Harvard | Insead | Stanford | WHARTON

Optimism was in short supply at the 2012 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which ended on Sunday. As Wharton management professor Michael Useem reports below, keynote speakers and panelists alike focused on a number of problems that are getting in the way of global prosperity. Chief among them is unemployment, followed by a shortage of highly-trained workers needed to spur innovation and solve social challenges. On the bright side, Useem notes, is the rapid growth of emerging economies.

As far as a legacy goes, says IBM chairman Sam Palmisano, "I just want to leave the company better than I found it." Judging by IBM's successes over the past decade, Palmisano, who was CEO of IBM until he stepped down earlier this month, did just that. During an interview with Wharton management professor Michael Useem, Palmisano discussed the sale of the company's personal computer business, the PricewaterhouseCoopers acquisition, how a big company can encourage innovation, and what he learned from his mentors, among other observations drawn from almost 40 years at IBM.

For Sam's Club CEO Brian Cornell, good leadership is about getting inside the heads of the warehouse chain's 47 million shoppers and figuring out the product mix and shopping experience that will keep them coming back for more. At a recent Wharton Leadership Lecture, he talked about the "Cs" that govern his leadership style and the opportunities and challenges created by today's more value-conscious breed of consumer.

Richard Branson, founder and CEO of Virgin Group, has a story to tell about his early days as a journalist, his creation of a mail-order record business and his expansion into enterprises ranging from planes and trains to cars, cell phones and spaceships. In his autobiography, Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way, which he has updated and expanded several times since its publication in 1999, Branson lets it all -- or most of it -- hang out, as Knowledge@Wharton notes in this review.

Colombia's history has been plagued by violence, corruption and crime, images that have been readily apparent to the outside world due to media depictions and worldwide travel warnings. Yet thanks to the increase in safety and stability accomplished by the Uribe administration over the last decade, Colombia has become a destination accessible to more than just a select group of intrepid travelers. In fact, for the first time in history, tourism is proving to be a promising avenue for development in Colombia.

On the morning of November 28, 2010, the Brazilian Special Forces, Military Police and other law enforcement units surrounded the Complexo do Alemão, one of Brazil's largest shanty-town communities and site of the country's most vicious drug wars. Two hours later, the Complexo do Alemão was in the hands of government security forces. Since then -- and with an eye to hosting the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics -- the Brazilian government has been paving the way for a new entrepreneurial economy to take root in the Complexo.