Boston News: MIT Tackles Universal Basic Income, Negative Reviews, and More
Let’s visit some of the biggest news coming out of Boston business schools this week.
12-Year Study Looks at Effects of Universal Basic Income – MIT Sloan Newsroom
MIT Sloan School of Management associate professor Tavneet Suri, alongside nonprofit company GiveDirectly, will conduct a lengthy, 12-year study into the effects of the constant hot-button issue of universal basic income. UBI is a basic concept that an acting government will assist its citizens by distributing a recurring stipend, supplementing the loss of jobs to things like automation.
“Suri is conducting the research along with MIT professor Abhijit Banerjee, Princeton professor Alan Krueger, University of California San Diego professor Paul Niehaus, and GiveDirectly president Michael Faye. Overall, GiveDirectly expects to transfer $25 million to more than 21,000 people (not including the control group), 5,000 of whom will receive cash transfers for 12 years. The money comes with no strings attached.”
Read more about the extensive MIT UBI study here.
The Costs and Benefits to Responding to Negative Online Reviews – BU.edu
When BU Questrom marketing professor Georgios Zervas and USC’s Davide Proserpio looked into thousands of TripAdvisor reviews, they found a fairly surprising turn: hotel managers that actively engaged with reviewers, positive or negative, may have actually helped their overall ratings. Zervas notes that it actually diminished the number of negative reviews because users were more wary when they saw hotel staff members participating in a conversation.
However, the two found that the reversal cause of this interaction was that negative reviews who did leave reviews, after engaging with the hotel staff, tended to leave longer reviews—which often made the negative details much more elaborated and personal. Zervas notes this is still probably good overall, saying, “The remaining negative reviews are detailed and contain constructive feedback that [hotel management] can act upon.”
BU professor Georgios Zervas and USC’s Davide Proserpio found uniquely beneficial ways companies can utilize review sites like TripAdvisor.
Read more about BU Questrom’s study on TripAdvisor here.
What Could Amazon’s Approach to Health Care Look Like? – HBR
The Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Morgan Chase venture to disrupt the healthcare industry led to a minor panic for other healthcare shareholders, but its potential impact is still fairly uncertain. HBR writer Robert S. Huckman and admitted Amazon shareholder recently explored the potential positive impacts, including simplifying a very complex U.S. healthcare prescription service industry, “simplifying data capture,” and the repeated effort from Amazon to improve its services to regular customers.
On the latter reason, Huckman explains, “Amazon has an internal challenge — managing the health and health spending of its employees — that is shared by many other companies. Yet Amazon likely does not have a full “solution” in mind just yet. Rather, it has ideas and hypotheses to test. By creating a space in which those ideas can be tested, Amazon may be able to play a key role in allocating resources to solutions that show themselves, over time, to be promising.”
You can read more about Huckman’s outlook for Amazon healthcare here.
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Boston Startup Scene in Spotlight
Schools including Boston University and Northeastern University help the Boston startup scene thrive, according to some recent media coverage.
Questrom Dean Discusses Future of Business Education
In a recent article in BostInno, Boston University’s Questrom School of Business dean Ken Freeman discussed the future of business education and how BU is adapting to the future of the business world. According to the article, “Approximately 50 percent of what business schools teach is out of date within two years of graduation,” said Freeman. In order to keep up with changing trends in business and to help students enrolled in the Questrom MBA program, the school has started to develop new opportunities for students to bridge the gap between what current students are learning and what employers know now.
BostInno Alumni Impact Awards Recognize Babson Alumni
Two graduates of the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business – Babson College were honored as BostInno Alumni Impact Award winners at the inaugural Boston UpFront event held at the Revere Hotel in downtown Boston. Sarah Hodges’ M’10 and Jon Feinman’s M’10 companies were among six total startups recognized as being exceptionally influential in Boston.
This is the first year of the BostInno awards as well, which recognize young leaders who, since graduating from Boston-area colleges, have made a positive impact in Massachusetts and are shaping what’s to come in the future of innovation. Continue reading…
Babson Tech Firm Wins $15,000 in Startup Rounds Business Contest
The Babson Entrepreneurship Club’s Startup Rounds Business Contest at the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business – Babson College, has awarded a $15,000 first prize to HigherMe, a Babson tech startup designed to help retail employers to hire qualified workers.
Founded by Babson Graduate students Rob Hunter and Evan Lodge, HigherMe is a website and mobile application that gives prospective employees the chance to submit short one-minute video introductions to retail establishments. Employers in turn are better able to consider the candidate’s interpersonal skills that are essential to helping them succeed in a retail environment.
Startup Rounds was founded by Babson MBA candidate Paul Hammond. The contest qualifies startups for investment. Companies apply to compete in a contest for support, recognition, customers and capital. The top scoring startups advance to later rounds, establishing credibility, proving concept, gaining recognition, furthering opportunities to raise money and generate sales, and ultimately winning cash prizes.
The Startup Rounds Contest was open to any company founded by Babson undergraduates, graduate students, or alumni with less than $1 million in earned revenues. Each company had to demonstrate the strength of their business idea and network by winning support through social media.
Over $30,000 in prizes were awarded, including $20,000 in cash and $10,000 in legal resources (Pepper Hamilton and Pierce Atwood); $25,000- $100,000 in real-estate consultation and speculation fees donated by the VP of Colliers International, Boston; Bostinno press and Mass Challenge opportunities; and meetings with Rough Draft Ventures with the opportunity to raise up to $25,000.
