Knowledge@Wharton Business Research Journal

Post SOPA, What Is the Next Frontier for Internet Copyright Protection?

The Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act, bills aimed at curbing Internet piracy, sparked polarizing debate, including some websites going dark in protest. Both pieces of legislation have been shelved, but the core issues remain unresolved. The overriding question is how to regulate the Internet enough to protect intellectual property, while not violating individual freedoms and curbing innovation. Wharton faculty members clarify the issues and offer ideas about how they can be addressed.

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What's Wrong with This Picture: Kodak's 30-year Slide into Bankruptcy

When new technologies change the world, some companies are caught off-guard. Others see change coming and are able to adapt in time. And then there are companies like Kodak -- which saw the future and simply couldn't figure out what to do. Kodak's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing on January 19 culminates a long series of missteps, including a fear of introducing new technologies that would disrupt its highly profitable film business.

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Davos 2012: 'Joblessness and Its Discontents'

Optimism was in short supply at the 2012 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which ended on Sunday. As Wharton management professor Michael Useem reports below, keynote speakers and panelists alike focused on a number of problems that are getting in the way of global prosperity. Chief among them is unemployment, followed by a shortage of highly-trained workers needed to spur innovation and solve social challenges. On the bright side, Useem notes, is the rapid growth of emerging economies.

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Customer Analytics: A New Lifeline for the Red Cross and Other Nonprofits?

When a major disaster occurs, the result is an outpouring of aid, often in the form of donations to nonprofits like the American Red Cross. But once the dramatic images and news headlines begin to fade, donors often disappear as well. The question for groups like the Red Cross is how to identify and reach out to those one-time givers who are most likely to become regular donors. The answer may lie in the world of customer analytics -- the collection and mining of data on individual consumer behavior that is already revolutionizing how for-profit businesses operate.

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Research Roundup: The 'Flip Side' of Open Innovation, Productivity Losses from Bad Weather and Assessing the Risks of Outsourcing

Open innovation is gaining in popularity, but when should companies be concerned with protecting their own knowledge? Most people expect bad weather to negatively impact business conducted outdoors, but what are its implications in industries where work is primarily done inside? How can companies use risk management techniques to better assess the potential downsides of hiring contract or temporary workers? Wharton professors Felipe Monteiro, Gerard Cachon and Peter Cappelli, respectively, examine these issues -- and what they mean for business -- in recent research articles.

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One, Two, Three Free Trade Agreements: Finally, a New Era for Global Trade?

Nearly five years after the Bush administration first negotiated free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama, revised versions of those pacts were finally approved by the U.S. Congress last fall and will be implemented during 2012. Although global companies reacted with an anti-climactic sense of relief, many trade analysts welcomed the new opportunities that the pacts will open for U.S. exporters, and predicted more such agreements to come.

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