The Best Toronto Business School Internship Opportunities
Toronto is known as one of the major financial centers in North America, and boasts a high concentration of banks and brokerage firms in its bustling Financial District. The city is also home to the Toronto Stock Exchange—the world’s seventh-largest stock exchange by market capitalization.
Will Canadian Customers Adapt to the “Basic” Airline Standard? – Toronto News
Catch up on all the exciting Toronto business schools new from the past week below.
Air Canada, WestJet Offer Cheap Basic Economy Fares for No-Frill Seekers – CBC/Radio-Canada
CBC News sought the expertise of airline analyst and York University Schulich School of Business professor Fred Lazar for an article that examined the intricacies of “basic economy” fares. Though these fares, which offer cheaper seating and even fewer benefits than standard economy, have been popular in the United States, they have only recently been adopted by AirCanada and WestJet.
Though the thought of a cheap flight is tantalizing, basic economy definitely has its drawbacks. Passengers who take advantage of the cheap fares will not earn points (Aeroplan miles or Westjet dollars) with the airlines, cannot change their flights, are ineligible for refunds, and cannot upgrade their seats.
Though some predict the limiting and cost-effective option will see backlash from dissatisfied passengers, Lazar predicts Canadian travelers will adapt quickly to the no-frills travel option.
“Just like when [airlines] started charging for food, charging for blankets, pillows, there were complaints. You rarely get them nowadays,” Lazar said.
Learn more about Canadian airlines’ “basic economy” option here.
Why Students Make Their Ideas Commercial Faster – Forbes
This week, a Forbes article about student entrepreneurs featured a paper authored by three experts, including University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management professor Joshua Gans. The book, “Control Versus Execution: Endogenous Appropriability and Entrepreneurial Strategy,” whose other authors include Kenny Ching of University College and Scott Stern of MIT Sloan, explored entrepreneurship in technological innovation.
The researchers looked at the successes of student-led and faculty-led entrepreneurial endeavors and found that students prioritize bringing an idea to fruition quickly, rather than obtaining intellectual property assets. Forbes used the findings in the paper to suggest that student entrepreneurs are more successful due to their emphasis on speed over caution.
“Our analysis suggests that student entrepreneurs, with less time and with less access to university intellectual property institutions, are more likely to choose an execution-oriented strategy. Compared to University faculty, who are more likely to be patient, wait for delayed market entry and pursue a control-oriented strategy with formal protection.” – Kenny Ching
Learn more about why student entrepreneurs are often successful here.
New Course Explores Intersection of Business and Community – McMaster’s Brighter World Daily News
First year students in the Integrated Business and Humanities (IBH) program at McMaster University’s Degroote School of Business have been traveling to downtown Hamilton to attend a weekly class at CityLAB. CityLAB is a hub that allows students from community institutions (McMaster University, Redeemer University College, and Mohawk College) to collaborate with municipal staff and engage with the community to tackle pressing projects and issues.
Integrated Business and Humanities meet at the CityLAB space / Photo via dailynews.mcmaster.ca
“It’s a totally new way of learning,” said IBH student Yael Morris. “We’re finding out how we can apply social innovation not just to business, but to our everyday lives so we can build relationships and interact with people in our communities.”
The class, IBH 1AD3 allows students to gain a new perspective on challenges facing their community, and to tackle these challenges from a business perspective. IBH was a collaboration between that Business and Humanities faculties aimed at producing industry leaders apt to address societal issues such as sustainability and business ethics.
“Through a combination of instruction, community-based guest speakers, field trips and projects, students have been learning about the concepts that underpin community engagement and social innovation, as well as about social enterprise and the business models used by community organizations.”
Read more about McMaster’s CityLAB course here.
DeGroote Professor Workplace Policy Helps Shape New Law, and More -Toronto News
This week, Toronto business schools discuss substantial contributions to the workplace, researchers from DeGroote and Ryerson have each worked to make workplaces more just and equitable, and a new book by Rotman professors gives practical tools for incorporating AI into business.
Doing Right By Employees Ultimately Pays Off – McMaster Brighter World
Research from Isik Zeytinoglu, professor of human resources and management at McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Business, has shown that treating employees well may be a shrewd move for employers. Dr. Zeytinoglu, whose research influenced the World Health Organization’s WHO Healthy Workplace Framework, has been touting the benefits of a healthy relationship between employers and workers for over 30 years. The Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act, which came into effect at the beginning of April, had many benefits and protections for workers, including a requirement that part-time and temp employees must receive the same pay as full-time staff for the same work.
“In the long term, equity helps society, the community, and the economy,” Zeytinoglu said. “Throughout history, there have been employers who considered fairness and behaved justly toward their workers, and they are the ones who have prospered.” It is no coincidence that the new law aligns with much of Zeytinoglu’s research; in fact, the government consulted the professor during the bill’s formative stages.
Read more about the new bill and Zeytinoglu’s work here.
These Are the Workplace Gender Equity Tactics That Actually Work – Canadian Business
This week, professors at Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management, Martin Fabro and Chris MacDonald, wrote an article on gender equity for Canadian Business; a follow-up to one the authors wrote in late March, “A Seven-Step Plan To Improve Gender Diversity At Any Company.” While the first piece offered actionable instructions to improve gender diversity, Fabro and MacDonald focused their follow-up on which of the most popular gender diversity tactics were rooted in evidence-based practices.
The Ryerson researchers explored which gender equity practices helped to either, “actively improve gender diversity (and in particular to increase the number of women in leadership roles), and to reduce underlying gender bias and discriminatory attitudes within the organizational culture.”
Learn more about improving gender equity in the workplace here.
PREDICTION MACHINES: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence – Rotman New Releases
In their new book, PREDICTION MACHINES: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence, Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb took on the task of theorizing the possible role of artificial intelligence in business. In the past, the possible effects of AI on business seemed so vast, they were difficult to tackle. Agrawal, Gans, and Goldfarb demystify AI, by re-framing it as a prediction tool.
“More than just an account of AI’s powerful capabilities, PREDICTION MACHINES shows managers how they can most effectively leverage AI, disrupting business as usual only where required, and provides businesses with a toolkit to navigate the coming wave of challenges and opportunities.”
A book launch was held at the Rotman School of Management on April 16.
You can read more about PREDICTION MACHINES here.
Rotman Receives $6 Million Endowment, and More – Toronto News
This week, some of Toronto’s most prominent business schools have seen a wealth of exciting news (including actual wealth in Rotman’s case, in the form of a sizeable donation). We’ve rounded up some of the most exciting recent news from Toronto metro’s business schools.
Private Donations Give Specialty Programs a Shot in the Arm – The Globe and Mail
Over 20 years since the University of Toronto received a $15 million donation from the Rotman family, changing its name from the Faculty of Management to the current Rotman School of Management, the philanthropic family once again returned a sizable gift to the Toronto business school.
The new $6 million donation will boost the school’s healthcare management programs, according to the Globe and Mail. As well, the family gifted the school an additional $1 million to help “the reach of an award-winning program for Indigenous entrepreneurs.”
“The latest Rotman family donation is earmarked for three initiatives: recruitment of three faculty research chairs in artificial intelligence, life sciences commercialization and health economics and policy; scholarships for graduate students in health care management studies; and support for a new global executive MBA for health care and life sciences.”
You can learn more about the Rotmans’ donation here.
Schulich Researchers Analyze Canada’s Multicultural Marketplace – yFile
A new York University Schulich School of Business study from professors Ela Veresiu and Markus Giesler—“Beyond Acculturation: Multiculturalism and the Institutional Shaping of an Ethnic Consumer Subject”—found that “that Canada’s market-based form of multiculturalism fosters marketplace inclusion without resource redistribution, and maintains ethnic divides rather than uniting diverse communities.”
“We bring sociological theories of neoliberal governmentality and multiculturalism to bear on an in-depth analysis of the contemporary Canadian marketplace to reveal our concept of market-mediated multiculturation, which we define as an institutional mechanism for attenuating ethnic group conflicts through which immigrant-receiving cultures fetishize strangers and their strangeness in their commodification of differences, and the existence of inequalities between ethnicities is occluded,” said Veresiu.
You can read more about Veresiu and Giesler’s study here.
Investing Insights: Lessons from Tom Russo – Ivey Blog
Last month, Tom Russo, managing member of Pennsylvania investment firm Gardner Russo & Gardner, spoke with professor George Athanassakos’ value investing class at the Ivey Business School about his company’s investment philosophy, which broke down into three principles.
Gardner Russo & Gardner managing member Tom Russo / Photo via ivey.uwo.ca
- The capacity to invest
- The capacity to suffer
- The capacity do nothing
“Despite the long-term unattractiveness of holding cash, doing nothing may sometimes prove to be the right decision to make,” HBA and Computer Science dual degree candidate Leroi Yu writes on the Ivey Business School blog. Sitting on the sidelines instead of compromising on quality takes character. It provides optionality and may prove to be beneficial in the long-run.”
You can read more about Russo’s advice here.
‘Shark Tank’s’ Mr. Wonderful Talks About MBAs, and More – Toronto News
Take a look at some of the top stories coming out of the Toronto business schools this week.
Kevin O’Leary: Here’s How Much an MBA Matters in Business – CNBC
Kevin O’Leary may be one of the most successful businessmen in Canada now, but when he graduated from the University of Waterloo in 1977, he struggled to even land an entry-level job. After two years of frustration and rejection, O’Leary decided to pursue an MBA at Western University Canada’s Ivey Business School. The business giant, known on ABC’s Shark Tank as “Mr. Wonderful,” sees his decision to enroll at Ivey as a turning point in his life.
“The real value of an education is who you meet while you’re getting it,” O’Leary said in an interview with CNBC. “Think about that if you’re in college right now.”
“‘The great thing about an MBA is not the technical skills you’ve learned—because frankly, to be honest with you, I forgot all of those—it was the people I met in my class,’ O’Leary explains.
‘Where are they now? Running banks, they’re industrialists, they’re venture capitalists, they’re investors, they’re all around the world,’ he says. ‘I can pick up the phone and say, ‘Hi. Mr. Wonderful here, let’s talk about a business idea.'”
You can read more about O’Leary’s education and success here.
Bank of Canada Fellowship for Rotman School Professor Renewed for Second Term – EurekAlert!
In 2013, Peter Christoffersen, professor of finance at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management was awarded the Bank of Canada Fellowship, which was recently renewed. The Fellowship Award goes to academics whose research provides insight in areas essential to the bank. Christoffersen has been committed to researching new technology and its effects and potential in the finance realm.
“The Bank is pleased to renew its support for Professor Christofferesen’s work,” said Governor Stephen S. Poloz. “He is helping to shed light on some important issues facing Canada’s financial industry.”
Learn more about Christoffersen and the Bank of Canada Fellowship Award here.
Schulich Students Win Developers’ Den Competition – RemiNetwork
Two groups of students from York University’s Schulich School of Business placed in the top three in this year’s Developers’ Den international case competition. The winning team was made up of four students from Schulich’s Master in Real Estate and Infrastructure (MREI) program: Derek Wei, Jordan Trinder, Alannah Bird, and Bao Nguyen. The competition, which took place on March 23rd, is in its eighth year.
“The Developers’ Den competition provides an important opportunity for the best students to develop and showcase their analytical, creative and presentation skills as emerging talent in front of leaders within the real property sector,” said Jim Clayton, who was recently appointed to the Timothy R. Price Chair at Schulich’s Brookfield Centre in Real Estate and Infrastructure. “We are grateful for the tremendous support the competition receives from industry and alumni.”
Check out more about the competition here.
Trudeau Comes to Rotman, Trump Tariffs Addressed, and More – Toronto News
Toronto business schools have seen some exciting news this week, and we’ve collected some of the highlights.
DeGroote Professor Talks Tariffs on CTV — CHCH.com
CTV recently interviewed Marvin Ryder, assistant professor at McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Business, regarding U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal to place tariffs on aluminum and steel. Ryder felt it was possible Canada may not be subject to these tariffs, as Trump seems more focused on Russia and China. Since this interview, Trump has indicated that the tariffs will not apply to Canada and Mexico right away. However, if Trump eventually opts to place tariffs on Canadian products, Ryder suggests the proper course of action is to place similar tariffs on American goods. Ryder has been nominated for the McMaster Student Union Teaching Award 11 times, and published a collection of case studies titled, Marketing Insights: Contemporary Canadian Cases.
You can view Ryder’s full interview here.
Justin Trudeau Visits Rotman — iPolitics
Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s extensive promotional tour took him to University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management this week. Trudeau went to Rotman to participate in a discussion on women in business with Catalyst Canada director Tanya van Biesen. Attending this event is consistent with his emphasis on promoting gender equality in Canada.
You can read more about Trudeau’s tour itinerary here.
Schulich Alumn Featured in APEX — apex.aero
APEX published an article on March 6, in which they profiled women in powerful positions in the aviation industry, and sought advice from these women about increasing the presence of females in the field. One of the women profiled was Catherine Brown, who received her MBA from York University’s Schulich School of Business. Brown is now the head of marketing at Bluebook Aviation Systems, a company that distributes in-flight entertainment systems. When asked how gender gaps in the industry will affect future generations, Brown said, “Until unconscious biases about gender change in both men and women, progress toward real equality will be tough, no matter how strong the push is for it in any single industry.”
For the full article on Women in PaxEx, click here.
