There are a lot of interesting theories and methodologies about effective business management practices, but, in many cases, there’s not as much on-the-ground evidence that these so-called “best practices” make a firm more profitable. New research from Harvard Business School takes a hard look at the use of one such methodology: the ISO 9001 Standard [...]

If the US hopes to maintain an international leadership position in education and human capital, it needs to do a better job of learning from other countries, societies, and institutions that often do a better job of preparing young people to prosper in the 21st century economy. A new report from the National Governors Association, [...]

The latest issue of The New York Times’ Education Life supplement contains an interesting look at the growth of entrepreneurship education on college campuses. As part of this article, Education Life also lists “23 Bright Ideas,” i.e., interesting inventions and innovations developed by current college students. Some these bright ideas include: gluten-free Play-Doh (known as [...]

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and its Technology Innovation Program (TIP) are looking for some good ideas. They have recently announced a call for White Papers from all interested parties who have thoughts and suggestions for “critical national needs” that could be addressed via the TIP initiative. TIP is designed to make [...]

Invest $30 billion in America’s information technology (IT) infrastructure, and you may create as many as 949,000 jobs. That’s the bottom line number for a new economic stimulus package proposed last week by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). ITIF researchers argue that the economic stimulus package should not be used only to build [...]

What regions of the world are the most business-friendly when it comes to corporate taxation policies? A new PricewaterhouseCoopers study benchmarks how 181 countries stack up on three key tax policy-related metrics: 1) The total tax rate, 2) The time taken to comply with tax rules, and 3) The number of required tax payments. The [...]

Entrepreneur magazine’s 2009 Franchise 500 has just been released. Subway takes the top spot in 2009, topping 2008’s top franchise: 7-Eleven. Subway, which operates more than 30,000 restaurants in 87 countries, has long dominated the Franchise 500 list. It has held the top spot for eight of the past ten years. Other franchises in the top [...]

What factors differentiate fast-growing national economies from the rest of the world? A new article in the World Bank’s Finance & Development magazine examines 13 national economies that have succeeded in growing at an average annual rate exceeding seven percent for at least 25 straight years. That’s a pretty high standard that few countries can achieve. The [...]

The Wall Street Journal’s entrepreneurship blog, The Independent Street, has made its predictions for what might happen in the world of entrepreneurship in 2009. As with all economic sectors, the world of entrepreneurs will be dominated by how they respond to the economic downturn. As such, blogger Kelly Spors predicts a major uptick in entrepreneurial activity [...]

Great Britain’s Department of Innovation, Universities, and Skills has taken a close look at Britain’s innovation performance in its newly released Annual Innovation Report 2008. This first annual report follows up on the British government’s Innovation Nation White Paper published in March 2008 and the Sainsbury review of science and innovation published in 2007. If [...]