The 'Fancy Layaway': Creating a Market for Unique, Online and High-end Fashion

When Aslaug Magnusdottir started going to the top runway fashion shows in Milan, Paris and New York, she often thought about the wasted opportunity that designers were missing. "Because not many women could come to these shows, they were completely shut out of buying the fashion there," said Magnusdottir. She -- and Moda Operandi -- set out to change that.

Upset about Political Bias in the Media? Blame Economics

News organizations are often accused -- and in some cases, outright acknowledge -- that their coverage is biased toward a particular end of the political spectrum. In a new paper, Wharton marketing professor Pinar Yildirim and her co-authors argue that the slant in coverage does not stem from the personal beliefs of a newspaper's corporate owners or staff, but rather from the economics of trying to attract and retain both readers and advertisers.

Google Glass: Can 'Tech Cool' Become 'Market Cool'?

With the introduction of Google Glass, an effort to create and market computerized eyewear, Google has captured the imagination of technologists, consumers and even sketch comedy show "Saturday Night Live," while also raising a number of social and privacy issues. Experts at Wharton say that the Google Glass experiment will be important to watch from a business, marketing and cultural perspective, and they add that no one -- including Google -- has any clue how the search giant's efforts will play out.

Investing in Gold: Does It Stack Up?

Gold has a timeless allure -- especially if you worry about stock market volatility, inflation, a decay of ordinary currency or the collapse of civilization. Yet not everyone agrees that gold offers the safe haven its promoters describe. How reliable can demand be for a commodity that very few people actually need? What is the proper role for gold in an investment portfolio? Why has its price been falling?

Are Pop-up Stores Here to Stay?

Pop-up retail -- storefronts that open for a few days to sell products, launch a brand and/or create buzz -- has attracted business owners, landlords and customers alike. What is driving the trend, under what conditions is it most profitable and does it have legs?

With Austerity Under Fire, Countries Seek a More Balanced Solution

Six years after the onset of the global financial crisis, economists and policymakers continue to fight bitterly over how to tackle the world's economic woes. Is fiscal stimulus or fiscal austerity the best medicine? Austerity advocates have largely won out -- until now. With many nations still struggling, and the findings of an influential study supporting austerity now under attack, backlash against that strategy is growing. The question is: Where can troubled countries go from here?

Balancing the Pay Scale: 'Fair' vs. 'Unfair'

Whether you are a shelf stocker at Walmart or an equity analyst at an investment bank, you may feel that you are not adequately compensated for the work you do -- in other words, you are underpaid. But underpaid relative to what? How do employers determine whether compensation is fair, and if it's not, what consequences can that have for the organization?

Beth Comstock and GE: Imagining the Future

Beth Comstock, a senior vice president and chief marketing officer at General Electric, thinks everyone should embrace change, accept challenges and never fear failure. It is advice that has helped her continue to grow in her career at NBC, CBS and now GE, where, among other things, she convinced the CEO to support a new slogan for the company: "imagination at work." Comstock offered her thoughts during a Wharton Leadership Lecture.

Research Roundup: Foreign Diversification, Social Comparisons and Consumer Identity

Is investing in foreign stocks still a good strategy for offsetting risk and boosting returns in your portfolio? How do social comparisons impact the different dimensions of trust that people can have for each other? How can companies use emotional cues to convey a particular identity to consumers? Wharton professors Karen Lewis, Maurice Schweitzer and Patti Williams, respectively, examined these issues -- and what they mean for business and consumers -- in recent research papers.

As Crowdfunding Grows, the Rewards Increase -- but So Do the Risks

As the recent successful campaign to fund a movie based on the television show "Veronica Mars" proves, crowdfunding is now recognized as a reliable funding avenue for both start-ups and established firms. But the growth of the sector also creates more regulatory challenges and raises questions about the risks that funders take when they put their money behind a project.

Using Community Libraries to Create Social Change in Rural South Asia

READ Global, an international non-profit that uses community libraries as a platform for creating social change in rural villages throughout India, Bhutan and Nepal, is the winner of the second annual Barry & Marie Lipman Family Prize awarded to an organization that is creating social impact through leadership and innovation. Wharton administers the prize on behalf of the University of Pennsylvania. Michael Useem, director of Wharton's Center for Leadership and Change Management, recently interviewed Tina Sciabica, executive director of READ Global. (Video with transcript)

Productivity in the Modern Office: A Matter of Impact

More than 50 years after management guru Peter Drucker first wrote about the difficulty of defining and measuring the productivity of knowledge workers, management experts say many companies still do a poor job of it. To get a better gauge of how much employees are accomplishing, experts say managers need to remember that quality is often as important, if not more so, than quantity, and that blanket policies rarely remedy such a highly individualized issue.

Wharton's 2013 Business Plan Competition: Health Care, Kids, Fashion and More

Finalists in this year's Wharton Business Plan Competition proposed innovations to disrupt areas including health care, used car sales, children's retail and fashion. On the day of judgment last month, eight teams described their business plan and potential market, with several thousand dollars in prize money on the line. Check out descriptions of each plan, and see if you can guess the winner.

What Eyewear Startup Warby Parker Sees That Others Don't

Warby Parker has vision. The e-commerce startup known for its $95 retro-cool frames has attracted a steady stream of customers and top-notch investors. And just last month in New York City, the company opened its first free-standing store which, according to co-founder Neil Blumenthal, represents "uncharted territory ... the convergence of e-commerce and bricks and mortar. The idea that it's one or the other is ridiculous," he says. "E-commerce as a term will become obsolete in five or six years."

Adobe's Shift to the Cloud: Is This the Start of a Trend?

Adobe, the leading software company targeting creative professionals, is exiting the shrink-wrap software business in favor of subscription-based software and online "cloud" services. While perhaps painful at first, the business model change will be ultimately beneficial for consumers and Adobe alike, and other software companies are likely to follow, say experts at Wharton.

Fueling Growth in Uncertain Times

Wall Street and Capitol Hill are in different cities, but where dialog on major economic issues is concerned, they might as well be on different continents. To bridge this gap, the Wharton School recently launched the Wharton Public Policy Initiative. On March 7, the Initiative hosted its first major event, the Wharton Economic Summit, in New York City. In this special report, Knowledge@Wharton covers themes from the Summit, which opened with a discussion on leadership between GE CEO Jeff Immelt and Michael Useem, director of Wharton's Center for Leadership and Change Management. Other articles -- based on sessions at the summit -- deal with health care, innovation, real estate and energy.

Housing Has Bounced Back, but Capitol Hill Holds the Key to a Sustained Recovery

Housing demand in the U.S. is back, fueled by low interest rates and government subsidies. But a sustained recovery depends on legislative reforms to improve housing supply and encourage builders. Reforms will take time, but meanwhile investors have found new business niches in single-family home rentals and in buying distressed assets worldwide. Eventually, the American dream of home ownership will shore up the industry's fortunes, according to panelists at the Wharton Economic Summit 2013.

Why Innovation Is Tough to Define -- and Even Tougher to Cultivate

While most people would agree that they are in favor of innovation, providing a succinct definition or example of it is a tougher question, noted participants in a panel on the topic at the Wharton Economic Summit 2013. In addition to offering their personal definitions of truly game-changing discoveries, panelists also discussed the role of the government and the U.S. education system in fostering a new generation of entrepreneurs and innovators.

GE's Jeff Immelt on Leadership, Global Risk and Growth

GE CEO Jeff Immelt runs a $240-billion company that operates in 160 countries. He recently sat down for a candid discussion about leadership with Wharton management professor Michael Useem at the Wharton Economic Summit 2013 in New York City. Their conversation covered themes such as competitive advantage, global risk management, public policy, mentorship, growth strategies and even the toughest decision of Immelt?s professional career.

The Future of Health Care: The Prognosis Is Optimistic

There’s cause for optimism about the future of health care, according to panelists who discussed the topic at the Wharton Economic Summit 2013. While the panelists agreed on the enormity of the challenges posed by rising health care costs, increased demand and the need to rein in spending while still being patient-centric, all believed that the outlook for health care would be better by the end of the decade.