, study the IT strategies of competitors, and set examples for others managers in their company to follow. (Sloan Management Review, Winter 2000, Vol. 41, No. 2)
  
• Do You Have the Will to Lead?
  Peter Koestenbaum, 71-year old philosopher, author and consultant to CEOs of the world’s largest companies looks at the challenges of leadership in the new economy.  He applies the power of philosophy to the vexing questions of human existence  and describes the fundamental mental framework required to be a great leader of an organization. (Fast Company, March 2000)
  
  
• Change Leaders  
  In an excerpt from his new book, "Management Challenges for the 21st Century," the venerable Peter F. Drucker suggests that to thrive in the new millennium, managers must do more than adapt to change: they have to lead it. (Inc. magazine, November 1999)
  
  
• Leaders.com
  Meg Whitman, CEO of eBay , Jay Walker, founder of Priceline.com and ten other leaders of the Internet era’s most successful companies offer their thoughts on leadership challenges in the digital economy. (Fast Company, June 1999)
  
  
• The Leader of the Future
  Ronald Heifetz, director of the Leadership Education Project at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, explores the changing role of leaders and provides ideas and techniques for leaders of the future. (Fast Company, June 1999)
  
  
• How To Be a Great E-Ceo
  Making fast decisions with limited information is only one of the many challenges of an e-CEO. Fortune Magazine explores how leaders in the digital landscape balance the demands of high-growth, Wall Street expectations, and fierce competition while moving at the speed of the Internet. (Fortune, May 24, 1999)
  
  

• Achieving and Maintaining Strategic Competitiveness in the 21^st Century:  The Role of Strategic Leadership
  Competition in the 21^st century’s global economy will be complex, challenging, and filled with competitive opportunities and threats.  Effective strategic leadership practices can help firms enhance performance while competing in turbulent and unpredictable environments.  The purpose of this paper is to describe six components of effective strategic leadership.  When the activities called for by these components are completed successfully, the firm’s strategic leadership practices can become a source of competitive advantage.  In turn, use of this advantage can contribute significantly to achieving strategic competitiveness and earning above-average returns in the next century.  (Academy of Management Executive, February 1999, Vol. 13, No. 1)
  
  

• Global Leadership Skills and Reputational Capital:  Intangible Resources for Sustainable Competitive Advantage
  The global leadership skills of behavioral complexity and stewardship development that contribute to corporate reputational capital are key intangible resources that leverage sustainable competitive advantage in the 21^st century.  Two lessons at the firm and industry-level on the impact of inadequate global leadership and wasted reputational capital are examined.  Four management practices for improving strategic competitiveness are provided:  global leadership skills, executive oversight responsibilities for global corporate reputation, an annual global reputational audit, and global awards and rankings to focus momentum on the key intangible resources for sustainable competitive advantage in the 21^st century.  (Academy of Management Executive, February 1999, Vol. 13, No. 1)
  
  

• OM Business Week Articles
  Various links to articles from Business Week covering the management of various business functions and processes:  ERP, quality, service, inventory, location, supply chain and logistics, capacity, manufacturing, productivity, and IT. 
  
  

• Leading in an Era of Constant Change
  Andersen Consulting explores the evolving roll of executive leadership in the “Knowledge Era” and considers the changing business operating paradigm as a catalyst for a developing a new model of leadership.

• Lonely at the Top
  Venture Capital firms often pick top talent to take over for Net company founders as they prepare to go public, but they’re finding the pool of CEO-caliber professionals is limited. In this article, Business 2.0 asks the VC firms what kind of expertise they’re looking for and how much they’re paying for it. (Business 2.0, June 1999)
  
• Title Search
  Selecting the right leader for an ecommerce business or division is a complex process. CIO Web Business explores the questions: Should the CEO have an IT background? Should companies look externally to hire or promote from within? And should the web-business be a separate organizational unit entirely? (CIO Web Business Magazine, February 1, 1999)

• East Meets West:  Insights from the Chinese E-revolution
  China and its one billion-plus population have long been the envy of the business community, ranging from huge international consumer goods companies to feisty entrepreneurs with an idea to sell or a niche to exploit. Nowhere is the potential for gain more evident than the lucrative Internet business.  But for those who find it difficult just to navigate the Internet revolution in the U.S., understanding the Chinese market can be overwhelming. Experience from the Internet frontier can be invaluable.  (Knowledge@Wharton,  March 1-14, 2000)
  
  
• VerticalNet Bets on the B2B Market
  This company's goal is to create virtual B2B bazaars where participants can do everything from exchange basic information to finalize e-commerce deals.  Mark Walsh, CEO describes the company strategy and where he plans to take it under his leadership.
  
  
• Is Latin America Ready for E-Business?
  See how the traditional Latin American companies are being reinvented by their leaders to become global players in the new economy. (Knowledge@Wharton, February 2-15,  2000)
  
  
• Infosys Maps Strategies for the Internet Age
  India's software industry is on a roll.  Jitendra Singh, vice dean of international academic affairs at Wharton, recently spoke to N.R. Narayana Murthy, Chairman and CEO about the factors underlying growth at Infosys and the company's strategy for the future.

Case Studies

• E*Entity Part I and E*Entity Part II
  Richard L. Thompson and Lawrence G. Braitman, co-founders of Flycast Communications, an Internet-based advertising firm, teamed up with Wharton professor Arie P. Schinnar in October to launch E*Entity, a business accelerator that helps jump-start fledgling Internet businesses. In this two part article, Knowledge@Wharton explores how Braitman, Schinnar and Thompson began their company, defined their mission and identified their client base.  (Knowledge@Wharton,  December, 1999 and February 2-15,  2000)
  

Books

Shona L Brown, Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos (Harvard Business School Press, 1998).  

Phil Carpenter, eBrands: Building an Internet Business at Breakneck Speed (Harvard Business School Press, 1999). 

Clayton M Christiansen, The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (HarperBusiness, 2000). 

Larry Downes and Chunka Mui, Unleashing the Killer App: Digital Strategies for Market Dominance (Harvard Business School Press, 1998).    

Philip Evans and Thomas S. Wurster, Blown to Bits:  How the New Economics of Information Transforms Strategy (Harvard Business School Press, 1999)

Amir Hartman and John Kador, Net Ready: Strategies for Success in the E-conomy (McGraw-Hill, 2000).

Stephan H. Haeckel and Adrian K. Slywotsky, Adaptive Enterprise: Creating and Leading Sense-and-Respond Organizations (Harvard Business School Press, 1999).  

Ravi Kalakota and Marcia Robinson, E-Business: Roadmap for Success (Addison-Wesley, 1999). 

Joan Magretta, editor, Managing in the New Economy (Harvard Business School Press, 1999).  

Geoffrey A. Moore, Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers (HarperBusiness, 1999).   

Geoffrey A. Moore, Inside the Tornado: Marketing Strategies from Silicon Valley's Cutting Edge (HarperCollins, 1999). 

Books include include suggestions from Jennifer Streitwieser of CoreTech Consulting Group.