Research

The tentative contract agreement that assigned a role to the United Auto Workers in managing the healthcare costs of its General Motors members was a turning point in the relationship between business and labor — and a sign of things to come in a global economy.

PetSmart was designed to be a category killer with dominant prices and dominant variety when it was founded in the late 1980s, and the concept worked well for the company's first decade. But by the late 1990s the company was losing steam.

Last week's job growth report indicated that some 89,000 jobs were added to the economy nationally in August, and another 110,000 in September. That means the average monthly job growth for 2007 will hover around 125,000 per month — down from the 160,000 average in 2006 and 175,000 in 2005.

Creating a great product or service is just the first step on a company's road to success. It's also necessary for your potential customers to know about that great product or service. So how does a company go about developing a successful customer focus strategy?

In September, the U.S. and Mexican governments took a tentative first step towards the final goal of allowing unfettered shipping between the two nations — a measure agreed upon under NAFTA but delayed since 1995.

Where would YouTube be today if not for its millions of users? What good would Wikipedia be without all of those contributors? And how successful could IKEA possibly be if its customers weren't willing to assemble their own furniture?

Supply Chain Managment professor Scott Webster has teamed up with researchers from Iowa State University to analyze the effectivenenss of the "bucket brigade" of factory and assembly line production. Using a series of computer simulations, they identified conditions under which storage decis

If you are in the market for a house, the news is good: Sellers will answer your calls and consider your offer.

Dan Hesse was named CEO of Sprint since December 2007. A recognized leader in the mobile technology sector, Hesse recently added the lifetime achievement award from Corporate Responsibility Magazine to his list of accolades.

January — usually the slowest month of the year for home sales — turned out to be the second quietest in 14 years.