Wharton's interdisciplinary research centers provide a forum for Wharton and Penn faculty and students, as well as members of the business community, who come together to study and debate key business challenges. Their work generates courses, academic programs, community outreach, published research, and partnerships among academics, government, and industry.
The following research centers illustrate Wharton’s ongoing commitment to the health care industry and those employed in it:
- Health Care Management Department
Wharton's Health Care Management Department brings particular strengths in health economics and health management. Disciplines such as law, policy, ethics, and decision analysis are represented by the department's secondary appointments and by faculty who work at the University of Pennsylvania's schools of medicine and nursing. Adjunct faculty members are also drawn from health industry experts in the Philadelphia area.
- Center for Leadership and Change Management
Increasingly, organizations worldwide are confronting turbulent markets, demanding shareholders, and discerning customers. As a result, many firms are restructuring to meet these challenges. Their success depends largely on the quality of leadership that exists at all levels of management. Dedicated to building a basic and practical understanding of leadership and change, the Center explores and communicates effective strategies for restructuring.
- Center for Health Management and Economics
By focusing on research and communication, the Center for Health Management and Economics explores how managerial insight and economic incentive can improve the current state of health care provision. The Center fosters interaction between academic and business leaders through hosting annual conferences, publishing a quarterly digest, and supporting a variety of research projects. Works in progress include international price comparison for pharmaceuticals, hospital ownership conversions, and alignment of physician groups and health systems.
- Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics
A formal cooperative venture among the University of Pennsylvania's schools of medicine, business, nursing, and dental medicine, LDI works to improve public health through multidisciplinary studies on medicine, economics, and social and ethical issues that influence health care. The Institute emphasizes research on the efficient allocation and appropriate use of health care resources and the development of innovative health care delivery systems.
- William and Phyllis Mack Center for Technological Innovation
Bringing together leaders from business, government, and labor, the Mack Center provides a forum for probing critical issues, discussing research, and planning future study. As the umbrella organization for all of Wharton's technology management initiatives, the Center will support the research and publishing activities of Wharton faculty members, create an endowed professorship, and support a student-run conference. In the field of technological change, the Center sponsors the Emerging Technologies Management Research Program.
- Center for Human Resources
Since 1921, the Center for Human Resources (formerly the Industrial Research Unit) has been bringing academics and practitioners together, fostering interaction through multidisciplinary research, regular meetings, and frequent information bulletins. Today, the Center continues to explore the strategic role of human resource management in areas like labor relations, increased productivity, public policy, work and family issues, and workforce education. Wharton's Council on Employee Relations is the Center's program for management/employee issues.
- Risk Management and Decision Processes Center
Low-probability events with potentially catastrophic consequences, such as natural and technological hazards and industrial risk, are the chief concerns of this Center. Through a program of descriptive research (exploring how people interact and make decisions regarding risk) and prescriptive analysis (proposing ways that people and groups can make better risk-related decisions), the Center investigates the effectiveness of incentive systems, insurance, regulation, the communication of risk information, and other strategies.
- Wharton Communication Program
The need for future business leaders to be effective communicators has never been greater: speeches, Web casts, blogs, podcasts, media interviews, interactions with NGOs, contentious shareholder meetings, etc., all offer new opportunities — and risks. Their practical, skills-based approach helps participants develop their personal style and strengthen their confidence as communicators. Courses vary by semester, but include Communicating to Investors, Writing for Business Audiences, and Impromptu Speaking and Communicating Under Pressure.
