Market Watch (December 16)
“AI brings efficiency, but it lacks the empathy and emotional intelligence inherent to humans. So although AI can be a useful tool for management and leadership, CEOs must ensure that the human touch in customer relations, employee management, company culture and business decision-making remains prominent. If these become overly-automated, they’ll lose the power to create human connection, eroding trust in the process.”
Tags: AI, Business decision-making, Company culture, Customer relations, Efficiency, Emotional intelligence, Empathy, Human touch, Management, Overly-automated, Trust
Bloomberg (July 12)
Itochu’s unconventional “tough love worked.” A decade after banning overtime after 8:00 PM, profit per employee has increased fivefold. “What also changed, to the surprise of Itochu’s management, is that more female employees took maternity leave, had kids and came back to work.” This raises the question, “could similar changes help East Asia’s flagging birthrate?”
Tags: 8:00 PM, Banning, Birthrate, East Asia, Employees, Female, Itochu, Kids, Management, Maternity leave, Overtime, Profit, Unconventional
Seeking Alpha (May 7)
“Berkshire Hathaway holds $130 billion in cash. That is over 18% of the company’s market cap. Clearly, management is not confident in the near term outlook of U.S. equity markets” in light of “the increasing preponderance of data that supports lower growth and lower earnings. The U.S. has certainly experienced an incredible period of growth and profits over the last 3 years. That phase is coming to an end.”
Tags: $130 billion, Berkshire Hathaway, Cash, Confident, Data, Earnings, Equity markets, Lower growth, Management, Market-cap, Near term, Outlook, Profits, U.S.
Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance (September 18)
ESG “is not a unitary principle or even a collection of a fixed set of particular principles. Rather, ESG encapsulates the range of risks that all corporations must carefully balance, taking into account their specific circumstances, in seeking to achieve long-term, sustainable value.” The ESG label may be new, but “corporate boards and management have long considered ESG factors and risks in setting and executing strategy…. Doing so is associated with superior financial results, and consistent with long-accepted norms as to the place of business in society.”
Tags: Balance, Boards, Circumstances, Corporations, ESG, Financial results, Fixed, Management, Principle, Range, Risks, Society, Strategy, Sustainable, Value
The Economist (April 9)
“Toshiba was once synonymous with Japan’s industrial might.” Over the past decade, it “has become a byword for drama,” which has included accounting fraud and an ongoing “series of ‘slapstick’ struggles between management and shareholders.” A possible buy-out led by Bain Capital has “raised hopes among investors for some sort of resolution to the saga.” This could potentially prove a watershed moment and “be a big deal for Japan.”
Tags: Accounting fraud, Bain Capital, Buy-out, Drama, Hopes, Industrial might, Investors, Japan, Management, Shareholders, Slapstick, Struggles, Toshiba
Wall Street Journal (December 2)
“Like much of corporate America today, the Nasdaq is virtue signaling at the expense of someone else. This is far from its reason for being, which is a marketplace to raise money while spreading the benefits of capitalism and corporate ownership. Imposing its own identity politics on some 3,300 listed companies meddles in corporate management and will harm economic growth and job creation.” [Nasdaq is seeking minimum quotas of women and minority/LGBTQ directors on corporate boards.]
Tags: Capitalism, Corporate America, Growth, Identity politics, Job creation, Management, Marketplace, Money, Nasdaq, Ownership, Virtue signaling
Bloomberg (July 3)
“Strenuous efforts by Chinese regulators to ensure market stability are having the opposite effect.” The rationale is unimportant. “Whether such efforts are meant to protect important companies, stabilize markets or avoid national embarrassment, they’re preventing China’s markets from growing up. And it’s increasingly clear that they’re unnecessary.” Furthermore, “infantilizing Chinese firms…prevents the professionalization of management and improvements in corporate governance.”
Tags: China, Corporate governance, Embarrassment, Infantilizing, Management, Market stability, Professionalization, Rationale, Regulators
Financial Times (June 7)
“Change seems inevitable. Japan’s traditional reliance on seniority-based management is crumbling fast, and there is a clear sense of alarm as Toyota, Panasonic and Sony all talk about hiring international talent with both the broader skills and mindset to survive the next wave of technological innovation.”
Tags: Alarm, Change, Inevitable, International, Japan, Management, Mindset, Panasonic, Reliance, Seniority based, Skills, Sony, Talent, Technological innovation, Toyota, Traditional
Washington Post (June 1)
“Even as the Trump administration’s commitment to the [Paris] climate accord wavered, the Exxon vote showed that climate concerns were gaining ground in the business world.” BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street apparently cast their “shares in opposition to Exxon management.” Their success “marked an important step for groups that have been trying to force corporations to adopt greater disclosure and transparency about the financial fallout of climate change.” Ultimately, 62.3% of shares cast were against ExxonMobil management, effectively forcing “the oil giant to report on the impact of global measures designed to keep climate change to 2 degrees centigrade.”
Tags: BlackRock, Climate, Disclosure, Exxon, Fallout, Impact, Management, Opposition, Paris accord, State Street, Transparency, Trump, Vanguard
LA Times (August 28)
The U.S. is undergoing de-masculinization. “Our gender turfs were once distinct—women never grabbed a grease gun, nor men a flour sifter. But they become more intermingled with each passing year.” There are now more female drivers than male drivers. Stay-at-home dads, rather than moms, are now present in over 2 million homes. And “women are now the majority of top-performing college students headed toward jobs in middle and upper management.”
Tags: De-masculinization, Drivers, Gender, Jobs, Management, Men, Stay-at-home, U.S., Women
