Open for Business http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/ A blog about business and economics news and information sources. en-us Copyright 2009 Mon, 31 Aug 2009 13:36:05 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification Corporations as Curators?

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A recent article from the New York Times, explores the trend of banks and other businesses acting as curators for major art exhibitions. Corporations like JP Morgan Chase and UBS have long owned extensive art collections, and many of these works have been loaned to museums for display. But recently corporate entities like Bank of America have played a curatorial role in the development of new exhibitions. Does this undermine the importance of curatorial independence on the part of the exhibiting museum? Does corporate sponsorship lead to artistic compromise and commercialization? Read the full article here.

]]> http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2009/08/corporations-as-curators.html http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2009/08/corporations-as-curators.html Mon, 31 Aug 2009 13:36:05 -0500 Booklist's Top Ten Business Books, 2008 These are mainly popular (as opposed to scholarly) business books.

The Big Switch. By Nicholas Carr. Norton, $25.95 (9780393062281).


Biography of the Dollar: How the Mighty Buck Conquered the World and Why It’s Under Siege. By Craig Karmin. Crown Business, $25.95 (0-307-33986-6).


A Bull in China: Investing Profitably in the World’s Greatest Market. By Jim Rogers. Random, $26.95 (1-4000-6616-6).


Commodore:The Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt. By Edward J. Renehan. Basic, $27.50 (0-465-00255-2). 


From Betamax to Blockbuster: Video Stores and the Invention of Movies on Video. By Joshua M. Greenberg. MIT, $24.95 (9780262072908).


The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation. By A. G. Lafley and Ram Charan. Crown Business, $27.50 (9780307381736).


How Toyota Became #1: Leadership Lessons from the World’s Greatest Car Company. By David Magee. Portfolio, $25.95 (9781591841791).


It’s Not about the Money: Unlock Your Money Type to Achieve Spiritual and Financial Abundance. By Brent Kessel. HarperOne, $24.95 (9780061234064).


The Middle-Class Millionaire: The Rise of the New Rich and How They Are Changing America. By Russ Alan Prince and Lewis Schiff. Doubleday/Currency, $23.95 (0-385-51927-3). 


A Sense of Urgency. By John P. Kotter. Harvard Business, $22 (9781422179710).

]]> http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/10/booklist.html http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/10/booklist.html Thu, 16 Oct 2008 10:10:46 -0500 "Author"/"Pirate": Literary theory in the global commerce in ideas "Author"/"Pirate": Literary theory in the global commerce in ideas
FOREIGN LITERATURE STUDIES 30 (4): 140-154 AUG 2008

China's rich history of communal ownership of ideas places scholars specializing in Chinese literary theory In a unique position to reflect critically on today's alarming trend toward privatization in the sphere of ideas, information and knowledge. This trend is being driven by U. S. and E. U. software, entertainment and pharmaceutical industries, and China is today one of the chief targets of their campaign against information sharing. This essay focuses on the role that modern European literary theory has played in this trend. At the center of copyright and patent law is an individualistic model of creativity-termed "authorship" and "invention," respectively-which the law has inherited from literary theory, specifically, the body of theory that has come down to us from European Romanticism. In literary studies in the wake of structuralism and poststructuralism this individualistic vision has been giving way to more collaborative models of creative activ! ity, but the same cannot be said for the law. The essay examines how Romantic rhetoric operates in present-day copyright to construct authorial "others" such as the back, the plagiarist, and the pirate. The larger aim of the essay is to draw scholars specializing in Chinese literary theory into a growing international research collaborative devoted to the history and theory of intellectual property.
]]> http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/10/authorpirate-literary-theory-i.html http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/10/authorpirate-literary-theory-i.html Economcs Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:17:56 -0500 Financial Panics A brief look at financial panics, past and present.

Vast Bailout by U.S. Proposed in Bid to Stem Financial Crisis
from New York Times, September 19, 2008

The Financial Crisis: Fed Lent $121 Billion on Week
from Wall Street Journal, September 19, 2008

Panic of 1907
from The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics

Financial Panics and Crises
from The Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History

]]> http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/09/financial-panics.html http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/09/financial-panics.html Business Economcs Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:49:27 -0500 Why currency of information is important.... It's not uncommon for students to use information from the Web in research papers without closely evaluating it. One of criteria for evaluation should always be "currency" of the information. The Washington Post recently gave an excellent example of investors often make the same mistake.  It has real world consequences. Take a look at the following article:

2002's News, Yesterday's Sell-Off, Sept. 9, 2008


In these jittery times, let's hope that most investors are making decisions based on current, reliable information!

]]> http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/09/why-currency-of-information-is.html http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/09/why-currency-of-information-is.html Business Economcs Thu, 18 Sep 2008 08:57:04 -0500 Discussion of Bailouts on Democracy Now discussion (written and in audio) with Nomi Prins (journalist and former investment banker) and Michael Hudson (Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City) on AIG and the other recent bailouts.
]]> http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/09/discussion-of-bailouts-on-demo.html http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/09/discussion-of-bailouts-on-demo.html Economcs Wed, 17 Sep 2008 11:40:14 -0500 Economic Malaise Goes to the Movies America’s much-discussed economic crisis has found its way to the big screen with I.O.U.S.A., a documentary that explores the causes of what filmmaker and former director of the Government Accountability Office, David Walker, calls our nation’s “fiscal cancer”. Check out the trailer below, and read a full article on the film at from The Economist.





]]> http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/08/economic-malaise-goes-to-the-m.html http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/08/economic-malaise-goes-to-the-m.html Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:06:50 -0500 Cato Institute Daily Podcast The Cato Institute has a daily podcast covering economic and political issues, both national and international. Here's the RSS feed: http://www.cato.org/rss/daily_podcast.xml.

Go here to the daily podcast homepage to see recent topics:
http://www.cato.org/dailypodcast/podcast-archive.php.


Subject Guide: Economics ]]> http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/07/cato-institute-daily-podcast.html http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/07/cato-institute-daily-podcast.html Economcs Tue, 29 Jul 2008 07:56:48 -0500 Starbucks to close 600 stores! here.


]]> http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/07/starbucks-to-close-600-stores.html http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/07/starbucks-to-close-600-stores.html Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:47:37 -0500 Enclosures in 18th Century Britain In Our Time is a BBC radio program hosted by Melvyn Bragg that deals with a lot of interesting intellectual topics.  Recently, he had an excellent program on enclosures in 18th century Britain.  The Contributors were:

Rosemary Sweet, Director of the Centre for Urban History at the University of Leicester
Murray Pittock, Bradley Professor of English Literature at the University of Glasgow
Mark Overton, Professor of Economic and Social History at the University of Exeter.

And there's a short bibliography provided.  Check it out.  Have a listen.  
(Here's an article on Enclosures from the Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History.)

---Fred Rowland
. ]]> http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/05/enclosures-in-18th-century-bri.html http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/05/enclosures-in-18th-century-bri.html Economcs Tue, 27 May 2008 08:34:29 -0500 Literature and Economics Web of Science that discusses the knowledge on development issues embedded within literary accounts. 

The fiction of development: Literary representation as a source of authoritative knowledge
JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT STUDIES 44 (2): 198-216 FEB 2008

ABSTRACT: "This article introduces and explores issues regarding the question of what constitute valid forms of development knowledge, focusing in particular on the relationship between fictional writing on development and more formal academic and policy-oriented representations of development issues. We challenge certain conventional notions about the nature of knowledge, narrative authority and representational form, and explore these by comparing and contrasting selected works of recent literary fiction that touch on development issues with academic and policy-related representations of the development process, thereby demonstrating the value of taking literary perspectives on development seriously. We find that not only are certain works of fiction 'better' than academic or policy research in representing central issues relating to development but they also frequently reach a wider audience and are therefore more influential. Moreover, the line between fact and fiction is a very fine one, and there can be significant advantages to fictional writing over non-fiction."


---Fred Rowland




]]> http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/04/literature-and-economics.html http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/04/literature-and-economics.html Economcs Mon, 28 Apr 2008 08:34:08 -0500 Trial for The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics Online PDE.jpgThrough May 7, 2008, the library is having a trial of the online edition of The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics Online (2nd Edition).  In addition to the excellent content, the interface is very slick, browseable alphabetically and by topic, an advanced search that allows you to limit search to full-text, bibliographies, contributors, article titles, abstracts, keywords, and by topic.

Kenneth J. Arrow, winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics, says "The New Palgrave will be an indispensable reference tool for both junior and senior scholars in economics and perhaps even more for the journalist or business executive. The topics are exhaustive."

Check it out today!    ]]> http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/04/trial-for-the-new-palgrave-dic.html http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/04/trial-for-the-new-palgrave-dic.html Economcs Mon, 14 Apr 2008 08:48:12 -0500 Standard and Poor's NetAdvantage For those of you interested in company or industry research—and particularly if you are looking for up-to-the-minute financial data on companies—please check out Standard and Poor’s NetAdvantage. This resource was very recently acquired by TU Libraries, and has proven very useful for students of finance, management, and marketing.

NetAdvantage includes current and retrospective profiles from S&P’s Industry Surveys, which provide information for all major industries covered by S&P. The database also provides extensive company information, including up-to-the-minute stock pricing data, executive information, and company financials. Most of this information is ready for export into customizable spreadsheets for further analysis.

Explore Standard and Poor’s NetAdvantage right here (use your AccessNet user ID and password to login) or access S&P and other electronic resources for business here.

]]> http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/04/standard-and-poors-netadvantag.html http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/04/standard-and-poors-netadvantag.html netadvantage s&p standardandpoors resources library temple Wed, 09 Apr 2008 16:56:13 -0500 Dogs and Pumas; NASA and Mars Bars: A New Look at Consumer Behavior and Buying Decisions Do the mundane things you encounter on a daily basis influence the brand of sneaker or toothpaste you choose to buy, even if those brands aren’t marketed to you directly? Can seeing dogs on your way to work influence you to buy Puma sneakers because of a seemingly insignificant quadruped connection? According to the recent findings of Wharton School marketing professor John Berger, the answer is yes. Read more about a recent study published by Berger with Grainne Fitzsimons, a psychology professor at University of Waterloo in Ontario, here.

]]> http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/04/dogs-and-pumas-nasa-and-mars-b.html http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/04/dogs-and-pumas-nasa-and-mars-b.html marketing consumer behavior buying psychology wharton berger fitzsimons advertising Wed, 02 Apr 2008 09:44:55 -0500 Euromonitor GMID now available through TU Libraries! As Business Librarian at Paley Library, I am pleased to announce the availability of Euromonitor’s Global Market Information Database (GMID). Euromonitor GMID covers various consumer, industrial, and service markets at the global, regional, and country levels. The database contains both statistical information as well as in-depth reports about specific industries in given geographies. What sets GMID apart from many other databases is that the market data presented are collected directly by Euromonitor representatives working in designated regions. In other words, the data are not simply gleaned from other information sources and then repackaged; the information you find here cannot be found in any other information source! If you are a student of finance, marketing, international business, or economics, GMID will likely help you with your research. Give it a try here (log in using your AccessNet user id and password).

]]> http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/04/euromonitor-gmid-now-available.html http://blog.library.temple.edu/open_for_business/archives/2008/04/euromonitor-gmid-now-available.html Wed, 02 Apr 2008 07:20:11 -0500