Case Study on Corporate Entrepreneurship: Steve Jobs of Apple

Corporate Entrepreneurship is broadly described as the process whereby an individual or a group of individuals, in association with an existing organization, create a new organization or instigate renewal or innovation within that organization. This definition includes two aspects of CE, a new business creation within existing organizations and renewal of the current strategy of the corporation. The vital notion is that corporations must capitalize on the entrepreneurial thinking of the managers to chase future evolution under changing and uncertain environments. Overall, studies suggest that Corporate Entrepreneurship activities are composed of three areas: idea generation, selection, and implementation or retention. Autonomy is an integral and central part of CE. Under conditions of change and uncertainty, providing autonomy to enterprising managers and encouraging them to elaborate on their own experience and ideas is a more promising approach than formal strategy development that relies solely on top management. It has been argued Continue reading

Commodity Derivatives

In the last 25 years, derivatives have become increasingly important in the world of trading. Futures and Options are now traded actively on many exchanges. A derivative can be defined as a financial instrument whose value depends upon (or derives from) the value of other basic underlying variables. Very often, the variables underlying derivatives are the prices of traded assets. For example, a commodity option is a derivative whose value is dependent on the price of a stock. The underlying variable can be anything. Active trading is happening in credit derivatives, electricity derivatives, weather derivatives, insurance derivatives etc. many new types of interest rate, foreign exchange and equity derivative products have been created. A commodity derivatives market (or exchange) is, in simple terms, nothing more or less than a public market place where commodities are contracted for purchase or sale at an agreed price for delivery at a specified date. Continue reading

Corporate Governance and Clause 49 of the Listing Agreement

SEBI revise Clause 49 of the Listing Agreement pertaining to corporate governance vide circular date October 29th, 2004, which superseded all other earlier circulars issued by SEBI on this subject.   All existing listed companies were required to comply with the provisions of the new clause by 31st December 2005. The major provisions included in the new Clause 49 are: The board will lay down a code of conduct for all board members and senior management of the company to compulsorily follow. The CEO an CFO will certify the financial statements and cash flow statements of the company. If while preparing financial statements, the company follows a treatment that is different from that prescribed in the accounting standards, it must disclose this in the financial statements, and the management should also provide an explanation for doing so in the corporate governance report of the annual report. The company will have Continue reading

Random Walk Theory

History of  Random Walk Theory The term ‘Random Walk’ was popularized by the 1973 book, “A Random Walk Down Wall Street”, by Burton Malkiel, Professor of Economics and Finance at Princeton University. Burton G. Malkiel, did a test where his students were given a hypothetical stock that was initially worth fifty dollars. The closing stock price for each day was determined by a coin flip. If the result was heads the price would close a half point higher, and subsequently if the result was tails, it would close a half point lower. Each time there was a fifty-fifty chance of the price closing higher or lower than the previous day. There were cycles or trends determined from the tests. Malkiel then took the results in a chart and graph form to a chartist (a person who “seeks to predict future movements by seeking to interpret past patterns on the assumption Continue reading

The Link Between Innovation and Strategy

Innovation is usually defined as the successful commercial exploitation of new ideas or simply as the successful implementation of new ideas. This encompasses ideas that are ‘new to the world’, ‘new to an industry’ or merely ‘new to a particular firm’. The prominence given to the role of innovation in strategy is to a large extent the result of the prevailing social and economic conditions. In what Peter Drucker – the most influential management thinker of the second-half of the twentieth century – termed the ‘knowledge economy’ that has emerged due to the rise of the service industry and decline of manufacturing since the end of the Second World War, business organizations have increasingly had to react to change more rapidly if they wish to succeed in the marketplace. Indeed, so important is the successful implementation of new ideas that Drucker famously reflected that: ‘Business has only two basic functions Continue reading

Full Capital Account Convertibility (FCAC)

Capital Account convertibility in its entirety would mean that any individual, be it Indian or Foreigner will be allowed to bring in any amount of foreign currency into the country. Full capital account convertibility also known as Floating rupee means the removal of all controls on the cross-border movement of capital, out of India to anywhere else or vice versa. Capital account convertibility or CAC refers to the freedom to convert local financial assets into foreign financial assets or vice versa at market-determined rates of interest. If CAC is introduced along with current account convertibility it would mean full convertibility. Complete convertibility would mean no restrictions and no questions. In general, restrictions on foreign currency movements are placed by developing countries which have faced foreign exchange problems in the past is to avoid sudden erosion of their foreign exchange reserves which are essential to maintain stability of trade balance and Continue reading