Ohio State Fisher or Purdue Krannert: Which School Is Right for Me?
There are many reasons to love the Midwest. In particular, the area is home to many high-quality business schools and MBA programs all offering something unique in terms of cost, location, and prestige. Unfortunately, the close proximity of these programs and their individual features can make it difficult for prospective candidates to choose the right program for them.
Continue reading…Harvard Talks Managing Disorganized Employees, and More – Boston News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from Boston business schools this week.
How to Manage Someone Who Is Totally Disorganized – Harvard Business Review
Disorganized employees can be wellsprings of frustration, but there are ways to help them better understand how disorderly tendencies impact others.
Harvard Business School‘s Rebecca Knight recently discussed strategies in HBR, addressing root behavior causes and ultimately develop better systems to manage workloads.
“’Is this person’s approach creating negative outcomes, or is it just a style difference?’ If your report indicates ‘disorganized but otherwise reliable, you may have to back off.'”
Rosie Perez (not the actor), Lead Financial Officer of Global Consumer Business Planning and Analytics at American Express, adds, “It takes a lot of time to change ingrained behavior, but it can be addressed. Most importantly, as leaders, it is our job to help coach our colleagues [with] constructive and pointed feedback.”
You can read more about the research here.
Bye-Bye Ivory Tower: Innovation Needs an Ecosystem to Thrive by Tracy Mayor – MIT Sloan Ideas Made to Matter
Innovation is not exclusively indigenous to Silicon Valley. We continue to see exciting developments in London, Tel Aviv, New York, Boston, China, Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa. However, despite the benefits of globalization, the world of innovation is not wholly flat.
New MIT Sloan research has determined that there are geographic hotspots, or “innovation ecosystems,” where ideas move more easily from inception to impact.
Phil Budden, a Senior Lecturer Specializing in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, notes how the traditional “triple helix” that has long driven innovation—university, government, and corporations—is now joined by two additional players: entrepreneurs and risk capital.
“It’s so important to have innovation-driven entrepreneurs involved. They’re producing the companies of the future. You can’t just have today’s companies [in an ecosystem], you need to have those leaders who are going to produce future companies.”
Fiona Murray, Associate Dean for Innovation, urges corporations to take advantage of startups and entrepreneurs to help experiment on their behalf.
“What these startups tend to do very well is define, order, and test their assumptions through a series of what we call ‘innovation loops. So, one of the benefits of going from a purely internal research and development process to working externally is that you can really rely on the universities and startups in an ecosystem to do that experimentation for you.”
You can read more about global innovation here and watch the recent discussion below.
Joy Field Garners Top Award from Decision Sciences Institute by William Bole – Carroll School News
BC Carroll School of Management Associate Professor of Operations Management Joy Field has received the highest honor bestowed by the Decision Sciences Institute (DSI), a global society of more than 1,800 scholars dedicated to fostering knowledge for better managerial decisions.
Field was named the 2018 co-recipient of the Dennis E. Grawoig Distinguished Service Award, named for a founder of the 50-year-old Institute. The other recipient was Morgan Swink of Texas Christian University.
DSI President Johnny Rungtusanatham of Ohio State University asserts, “This is a highly competitive distinction awarded to those who have made a continual impact on the Institute and the disciplines it serves.”
Field reflected on her two decades of involvement with the Institute. “DSI has been a major contributor to all aspects of my professional development—publishing, teaching, and service—and I am delighted to have been chosen to receive this award from among the many colleagues who have also contributed so much to DSI.”
Find out more about the recent award here.
Ohio State Remodels the Fisher Full-Time MBA Program
Just as 2018 draws to an eventful close, the Max M. Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University has announced a major remodeling of the Ohio State MBA.
The New Ohio State MBA
According to a new release from the school, the new Ohio State MBA “takes advantage of Fisher’s strong relationships with employers and recruiters to cultivate career competencies sought by organizations.”
Flexibility and tailoring the curriculum directly to student needs is the primary emphasis of the newer MBA model:
“Students will undergo an assessment at the beginning of their MBA experience to identify their strengths and skills gaps. Their program builds on these strengths to close the gaps so they earn an MBA that fits and distinguishes them in the marketplace.”
This MBA curriculum also “incorporates immersive, cross-functional projects with top companies and organizations locally and globally.” These changes include a Global Applied Projects to enhance international experience and exposure, a Business Lab Project to get hands-on experience with major local companies, and a Core Capstone Experience at the conclusion of the program.
Fisher College of Business Dean and John W. Berry, Sr. Chair in Business, Anil K. Makhija, says, “Continuous innovation is a priority which is explicitly highlighted in the college’s strategic plan. This innovation guides our approach to how all of our programs are delivered.”
Fisher’s full-time MBA Co-Director Roger Bailey, when discussing the new changes, says, “The data-driven approach to this redesign has yielded a full-time MBA program that is able to maximize the potential of each student. We are excited about how these many changes leverage Fisher’s strengths, and the increased value it will provide to our students, our alumni and the greater business community.”
News of the school’s changes to the full-time MBA come just one year after it adjusted its highly-regarded Working Professionals MBA; its part-time format counterpart. In 2017, Ohio State added a weekend option to the program, which previously only featured a weekday evening schedule.
The new Ohio State full-time MBA also arrives just 12 months after Fisher introduced its 10-month Specialized Master in Business Analytics program.
For more information on the recently revitalized Ohio State MBA and its other programs, head over to the official school website.
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.
MBA Alumni Spotlight: Eddie George – Former NFL Star
Eddie George is a true renaissance man. A triple (possibly quadruple) threat whose Midas touch has graced the disparate fields of professional football, Broadway (as Billy Flynn in “Chicago”), sports commentary, and wealth management, George is a testament to how far dogged determination, resilience, and a little moxy can take you.
After nine years with the Tennessee Titans and Dallas Cowboys, George pivoted to a career as an entrepreneur with George Enterprises, an umbrella brand that encompasses a number of ventures, including Edward N. George Wealth Management, landscape architecture firm EDGE Group, health and fitness magazine EGX Lifestyle, and domestic abuse nonprofit Visions with Infinite Possibilities.
When pressed about his staggering array of accomplishments, George told Rolling Stone, “To put yourself in a box of, ‘Well, I’m only a football player and I’m just going to stick to being in sports somehow,’ you’re not living a full human being experience.
We took a closer look at the life and career of America’s favorite polymath to understand how George parlayed his skills on the field to so many different outlets.
Early Life and Education
To say George was obsessed with football as a youngster growing up in Philadelphia would be an understatement of gargantuan proportions. In the aforementioned Rolling Stone profile, George recalls that the game was an anchor, a vector, and a lens through which he saw the world. “High school football. Little league football. Backyard football. Thanksgiving football. You name it. It was not only a passion, it was life. It was also a vehicle for me to pursue my dreams.”
George earned a scholarship to Ohio State after rushing a record 1,372 yards in his fifth year at Fork Union Military Academy. Over the course of three years at Ohio State, George surpassed and set new school records and generally continued his reign on the field. In 1995, George was recognized as a first-team All-American and won the coveted Heisman Trophy, which remains one of George’s most significant achievements. He explains, “To win the Heisman gave me the resolve that if I put my mind to it, I could do it. It taught me a valuable lesson of what can be accomplished.”
An Illustrious NFL Career
George’s nine-year career began when the Houston Oilers (currently Tennessee Titans) selected George in the first round of the 1996 NFL draft.
George’s record suggests a reliably brilliant player whose excellence is surprisingly overlooked: a ’96 Rookie of the Year Award, four consecutive Pro Bowls (1997-2000), and one Super Bowl appearance, in which George tallied two touchdowns in a nail-biting 23-16 loss to the St. Louis Rams.
After eight seasons with the Titans and one with the Dallas Cowboys, George retired in 2005. In a 2009 Kellogg School of Management profile, George spoke openly about the realities of what he could not fathom up until his very last season: a life, post-football. “Nine years goes by like this. And if you don’t take care of your money, you’re out on the street. It’s a scary feeling. You ask yourself, what’s next?”
At The Northwestern Kellogg School of Management
After retiring from the NFL, George was determined to find a way to keep moving forward but after 20 years immersed in the game, that was easier said than done, as George explained in 2009:
“I had to find something that was going to fill that void of putting my jersey on on Saturday and Sundays. One was my identity. Two, was figuring out what I would do next. Three, I had to ask myself what I was going to the next 60 years of my life to make money to maintain my lifestyle, to grow and build, and to take care of my family financially.”
George was brutally honest about his state circa 2006 in an interview with SB Nation: “To wake up and not know what you’re going to do with your time because you can no longer do the one thing that you’ve been doing your entire life, it’s daunting.”
As George explains in a Winter ’09 Northwestern Profile, “My celebrity status definitely helped open doors, but that will only take you so far.” After a few successful years at George Enterprises, he opted to attend Kellogg to “broaden and deepen his understanding of the business side.”
George was thrilled at the opportunity Kellogg gave him to reinvent and brand himself away from football. He explained in a Kellogg profile that he chose the school because of its reputation.
“Like on the football field, if I’m going to be the best at something, I’m going to learn from the best coaches, the best teachers. Kellogg resonated because of the strong branding and marketing emphasis.”
George graduated with an Executive MBA from Kellogg in 2009.
Edward N. George Wealth Management
After graduating from Kellogg in 2009 and receiving his securities agent and investment advisor licenses, George almost immediately considered how to use his business acumen in service of his fellow athletes. He told ESPN, “When I came into the league, I didn’t understand all the financial terminology. I lost some money in personal investments that I shouldn’t have. I want kids coming out of college to be more prepared for the financial side.”
George partnered with Greg Eastman, his own personal financial advisor of over two decades, and Scottsdale-based First Financial Equity Corp, to found Edward N. George Wealth Management—a boutique financial management firm that helps athletes get their finances in order via estate planning, tax planning strategies, retirement, and income planning.
Wealth management was a homecoming of sorts for George as it brought together a number of his diverse interests, according to a previous interview with the Nashville Post: “My life’s mission is entrepreneurship, entertainment and education. The wealth management firm is both entrepreneurship for me and education for the players.”
KPMG Master of Accounting Program Arrives at Terry College of Business
A new partnership between the University of Georgia – Terry College of Business and personal finance firm KPMG will give accounting students the chance to participate in a one-of-a-kind program that prepares them for the digital marketplace.
