Digital Media’s Precarious Future, and More – Los Angeles News
As we all reel in from a hectic Valentine’s Day, lets take a look at some of the biggest Los Angeles business school news from the week that was.
Mount Saint Mary’s LA Hosts Event on the Future of California’s Women – MSMLA News
Mount Saint Mary’s, Los Angeles is hosting its 8th Annual Report on the Status of Women and Girls in California. This event features leaders from business, law, medicine and the arts. It arrives on March 28, 2019 at the school’s Skirball Cultural Center.
Researched, published and produced by the Center for the Advancement of Women at MSMU, the report measures the status of women in the state using a number of criteria such as socio-economic status, gender, race and age, with the goal of improving their quality of life and opportunities.
The 8th annual Status of Women and Girls in California event returns March 28 at Mount Saint Mary’s, LA.
One of the headlining features of the event will be a conversation between filmmaker and First Partner of California, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, and Senator Holly J. Mitchell. Emerald Archer, the Center’s Director, says of the event, “We are excited to welcome such a diverse group of accomplished women … Their work and commitment to increasing equity and inclusion in our communities will provide [us with] invaluable insights.”
The event’s guests will include Alex Grimwade, SVP and CIO, Twentieth Century Fox Television; Rekha Chiruvolu, Director of Diversity and Inclusion for the Nixon Peabody Law Firm; Tiffany Smith-Anoa’i, EVP for Diversity, Inclusion & Communications, CBS Entertainment; and MSMU’s current President, Dr. Ann McElaney-Johnson.
For more on the event, visit MSMU LA’s website.
Pepperdine Graziadio Welcomes Kellogg Executive at Women’s Speaker Series – Graziadio News
As part of its Center for Women in Leadership Executive Speaker Series, Pepperdine Graziadio Business School welcomed Monica McGurk, Chief Revenue and E-Commerce Officer at the Kellogg Company.
McGurk hosted a discussion entitled “Navigating Culture and Complexity” in which she will share her experience in directing Kellogg toward continued growth in an ever changing market. After graduating from Harvard and Stanford Graduate School of Business, McGurk worked first for Tyson Foods as chief growth officer and then as SVP of e-commerce and strategy for Coca Cola of North America. At McKinsey, where she was a Partner, McGurk focused on product development and innovation, marketing, and culture transformation.
The event featured past speakers such as Beatrice Guillaume-Grabisch, CEO of Nestle Germany, and Mary-Ann Somers, Senior Vice President at Intuit.
For more on Monica McGurk and the speaker series, click here.
UCLA Anderson Lecturer on the State of Digital Media – LA Times
Peter Cowen, UCLA Anderson School of Management lecturer, recently offered his outlook on the state of digital media companies for an article in the LA Times.
The piece explores BuzzFeed’s recent downsizing. The company recently slashed 250 jobs—15 percent of its entire workforce. Some theorize the company attempted to grow too soon. Other believe it has relied too heavily on outlets such as Facebook to grow its audience. There is also a significant argument that the job losses were a result of overestimated revenue goals. The company, according to the New York Times, earned over $260 million in revenue last year, but it was nearly $90 million below its yearly goal.
The model used by BuzzFeed is one that gains viewers via social media and then sells the viewership to advertisers.
An estimated 15 percent of the BuzzFeed workforce last their jobs in recent weeks.
With so much competition, it is difficult to retain viewers on any one digital media outlet. Furthermore, the power of Facebook to manipulate its viewers has proven to be a factor for BuzzFeed and its peers. Cowen notes, “Facebook is known for changing the algorithms, which makes companies that use [it] as their prime source of getting viewers more vulnerable than ever.”
BuzzFeed is not the only one to feel the burn recently. Vox, Mic, Vice Media, and Refinery29 have also had to cut jobs. Click here to read the full LA Times article.
Work Friends May Not Get Better Benefits, According to UCLA – LA News
As we fully unroll into the new year, we take a look at some of the biggest recent news coming out of Los Angeles.
UCLA Anderson Professor on Work Friendships’ Effects – UCLA Anderson News
Research by Eugene Caruso, Associate Professor of Management and Organizations at UCLA Anderson School of Management, recently received note in the online forum Quartz at Work.
Caruso, along with colleagues from the University of Chicago and Hebrew University, studied the consequences of friendships between managers and employees. Through a series of experiments, the team discovered that when a boss makes a decision, such as who gets a bonus, they are actually less likely to give it to a friend in order to appear impartial. This tendency remained much of the time even when the friend was the more highly deserving candidate for the bonus.
Notably, when managers had to make a decision on a bonus that would remain private, they were more likely to choose the deserving friend. Participants in the research were told that the friend had performed only slightly better than the other bonus candidate, and that the choices were to give the friend the merit-based bonus or to flip a coin to decide between the two. In the public decision scenario, the deserving friend received the bonus 27 percent of the time. When the deserving worker was the non-friend, participants granted the bonus over 60 percent of the time.
The research overall revealed that participants were more likely to approve of the merit-based bonuses. The study can serve as an important model for HR managers on the unintended outcomes of workplace relationships.
Read more about the team’s research here.
Mihaylo Professors on China Trade War and the SoCal Economy – Mihaylo News
Associate Professor of Economics Pedro Amaral and Lecturer Aaron Popp of Cal State Fullerton’s Mihaylo College of Business have examined the impact of the U.S. and China Trade War upon one of the most influential economies, that of Southern California. The region serves as a hub of trade with East Asia.
Cal State Fullerton professor Pedro Amaral
In the panel discussion last month sponsored by the CSUF Economic Association, Amaral and Popp presented their research.
“About 46 percent of total Chinese imports are being tariffed, but L.A. is serving a smaller percentage of those products [that are being tariffed]–41 percent. But any later round of tariffs will have a harder impact on the local economy,” Popp notes.
Reflecting upon the long history of the tension between the two world powers and the nature of China’s transition, Amaral says, “China has had an incomplete transition into capitalism, which the West still ponders about China …We used to think that once they got into free trade, they would become a freer society upon the embrace of the market economy. But they haven’t, which is something my liberal mind struggles with.”
You can read more on Popp and Amaral’s discussion here.
Graziadio Strategy Professor on Corporate Boards and Entrepreneurship – Graziadio News
Dr. Mark Tribbit, Pepperdine Graziadio Assistant Professor of Strategy, was honored recently for his scholarly research with the 2018 Emerald Literati Award. For the past 25 years, the award has acknowledged valuable contributions to scholarly research.
Tribbit’s research, “An Agency Perspective on the Board of Directors and Corporate Entrepreneurship,” examined the effect of takeovers upon internal entrepreneurship. The outcome of the research will help corporate boards to foster entrepreneurial efforts by staff.
Dr. Mark Tribbit, Pepperdine Graziadio Assistant Professor of Strategy / Photo via newsroom.pepperdine.edu
In addition to his professorship, Tribbit serves as the Academic Director of Graziadio’s full-time MBA program. Experienced in management for corporate, retail banking, and wholesale, Dr. Tribbit received his MBA from Villanova University, and his Ph.D. in strategic management from Drexel University.
You can read more about Dr. Tribbit’s award and his full article here.
