The Tech Giant Investment in Renewable Energy – Chicago News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from Chicago business schools this week.
The New Boom – Mendoza Business Magazine
The Notre Dame University Mendoza College of Business recently discussed why tech behemoths like Google and Amazon have begun to invest heavily in renewable energy technologies—and why this largely U.S. phenomenon is about to go global.
The Mendoza Business Magazine article notes that the reason underlying this new trend is due to the fact that clean energy became cheap energy.
“Once the favorable trajectory of renewable energy economics became apparent, it didn’t take long for some of the world’s largest companies to act. Google and Apple signed trailblazing renewable energy deals in 2012.”
It’s likely that these deals helped generate a domino effect where American and Mexican companies “signed deals for just over 10 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity between 2012 and 2017.”
According to the International Energy Agency, “renewables accounted for nearly two-thirds of new power capacity installed globally in 2016.”
The International Renewable Energy Agency reports that the cost of “generating power from onshore wind turbines and solar photovoltaic panels fell by 25 percent and 73 percent, respectively, since 2010, and predicted that all renewable energy technologies would be economically competitive by 2020.”
According to the school, “The market is ready to ramp up outside the United States, too, in part because U.S.-based multinationals are now looking to buy clean energy overseas.”
You can read the full piece here.
Sarah Siderius Gets the Job Done at Google – UIC Business
The Liautaud Graduate School of Business recently profiled current MBA student Sarah Siderius (’19) whose educational experience at UIC laid the groundwork for her stint as a contractor with Google.org, the philanthropic arm of the tech powerhouse.
Siderius explains how her LinkedIn profile helped her land the position. “As a part of my previous role, I helped my employer establish their philanthropic program. Having this experience on my resume caught this recruiter’s eye, which ultimately led to this amazing opportunity.”
Siderius most recently played an integral role in the Google.org Impact Challenge, Illinois, which awards “$1 million in grants to Illinois nonprofits who are creating economic opportunity in the state.”
She explained that she “enjoyed the fact that she was not only able to work for such an amazing company, but that she was able to give back through her work.”
Find out more about Siderius and her new role here.
How the Coffee Industry Is Building a Sustainable Supply Chain in an Unstable Region – Kellogg Insights
The Northwestern University Kellogg School of Business recently profiled the political and ethical hurdles associated with the newfound excitement surrounding the “quality of Robusta and Arabica” grown in the Democratic Republic of Congo right now. According to the article, “Harvesting, washing, and transporting Congolese coffee beans from the area is fraught with peril, from the dozens of militia groups operating in the east of the country to decades of political instability.”
Assistant Professor of Managerial Sciences and Decisions Sciences Ameet Morjaria, whose research focuses on the East African coffee supply chain, explains, “Development dollars have arrived at the shores of the eastern Congo. For those top dollars to have a lasting impact is not straightforward: farmers are poor, lack support, and struggle to get access to finance.”
“Their trees are old, badly maintained, and low-yielding. On top of that, investors worry about the expense and logistics of getting produce out of the country at volume. And lastly there are issues of insecurity and poor governance.”
Morjaria spoke to two experts on the Congolese coffee industry: SHIFT Social Impact Solutions founder Sara Mason and DRC Producer Group Development Platform Head Angel Mario Martinez Garcia.
Mason explains why it’s essential for companies to continue working in DRC.
“We really hope that in a few years, with positive support from the government, there might be a chance to transform the sector into an agricultural growth opportunity that will fully realize its potential.”
She adds that the actual growers are often vulnerable to exploitation due to extreme poverty, lack of education, and limited ability to communicate with the outside world. “Helping to support strong, transparent producer organizations was one of the drivers for creating the SHIFT DRC Producer Group Development Platform.”
Martinez Garcia says, “A quick fix is never going to work in the Congo. And sometimes it’s a challenge to find someone who’s able to provide resources and time and energy for people to work there in the long run.”
“It is really important to continue supporting producers, to continue increasing skills and knowledge. Because they are the ones, even after we end any activity or any project we have there—in a year or 10 years or 20 years—who will still be there working and living and discussing any future of the coffee sector in the Congo.”
You can read more from Northwestern Kellogg here.
Happiness, Net Worth, and Materialism – Chicago News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from Chicago business schools this week.
How To Be Happy Without Earning More – Booth Business Blog
The University of Chicago Booth School of Business recently published a lengthy profile that explores “hedonomics,” a term that professor Christopher K. Hsee appropriated to use as a “counterpart” to traditional economics, which studies how “to extract more happiness from the existing stuff.”
Hsee explains, “Our ancestors had to work to accumulate enough to survive. But now productivity is so high, we don’t need to work so hard for survival.”
In 2008, Hsee and his Booth compatriot Reid Hastie “redefined” the term from its original meaning as the “study of ways to interact with machines.” The article explains that “their version of hedonomics is premised on the idea that people don’t need more resources to be happier; they need to use existing resources differently,” such as a child who grows weary of wooden blocks they initially enjoyed. “Hedonomics suggests the child doesn’t need more blocks to be happy; she needs to change how she plays with those blocks.”
One component of hedonomics is the “hedonic treadmill,” coined by Northwestern’s Philip Brickman and Lehigh’s Donald T. Campbell, which refers to the psychoeconomic effect of what happens when it “takes more and more things to make people happy.”
According to the article, “The hedonic treadmill fires up because people misunderstand what will actually make them happy. [In fact], people gain more happiness when they satisfy their inherent rather than learned preferences—needs rather than wants.”
Hsee’s research could be useful in developing countries where the middle class continues to grow and more developed countries where the middle class has begun to diminish, particularly with the prospect of millions of people becoming idle due to automation looming in the background.
“You can make idle people happy by giving them a reason to ‘play with the existing blocks’ without accumulating more blocks.”
You can read more about hedonomics here.
Aric Rindfleisch’s Research Delves Into Reducing Materialism in Younger Consumers – Gies School of Business Blog
University of Illinois Gies College of Business Professor of Business Administration and Marketing Aric Rindfleisch, who researches consumer values, recently published a paper in the Journal of Positive Psychology, which presents “strategies for reducing materialism in younger consumers.”
According to the Gies School of Business Blog, “The impact of gratitude on adolescent materialism and generosity” has led to two studies that offered “fostering gratitude” as an effective strategy to combat materialism in adolescents.
Aric Rindfleisch, Gies College of Business Professor of Business Administration and Marketing
“In the first study, children and adolescents with a grateful disposition were less materialistic.” The second study found that ‘gratitude journals’ “significantly reduced materialism and also attenuated materialism’s negative effect on generosity.”
You can read more about Rindfleisch’s research here.
New Study Contradicts Notion That Electronic Health Records are Driving Doctors to Quit – Mendoza Ideas & News
Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations Corey Angst has coauthored a new study due for publication in Information Systems Research, which finds that electronic health records (EHRs) have “increased doctors’ tenure at hospitals.” This discovery stands in direct opposition to certain prominent articles, which assert that EHRs have caused doctors to retire.
“The Mobility of High Status Professionals after the Implementation of Enterprise Information Systems, which was coauthored with the University of Minnesota’s Brad Greenwood and McGill’s Kartik Ganju, examines how EHRs affect the “decision of physicians to continue practicing at their current hospital.”
Angst says, “Results suggest that when EHRs create benefits for doctors, such as reducing their workloads or preventing costly errors, their duration of practice increases significantly.”
“However, when technologies force doctors to change their routines, there is an obvious exodus, though it’s more pronounced with older doctors, especially specialists, and those who have been disrupted in the past by IT implementations,” he adds.
Angst notes that “doctors won’t be scared off as hospitals continue adopting new technologies — as long as they’re not too disruptive to routines.”
You can read more about the research here.
Sally Blount on Solving the Female CEO Conundrum
Just one year after setting the the Fortune 500 female CEO record, numbers are already declining.
STEM Startups, Notre Dame’s New Master’s, and More – Chicago News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from Chicago business schools this week.
Why a Choice Doesn’t Feel Like a Choice When Morality Enters the Picture – Kellogg Insight
In new research co-authored by Northwestern Kellogg Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations Maryam Kouchaki finds that “across cultures, when people view a particular decision as being moral in nature, they don’t feel like they are making a choice at all, and they pay less attention to alternative courses of action.”
In other words, “people who viewed a particular issue as moral experienced a lower sense of choice when making a decision related to that issue, as compared to people who did not view the issue as moral.”
Kouchaki notes, “Even though they did the most amazing thing, it wasn’t like they felt that they deliberated. They felt like they had no choice. Their sense of freedom has been constrained and it has a spillover effect for your actual behavior.”
The study was co-authored by Cornell’s Isaac Smith and Nanyang Technological University’s Krishna Savani of Nanyang Technological University.
You can read the full article here.
Notre Dame launches New Graduate Degree in Business Analytics – Mendoza Ideas & News
Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business just announced its new one-year, 31-credit-hour Master’s of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA), designed for “pre-professional students with little or no work experience.”
In a recent release, John W. Berry, Sr. Professor of Business and Chair of the Information Technology, Analytics, and Operations Department, describes MSBA students:
“They were either recent graduates that didn’t have the work experience, or international students interested in the STEM degree who wouldn’t be able to work while earning their degree.”
According to the school, the program’s goal is to “provide a rigorous education in applying analytical techniques to massive data sets to solve business problems — knowledge that has become critically important due to revolutionary advances in information technology.”
Katherine Spiess, Associate Dean for Graduate Programs at Mendoza adds, “In addition to learning about cutting-edge data analytics, our MSBA students have the opportunity to explore the ethical dimensions of collecting and analyzing data to promote business as a force for good in society.”
You can find out more about the brand new Notre Dame Master’s of Science in Business Analytics here.
MakerGirl Thrives and Expands to New Heights – Gies School of Business News
MakerGirl, a nonprofit founded by Gies College of Business students to enable “college students to teach science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills to girls ages 7-10,” recently expanded its operations to include robotics and special coding classes at Northwestern University and announced plans to collaborate with DePaul University.
The goal of MakerGirl’s founders is to “impact 10,000 girls by 2023, including half from underrepresented and rural communities.”
The nonprofit MakerGirl startup is built to help introduce young women with leading STEM graduates / Photo via https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1501163298/makergirl-goes-mobile-midwest-edition
Julia Haried (’15 ACCY, ’16 MAS) and full-time employee at Deloitte, recently spoke about how invaluable the support of the school has been to the launch and growth of MakerGirl.
“In [my social entrepreneurship] class, the idea was born and incubated by myself and co-founder, Elizabeth Engele, and supported by course instructors. The idea was further launched in the iVenture Accelerator, a Gies-supported venture accelerator that gave us $10,000, mentorship, and a summer to grow MakerGirl’s impact at the Research Park. Because of these experiences, I was challenged and encouraged to solve a big social problem.”
Co-founder Elizabeth Engele also adds, “It’s so much fun and fulfilling to build a program that creates a meaningful experience for girls right now that also impacts their future. We have witnessed girls self-identify as MakerGirls after the program, which is incredibly powerful for themselves, their families, and their communities.”
She continues, “MakerGirl brings me the greatest joy when I see young girls get excited about science, technology, engineering, and math, and literally shift who they perceive themselves to be in the world.”
You can read more from the interview here and visit MakerGirl’s official site for more information.
Government Cyberattacks, the Perception of Lies, and More – Chicago News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from Chicago business schools this week.
How Governments Can Better Defend Themselves Against Cyberattacks – Kellogg Insights
Northwestern Kellogg Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences Professor Sandeep Baliga recently co-authored new research with University of Chicago’s Ethan Bueno de Mesquita and MIT’s Alexander Wolitzky, which articulates a new theory about how victims of cyber aggression might choose to retaliate—or not—against shadowy aggressors.
Baliga explains that their model presents a theory that “cyber warfare is inherently multilateral.”
“If the standard of proof is satisfied, yeah, then you should react super aggressively. But when there’s a lot of noise, you might actually want to back off because others may exploit your policy by hiding behind misidentification. If somebody wants to trigger a war between us and China, then they have every reason to do a hack that looks like China did it.”
Baliga adds, “If nations get better at both detecting attacks and identifying their perpetrators, then cyber peace is more likely to prevail.”
You can read the full article on the future of government cyberattacks here.
New Study Finds When Telling Lies, Perception Matters – Booth News
Chicago Booth Assistant Professor Emma Levine recently co-authored new research with UCLA Anderson’s Adam Eric Greenberg and Deakin University’s Matthew Lupoli that finds that “well-intentioned lies can spark strong resentment from the person who is deceived.”
In other words, “Telling a lie in order to help or protect someone—a practice known as prosocial lying—backfires if the person being lied to perceives the lie as paternalistic,” meaning lies that require the “liar to make assumptions about whether lying is in the deceived party’s best interest.”
Photo via newschicagobooth.uchicago.edu
Levine explains the trio’s findings, which were published as part of a paper entitled “Paternalistic Lies” in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes:
“We sometimes tell lies to others believing that they will help, when in reality we are acting upon a paternalistic assumption that lying is better than the truth. Our research demonstrates that in these situations, the individual on the receiving end is likely to resent deception.”
You can read more about the research here.
Faculty Focused on Workplace Wellness Continue to Steer the Discussion – Gies College of Business News
Gies College of Business Assistant Professors of Finance David Molitor and Julian Reif co-authored The Illinois Workplace Wellness Study, whose results examine the efficacy of a homegrown wellness program.
According to the website, “The study’s findings will empower employers, public health professionals, and policymakers to make more informed decisions regarding the implementation of workplace wellness programs throughout the United States.”
You can find more here.
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.
