Curbing the Conspiracy Mindset at Northwestern, and More – Chicago News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from Chicago business schools this week.
Conspiracy Theories Abound. Here’s How to Curb Their Allure – Kellogg Insight
Northwestern Kellogg Clinical Professor of Management and Organizations Cynthia Wang took a social psychological approach to understand what drives conspiratorial perceptions like Pizzagate, and “what are things that can be done by organizations that can prevent this mindset,” highlighted in a recent release from Kellogg Insight.
Wang co-authored a new paper with UCLA’s Jennifer Whitson, Penn State-Erie’s Joongseo Kim, Ohio State’s Tanya Menon, and Ball State’s Brian Webster, which finds that “individuals who exhibit a desire to take action in pursuit of their goals are less prone to conspiratorial thinking.”
The group began to focus on “regulatory focus theory (RFT), which looks at how people go about achieving their goals.” Kellogg Insight explains:
“RFT proposes two main strategies. People with a “promotion-focused” orientation aim to do everything in their power to achieve their hopes and dreams. In this mindset, individuals believe they can shape their future, suggesting that they feel a high degree of control over their environment. Those with a “prevention-focused” orientation, on the other hand, act diligently to protect the security they already have.
The researchers hypothesized that prevention-focused people might be more prone to believe conspiracy theories because conspiracies can feel like a threat to their security. The team suspected that people with a promotion focus, however, would be more skeptical.“
The team surveyed three groups of people, including military personnel and college students. Consistently, they found that people who were more “promotion” focused thought they had more agency in what happens to them, and therefore more control. In this frame of mind, those that felt they had more control were less susceptible to believe conspiracy theories.
You can read more about the group’s research here.
Yuxuan Tang is Ready for His 48 Hours of Fame – Gies School of Business Blog
Gies College of Business senior Yuxuan Tang was one of four University of Illinois students drawn from the Illinois MakerLab and selected to compete in Season 3 of the PBS show Make 48, a “televised national invention competition that gives teams 48 hours to come up with an idea, create a prototype, and present their idea to a panel of judges.”
Tang writes, “It’s an honor. The competition is like a sped-up creation process. Being able to make the model is important, but the rest of the team should diversify. You need some people to see ‘How’s the market? What do customers think of this service?’ That’s what business people do.”
You can read more about Tang’s work here.
Graduate Students Tackle Issue of Clean Water in Haiti – Quinlan School of Business Blog
Loyola’s Masters of Social Justice student Josh Goralski spoke with the Quinlan School of Business Blog about his social enterprise, which “focuses on building water filtration businesses [in Haiti] funded through micro-financing.”
This idea is an extension of a business idea he and his undergraduate classmates at Rockhurst University developed to address the 5,700 Haitians water-related diseases claim each year. According to the article, “52.4 percent of Haiti’s rural population does not have access to clean water.”
Loyola student Josh Goralski, pictured in Haiti / Photo via luc.edu
“Water filters would be sold by local community members. The sellers would be trained and certified to micro-finance the filters affordably for their community members.” According to the article, the ceramic water filter that the Haitian water enterprises sell can “provide clean water for a family of five for up to 10 years with little maintenance, and save families $400+ USD over 10 years.”
Goralski writes that his goal is to “empower communities. We wondered, how do we work with a local community partner, provide access to business education training, and empower these communities?”
You can can read more about Goralski’s work here.
University of Oxford Säid Business School: MBA Student Interview
One of the best ways to learn about an MBA program is to talk to its students. We recently interviewed Avery Bang, a civil engineer, social entrepreneur and MBA student at the University of Oxford’s Säid Business School, to get her perspective on the Oxford business school experience.
Bang is the CEO of Bridges to Prosperity (B2P), a non-profit social enterprise that builds footbridges in developing countries. Her organization is also the focus of an upcoming motion picture Dream Big, which follows B2P’s efforts to build a bridge in Haiti. The film, which will be broadcast at IMAX cinemas across the U.S., aims to debunk engineering stereotypes and shine a light on social entrepreneurship.
In our interview with Bang, we asked her to speak about her experiences as an MBA student at Säid and how her educational experience there has impacted her career. Continue reading…
UIC Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies Head Helps Tackle Disaster Relief
Nancy Harvey, executive director of the Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies at UIC Liautaud, has been working alongside Janet Lin, an associate professor of emergency medicine, to devise a business plan for community-based training in disaster preparedness. The hope is to expand disaster risk reduction training in Haiti, a nation constantly bludgeoned by natural disasters. Continue reading…
Haiti Prime Minister Visits MIT Sloan
Haiti Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe joined MIT Sloan Executive Education faculty and administrators and MIT-Haiti Initiative leaders for a planning session on the next phase of the MIT-Haiti Initiative on June 5, 2014. The MIT-Haiti Initiative is a joint partnership between MIT, Haitian educators and the Haitian government. The program was created to address issues of poverty alleviation, economic regeneration and the democratization and modernization of education in Haiti. The initiative is also a continued recovery effort from the 2010 earthquakes in Haiti.
The program has been providing high-quality faculty training and curriculum development for teachers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The Office of Executive Education at MIT’s Sloan School of Management has begun to offer management and leadership training to Haitian officials.
