5 Questions with the MBA Admissions Team at UIC Liautaud Graduate School of Business
In our latest installment of the MetroMBA “5 Questions” series, we speak with Alanna O’Connor, Assistant Dean for Student Recruitment for the Full-Time MBA Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago Liautaud Graduate School of Business. O’Connor talks about the many new opportunities, programs, and events taking place at Liautaud this year and beyond. She also gives advice for candidates interested in applying to the MBA program, insight into outside-the-classroom opportunities, and her pick for best Chicago deep dish pizza.
Are there any new programs, centers, faculty members, or events you can talk about?
“Under Dean Michael Mikhail, our faculty body has grown 35 percent. In fact, more than 50 percent of our tenure-track faculty have been hired since he assumed the deanship in 2012 and many have been quoted as experts in national publication including WBEZ (Chicago’s NPR affiliate), The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and The Chicago Tribune.
The UIC Business Institute for Leadership Excellence and Development (iLEAD) is disrupting traditional classroom notions. This one-of-a-kind experience gives students a competitive edge with teaching professional development courses incorporating innovative approaches such as improvisation.
This spring UIC Business launched a new master of science degree program in supply chain and operations management, or MSSCOM. This program is exemplary of a curriculum designed for tomorrow’s supply chain professional. Led by our extraordinary faculty, the MSSCOM offers students a core set of courses in operations management, data, and supply chain management and expertise in the skill set employers seek.
In terms of events, connecting with our campus to determine fit is an essential part of a prospective student’s B-School research. UIC Business offers information sessions and lunch and learns, Open House events, webinars, classroom visit opportunities, and the chance to connect one on one with a recruitment advisor, current student, or faculty member. Understanding our prospective students have busy lives, we offer many opportunities to meet in person, by phone or virtually.”
What is one area of the UIC Business Liautaud Graduate School MBA student experience that you want applicants to pay attention to?
The Liautaud Graduate School of Business at UIC is located just several blocks from the picturesque Chicago River.
“UIC Business is just steps away from Chicago’s business district, which is an asset for our students in terms of internships and jobs. But our faculty are preparing students to compete in a global market through a quantitative approach to business that ensures our students have not only the management skills they will need, but also the facility and comfort with data and analysis to be competitive hires and successful 21st century business leaders.”
What opportunities, outside of the classroom, does the UIC Liautaud Graduate School offer MBA students to get hands-on experience?
“Through the MBA Capstone project, MBA students partner with local businesses and organizations and use the analytic and problem-solving skills they have developed to address the enterprise level challenges of firms. Our dedicated Business Career Center regularly hosts firms for visit days as well as Career Fairs, and Career Advisors provide one-on-one personal support in resume development, mock interviews, and job searches. Speaker series like our Leadership Breakfast, Executives in the Boardroom, and Alumni 4 U give students the chance to learn from and network with business leaders.”
What advice would you give an MBA candidate interested in the UIC Liautaud Graduate School of Business?
“Graduate school is an investment of your time and energy, and the return on that will be measured for you personally and professionally. UIC Business is an AASCB program located in Chicago’s top public research university. With our connections to Chicago’s business world, prime location, faculty experts teaching in-demand subjects, and thriving network of alumni, your life will be enriched with the knowledge and skills you gain and the people you meet who are interested in helping move your career forward. Get involved beyond the classroom with student organizations, utilize Business Career Center services, go to our special speakers and events series, and make time for fun at UIC Business sponsored social networking opportunities.”
Where can you get the best Chicago pizza near campus?
Chicago’s famous (and infamous) Giordano’s deep dish pizza is near the Liautaud campus.
“This can be a sensitive question because there are so many options depending upon how you like your slice, and whether you want to dine-in or carry-out. There are over 900 spots to get a slice of pizza within the UIC zip code. But if we had to pick just one true Chicago pizza, our choice for best would go to Giordano’s for its taste and authentic Chicago style.”
Are Business Schools Equipped to Handle Climate Change?
The United Nations’ panel on climate change issued an alarming warning earlier this month. In order to avoid worsening events such as increasingly deadly storms and heat, the extinction of coral, and ever rising sea levels, member nations must act fast. Global leaders of business must pay particular attention to this warning, as the world economy will need to transform in order to support the vital decrease of carbon emissions.
The Politics of Purchases, Grocery Chain Rebuilds, and More – Boston News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from Boston business schools this week.
Why U.S. Grocery Chains Need More (and Better) Store-Brand Products – Harvard Business Review
Harvard Business Review recently revealed new insights into how store-brand products enable grocers to carve out a niche for themselves among more established competitors.
According to writers Marcel Corstjens and Rajiv Lal, “private-label products are essential to the profit margins of hard discounters,” like Wal-Mart, which typically sell 90 percent private-label goods compared to 15-51 percent of ordinary grocery stores, depending on where you are in the world. “Hard discounters win by only stocking products with a very high rotation.”
The two point to the miraculous feat of French supermarkets, which regained a significant market share after stores began “offering affordable goods of reasonable quality.”
In order for U.S. grocers to compete with hard discounters, the article notes that they “will have to offer private-label goods of the “right” quality at the “right” price. No easy feat, indeed.
You can read more from Corstjens and Lal here.
How Going Out Can Spur Outside-the-Box Thinking – MIT Sloan Newsroom
New research from MIT Sloan Assistant Professor of Work and Organization Studies Jackson Lu finds that people who have “had a close friendship or romantic relationship with a person from a culture drastically different from [their] own tend to exhibit higher creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship.”
“‘Going Out’ of the Box: Close Intercultural Friendships and Romantic Relationships Spark Creativity, Workplace Innovation, and Entrepreneurship” suggests that “people cannot simply ‘collect’ intercultural relationships at a superficial level, but instead must engage in cultural learning at a deep level.”
Lu writes:
“When in an intercultural relationship, an individual should not eschew cultural differences but rather embrace them, because such differences enable one to discern and learn the underlying assumptions and values of both the foreign culture and the home culture. Without close social interactions, it can be difficult for individuals to juxtapose and synthesize different cultural perspectives to achieve cultural learning and produce creative insights.”
You can check out the rest of the article here.
How We Play Politics in the Store Aisles – Carroll School News
In a new Journal of Consumer Research study, Carroll Assistant Professor of Marketing Nailya Ordabayeva finds that “conservatives buy products they believe will signal their own superiority (big-name brands, high price tags) while liberals buy products they hope will show their uniqueness (unconventional colors or design).”
Ordabayeva’s research has “startling implications regarding the extent of our national polarization,” suggesting that people are paying very close attention to taglines like Mercedes’ “A Class Ahead” and Apple’s “Think Different.”
Professor Ordabayeva’s research finds that conservative and liberal Americans have decidedly different buying patterns, with conservatives favoring well-known brands and liberals opting for more creative choices.
“Better or Different? How Political Ideology Shapes Preferences for Differentiation in the Social Hierarchy,” can be found here and check out the rest of the entry on Carroll School News here.
The Case for Business Curiosity from Harvard, and More – Boston News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from Boston business schools this week.
The Business Case for Curiosity – Harvard Business Review
Harvard Business School Professor of Business Administration and Behavioral Scientist Francesca Gino recently published an article in the Harvard Business Review in which she elaborated on the “benefits of and common barriers to curiosity in the workplace.”
Professor Gino points to research, which offers “three important insights about curiosity as it relates to business”
- Curiosity is essential to the performance of an enterprise, leading to “fewer decision-making errors, more innovation, reduced group conflict, and more-open communication and better team performance.”
- By “making small changes” to organization and management, leaders can do more to encourage their employees’ curiosity
- Leaders fear curiosity “will increase risk and inefficiency.”
To address these three insights, Professor Gino offered “five strategies that can help leaders get high returns on investments in employees’ curiosity and in their own”:
- Hire for curiosity.
- Model inquisitiveness.
- Emphasize learning goals.
- Let employees explore and broaden their interests.
- Have “Why?” “What if…?” and “How might we…?” days.
She concludes, “Maintaining a sense of wonder is crucial to creativity and innovation. The most effective leaders look for ways to nurture their employees’ curiosity to fuel learning and discovery.”
You can read more about the business curiosity research here.
Occasional Breaks Can Make Groups Smarter – Questrom School of Business News
BU Questrom’s Jesse Shore recently co-authored new PNAS research, which finds that scientists who integrate “short breaks into problem-solving sessions improves both the average performance of the group and increases the likelihood of getting the best solution.”
The study, which was co-authored by Harvard’s Ethan Bernstein and David Lazer, has “implications for the way we use always-on collaboration software, such as Slack and Google Docs.”
Shore explains, “In many of these [collaborative software tools], the goal seems to be to keep people constantly aware of what others are doing. But the reality is that if you’re getting an alert every time something happens and you’re not taking the time to work separately and have your own independent thoughts, it may hurt the group’s overall ability to solve complex problems.”
You can find the full article here.
Sound Advice: Marketing Students Help Sonos Better Understand Its Customers – Suffolk Experience
The Suffolk Experience recently highlighted Sawyer Business School marketing research collaboration with Sonos, a “go-to source for high-quality home sound systems” that just so happens to be within walking distance of campus.
To accommodate the prediction that over “50 percent of all searches worldwide will be done by voice within four years,” Sonos had thrown its hat in the voice-assistance ring with Apple’s HomePad, Amazon Echo, and Google Home. The company reached out to Sawyer to better understand how late millennial 18-to-24-year-old consumers interact with voice-assistant speakers.
Sonos Consumer Insights Manager Dennis Brosnan writes, “Sonos likes working with Sawyer Business School students because the analysis and recommendations they present are often different than the approach we would take.”
You can read more about the Sonos research here.
York Schulich Alum Designs for Meghan Markle, and More – Toronto News
Representatives from Toronto’s top business schools have been making the news this week. See what they’ve been up to below.
Canadian Designer Bojana Sentaler Goes Global After Meghan and Kate Made Her Coats Famous – Notable Life
Bojana Sentaler, graduate of York University’s Schulich School of Business, has attained enviable success in fashion design after both Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle were seen wearing coats from her collection. After years in the corporate world, Sentaler moved in a different direction, and decided to pursue her passion for design. Her business acumen was not wasted in her new field, as Sentaler quickly identified a need in Canada for outerwear that balanced elegance and warmth. She filled this need using alpaca fabric, which she discovered on a trip to Peru. In a recent interview, Sentaler said:
“There are some truly brilliant designers here in Canada, that deserve to be recognized on a global platform. But first our consumers need to support Canadian by proudly wearing Canadian, and our industry as a whole needs to support and recognize Canadian potential.”
Learn more about Sentaler’s journey here.
CMHC Moves to Make It Easier for Self-Employed to Get a Mortgage – CBC News
Traditionally, self-employed people in Canada have encountered more difficulty getting mortgages, making it much more complicated for them to purchase a home. However, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) has made changes that will increase the flexibility of mortgage grants. Lenders can now use factors such as predictable earnings and previous training and education to justify giving a mortgage to someone who is self-employed.
Cynthia Holmes, Chair of the Real Estate Management Department at Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management, was optimistic about the changes, particularly insofar as they might help younger professionals lay down roots more quickly.
“This change could especially help young self-employed people access a mortgage more quickly, which supports innovation and entrepreneurship,” Holmes says to CBC News.
Learn more about the CMHC’s changes here.
All Work And No Play Can Make Us Less Productive, Research Shows – Australia Financial Review
A forthcoming study has demonstrated that long hours and stressful work have long-term negative impact on employees. The study (“Implications of work effort and discretion for employee wellbeing and career-related outcomes”) demonstrated that running employees ragged could have long term effects on their health and success.
According to the study, which was authored by Argyro Avgoustaki and Hans Frankfort, working more hours at a higher intensity does not enhance career prospects down the line. Efforts to protect the health of employees have generally emphasized shorter hours, but the study shows that controlling the intensity of the workload may actually be more important. Other researchers in the field have shown support for this perspective.
Erin Reid, associate professor at McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Business, co-authored an article with Lakshmi Ramarajan, assistant professor at Harvard Business School, for the Harvard Business Review. According to the article, “Valuing work time over work product—which motivates people to deceive others about how many hours they’re clocking—is an easy trap to fall into, especially for professionals, whose knowledge-based work is difficult to evaluate.”
Read more about the new research here.
Babson Olin Graduate School of Business Names Keith Rollag New Dean
Earlier this month, the Babson College F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business named its new dean: Keith Rollag. A management professor with over 17 years of experience teaching entrepreneurial leadership at Babson, Rollag was chosen for his campus leadership and his vision for the graduate school’s future. Continue reading…
