Since taking over as CEO of Zappos, Tony Hsieh has vowed to do whatever it takes to keep his employees, customers, and vendors happy. He told a business school audience his strategy leads to profits in the end.
More than half of companies today cannot immediately name a successor to their CEO should the need arise, according to new research conducted by Heidrick & Struggles and Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University. The survey of more than 140 CEOs and board directors of North American public and private companies reveals critical lapses in CEO succession planning.
In some manufacturing environments, having workers engage in just-in-time production—maintaining production quotas without any inventory stockpiling or project overhang to the next day—can actually cause motivational problems and increase costs. The answer is to make sure employees' pay is tied to their actual productivity—and that means allowing for bad days and, consequently, some inventory...
Hiring people who embrace the hotel's customer-focused credo has made the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts chain a success, Founder Isadore Sharp told the Entrepreneurship Conference at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. And giving the firm's front-line employees power to make decisions has added to that.
Pulin Sanghvi, MBA '97, has been named assistant dean and director of the Career Management Center which offers career counseling and placement services for business school students.