Management

The paper reviews the relevance of formal financial services – and in particular savings – to poor people, the economic factors that have hindered the mass-scale delivery of such services in developing countries, and the technology-based opportunities that exist today to make massive gains in financial inclusion. We also highlight the benefits to government...
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The clean-tech innovations that will solve the world’s most urgent environmental problems might come from where we least expect it: by first serving the needs of consumers at the base of the economic pyramid, says Stuart Hart, a professor of management at Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management and chairman of the university’s Center...
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We are like dogs. We respond better to success than we do failures. Scads of platitudes have been written about learning from failure, and while it is possible to learn great lessons from life’s clunkers, neuroscience now shows us that nothing succeeds like success. Negative consequence Have you ever had that golf game, presentation...
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Academics in Africa and the West say that the development of local case studies is the best way to give business students the tools they need to manage multinationals and to create small businesses that improve livelihoods and create jobs. Africa needs more good news stories. For that matter, it also needs as many...
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Where do Kenyans access reliable credit? The unlikely answer — at their neighbourhood kiosk. It took a 2007 study to unveil this basic truth. The findings turned conventional logic on borrowing on its head. The study showed that the ubiquitous shopkeeper found in every estate, village and even footpath is the most frequent source...
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Mary Ellen Iskenderian remembers the moment when she discovered her purpose in life. As a child, her parents often took her to visit her father’s family in Turkey where she saw, for the first time, people living in utter poverty. She remembers thinking, “I don’t want to spend my life looking the other way.”...
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STEVE EMBER:  I’m Steve Ember. BARBARA KLEIN:  And I’m Barbara Klein with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. Today we talk about a method that helps provide low-income people with the financial services they need to improve their lives. Organizations around the world are showing how microfinance methods can help lift poor people out of...
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The World Bank has launched a multi billion shilling project to boost agricultural productivity among smallholder farmers in Eastern and the Horn of Africa to end reliance on expensive food imports. The programme, under the bank’s 12-year adaptable programme loans (APL), seeks to establish centres of excellence in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia and...
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Whether in energy, healthcare or micro-investing, is there a real business model in sustaining the world’s resources and improving the quality of life for its inhabitants? INSEAD Knowledge attended the IESE Net Impact Doing Good and Doing Well conference in Barcelona recently, and found evidence that many companies and individuals are finding there are...
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There is a new management job in town, whose job description goes beyond simply managing people and money. It is called Knowledge Management (KM). Three conferences have been held in Africa to fine-tune this new management concept–one in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2005, the second in Nairobi on July 2007, and the latest one...
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