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Lost In Austin - The Evolution Of An American City

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After a dozen years as a market research executive, Fred Phillips was professor, dean, and vice provost at a variety of universities in the US, Europe, and South America. He is now Visiting Professor... Read More »

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12 Common Mistakes In Empirical Social Science

12 Common Mistakes In Empirical Social Science

Dec 29 2014 | comment(s)

Management students entering my thesis prep course without having been involved in research before, or taken a probability course, reliably make these mistakes. Many students go on to do empirical quantitative theses, meaning that their misconceptions about sampling and analysis will come back to bite them.
Companies In Rehab (And Governments. And Universities.)

Companies In Rehab (And Governments. And Universities.)

Dec 24 2014 | comment(s)

A guy messes up his life, and the lives of those around him. We send him for rehabilitation: A jail term, AA meetings, community service, anger management classes, or restitution to victims.

Ah, Cuba

Ah, Cuba

Dec 19 2014 | comment(s)

Ah, Cuba. My father’s college roommate’s mother – are you following so far? – was a travel agent, and had gone on one of these agent junkets to Havana. She danced with the dictator Batista at a formal ball, and returned to the US with stars in her eyes. When my parents married, nothing would do, she insisted, but for them to honeymoon in Cuba.

Cui Bono? B-corporations And The University

Cui Bono? B-corporations And The University

Nov 01 2014 | comment(s)

California and Arizona recently began registering ‘benefit corporations.’ A small California non-profit university with which I’m acquainted has commenced the transition to for-profit, b-corp status.
The Resource Curse: Science Cities Suffer

The Resource Curse: Science Cities Suffer

Oct 20 2014 | comment(s)

I just returned from the Asian Science Park Association conference in Shiraz, Iran.[1] One Science Park official asked me, “Companies in our park cannot get any cooperation from the big petrochemical firms. What can we do?”
Theory Of Externalities, And Why We’ve Come To Hate Tech Companies

Theory Of Externalities, And Why We’ve Come To Hate Tech Companies

Sep 18 2014 | comment(s)

Google buses yuppifying San Francisco. Facebook creepily profiling us. iCloud giving up our pubes to hacker paparazzi. We poured our faith and money into these companies, and now we feel like jilted lovers.

Apple once made “the computer for the rest of us.” OK, we always knew Google wanted world domination, but we thought it would be benevolent.