The U.S. is currently home to 362 microfinance institutions -- some imported, others homegrown -- that provide small-dollar loans and other banking products to low-income entrepreneurs and small businesses. Still a young industry, it remains to be seen whether microfinance can thrive in the U.S. as it has in developing countries, where the model was pioneered. While there are signs that the industry is gaining traction -- and trust -- among U.S. borrowers, are the barriers to entry simply too high for the model to make a big impact in the country?

Donald N.S. Unger, the author of Men Can: The Changing Image and Reality of Fatherhood in America and lecturer in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies at MIT, writes about representations of men, masculinity and fatherhood in popular culture. Just in time for Father's Day, Unger shares his thoughts with Knowledge@Wharton on the changing role of fatherhood.

Are overconfident CEOs also more likely to be overly optimistic when issuing earnings forecasts? Does in-store marketing -- including a product's location and visibility on store shelves -- make a difference? How does anxiety cripple efforts to negotiate a successful business deal? Wharton professors Holly Yang, Wesley Hutchinson and Eric Bradlow, and Maurice Schweitzer, respectively, examined these issues -- and what they mean for business -- in recent research papers.

Nokia and Research in Motion are the latest tech companies to be caught in an innovation gap: Both are touting "next big thing" smartphones that are as much as a year away, while hoping to convince customers to continue buying their current -- in some cases soon-to-be-obsolete -- devices. To minimize losses, Wharton experts say, the firms should explore new markets and pricing schemes for the old products even as they try to maintain their presence in the rapidly evolving smartphone arena.

The latest economic reports show the U.S. recovery has faltered. But someday, surely, there will be a real recovery. What forces will drive that upturn? And will the healthy economy of the future look different from those of the past -- establishing a "new normal?" Two intertwined factors are critical to any rebound, according to many experts: Home prices must stop declining and begin to rise, and consumers must spend more freely.

The landscape for health care in the U.S. continues to shift since the Obama administration passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act last year. Several questions remain unanswered, including how to expand health coverage, what are the potential minefields for doing so, and what are the best ways to ensure that the system performs well. Meanwhile, Americans are becoming increasingly unhealthy, despite spending more on health care than any other nation. To address these issues, Knowledge@Wharton spoke with Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which focuses its efforts on improving the country's health care. Lavizzo-Mourey will be a speaker at the upcoming Wharton Leadership Conference 2011, which will take place on June 22.

Forget volatile weather wreaking havoc on shopping patterns, a shaky economic recovery and ultra-cutthroat promotions. According to speakers at a recent conference co-sponsored by Wharton's Jay H. Baker Retailing Center, what is causing retail executives the most sleepless nights is the onslaught of new communication and social media platforms. But while companies' advertising campaigns are becoming increasingly complex, marketers would do well to remain focused on all the touch points between their companies and consumers.

Soaking up oil spills with human hair, turning clunkers into hybrids and powering Tanzanian villages with rechargeable batteries are just a few of the ideas to come out of Knowledge@Wharton's second annual Innovation Tournament. Sponsored jointly by K@W and Wipro Technologies, the tournament challenged innovators from around the world to compete for a total of $40,000 in cash prizes. The top 14 entrants were invited to Philadelphia on April 27 to present their ideas to a panel of judges made up of academics and industry leaders.

According to Glen T. Senk, the key to success is hiring and cultivating the right people. At a recent Wharton Leadership Lecture, the CEO of Philadelphia-based retailer Urban Outfitters underscored the importance of recruiting and developing a team that is a good fit for corporate culture -- and then listening to what those employees have to say, even when "you have to pull [the bad news] out of them."

Online group buying sites are experiencing rapid growth in all areas, from partner businesses to subscribers to revenues. Venture capitalists are actively investing in the sites, which is driving up business valuations. But that "wild exuberance" is miscalculated, warns Wharton marketing professor David Reibstein in an interview with Knowledge@Wharton. Taking Chicago-based Groupon as a case in point, he says the industry's current growth rates are unsustainable, and its business model is flawed.

NBC Universal is just the latest in a string of acquisitions that has transformed family-run Comcast from a single cable television operation into the largest U.S. cable television and home Internet provider. Comcast's most recent expansion will test the ability of the company's hard-nosed business culture to deliver results in the creative entertainment sphere, and comes against the backdrop of rapidly evolving technology pumping media content out across many platforms.

Within the next year, Facebook is expected to follow LinkedIn's lead and become a public company. Beyond speculation about what LinkedIn's recent successful IPO means for Facebook or other social media companies like Zynga, Groupon and Twitter, experts wonder whether going public will require a level of transparency from Facebook that could expose its weaknesses.

As nominations for a new managing director are collected from member countries of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), European leaders are closing rank around French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde as their preferred candidate. But others see the dramatic resignation of former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on May 18 as an opportunity to break with tradition and seriously consider candidates from emerging markets in Asia and elsewhere. Experts say there would be a number of benefits to having a non-European at the helm, including rescuing the institution from irrelevancy.

Wharton management professor Ethan Mollick has a message for knowledge-based companies: Pay closer attention to your middle managers because they may have a greater impact on company performance than almost any other part of the organization. Mollick's research, based on an in-depth analysis of the computer game industry, is presented in a new paper titled, "People and Process: Suits and Innovators: Individuals and Firm Performance."

Allegations that traders manipulated oil prices in 2008 are reinforcing the buzz -- at the gas pump and elsewhere -- that speculators are driving up the price of oil, triggering wild price spikes and nail-biting volatility. Fingering speculators is a popular pastime these days, but experts at Wharton and elsewhere say the blame is often misplaced. Although speculation can affect prices, most of the recent price swings in oil and other commodities are happening for fundamental economic reasons.