New Dean Will Lead Cornell SC Johnson College of Business
Economist and labor market scholar Kevin F. Hallock has been appointed dean of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business beginning December 15, Provost Michael Kotlikoff announced yesterday afternoon. The Cornell College of Business, formed in early 2016, integrates the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, the School of Hotel Administration, and the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management.
An experienced administrator, Hallock has served as dean and professor in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) since 2015. His new term as dean of the College of Business was approved by the Cornell Board of Trustees executive committee and will run through June 30, 2024. Kotlikoff said in a statement that a search for a permanent ILR School dean to replace Hallock will begin immediately and an interim dean will be named next week.
“As an accomplished economist, scholar, and administrator, Kevin provides the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business with the leadership to maximize its enormous potential,” Kotlikoff said in a statement. “His thorough familiarity with Cornell’s administrative workings is a significant asset, and the college will be well served by his deep understanding of business administration theory and practice.”
Overseeing the combined schools of the Johnson College of Business is a big job. The decision to unify the three schools under a single umbrella was reached because it promised to make a wider range of opportunities available to students while also increasing Cornell’s ability to draw top recruiters and faculty. But Founding Dean Soumitra Dutta stepped down unexpectedly in February, and L. Joseph Thomas has been serving as interim dean since he left.
Hallock Brings Record of Strong Leadership
As ILR dean, Hallock’s accomplishments were many, including guiding the school through a strategic planning process, investing in student experience and well-being, and introducing a school-wide initiative to unite students, staff, and faculty around a common theme, such as “Technology and the Evolution of Work,” which has been this year’s theme. He also brings fundraising prowess, having raised resources for new investments in IRL faculty and research, expanded human resources, and a transition of ILR’s New York City office to a new home at 570 Lexington Ave, slated to open in January 2019.
Kevin Hallock, the next dean of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. Photo credit: Jesse Winter Photography
“Grateful and Excited to Start This New Chapter at Cornell”
Hallock said he is “grateful and excited to start this new chapter at Cornell” but realizes he has his work cut out for him.
“The Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, in its infancy, faces challenges, like many new organizations, and those challenges are part of what attracted me to this role,” he said in a statement. “But there is also enormous opportunity, outstanding strength, and unique advantages in the college and its three schools. I am excited to work with its talented staff, students, faculty, and alumni, and I am exceptionally optimistic about the future of the college.”
The College of Business notes that it has already celebrated several milestones in its first couple of years. Applications for open faculty positions in 2017-18 increased five-fold over prior years in some areas, the school reports. Not only that, more faculty who have been offered positions have accepted them than ever before, resulting in the successful hires of 20 new faculty. Undergraduate application volume at both the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management and the School of Hotel Administration grew by 80 percent between 2016 and 2018. Application volume at the Johnson Graduate School of Management is down just slightly year over year, less than one percentage point. This puts Johnson ahead of many of its U.S. peer business schools, which experienced even greater declines.
An expert on executive compensation, compensation design, and labor markets, Hallock’s research has focused on the complexity of executive compensation contracts and corporate performance and been featured in academic journals including The American Economic Review, the Journal of Corporate Finance and the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. The Sloan Foundation and the U.S. Departments of Labor and Education are among many organizations that have helped to fund his research.
Long History of Involvement at Cornell
A longstanding member of the larger Cornell family, Hallock joined the faculty of ILR in 2005 and became its dean in 2015. During his tenure, he also has played an active role on several university committees, including Cornell’s Financial Policy Committee, the Provost’s Budget Model Task Force, and the Cornell Student Experience Initiative’s steering committee. In 2009, he was the founding director of Cornell’s Institute for Compensation Studies.
Outside of Cornell, he has also been active as a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research since 2003. And in 2013, he was elected a fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources. He has consulted and served as an expert witness on issues of compensation, executive compensation, stock price reactions to labor market events, and antitrust in labor markets.
Hallock holds a bachelor’s degree in economics summa cum laude from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and master’s and doctoral degrees in economics from Princeton University.
Learn more about the newly appointed dean of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from Clear Admit.
New Johnson Cornell MBA Class of 2020 Features More Women and URMs
The Cornell MBA Class of 2020 kicked off the fall semester in style earlier this month at the Johnson Graduate School of Management. To formally welcome the new recruits to the Cornell community, Johnson Business Feed revealed a comprehensive class profile, shedding light on the students who make up the incoming class.
The Johnson Cornell MBA Class of 2020
There are 280 students in the incoming students (up just slightly from last year’s 277), and they boast an average GMAT score of 699 and an average undergrad GPA of 3.4. The figures are pretty similar to the Class of 2019, where average GMAT score was 700 and average GPA was 3.36. Average work experience remains constant year over year, with incoming students bringing five years’ experience in the workforce to bear on their business school journey.
Admissions Director Judi Byers and her team have been working hard to recruit more women to Johnson, and their efforts are paying off. Women make up a full third—33 percent—of this year’s incoming class, a six-point increase over last year. The percentage of underrepresented minorities (URMs) in the Class of 2020 also grew from 12 percent last year to 15 percent with this new class. In total, U.S. minorities make up 32 percent of the new class. That figure includes Asian American, African American, Native American, and Hispanic American students.
International students, though, dipped. International students made up 34 percent of last year’s incoming class, but this year they account for only 27 percent. Johnson, like many of its peer schools, experienced a drop-off in international application volume amid widespread concerns around possible U.S. immigration and work visa restrictions. Still, they will bring perspectives from 40 different countries to the Johnson classroom. That’s up from 38 countries represented in the second-year class. There are also fewer military veterans in this year’s class—7 percent as compared to 11 percent for the Class of 2019.
In terms of undergraduate majors, former business students coming in first, making up 29 percent of the class. Social science majors make up the second largest group at 21 percent. This was followed closely by engineers, who comprise another 20 percent of the class. Humanities majors are in the minority: They represent just 10 percent of the Class of 2020.
As for previous work experience, the vast majority of the incoming class—44 percent—falls into the category of “other.” According to Johnson, this includes students who have worked in the real estate, energy, nonprofit, and transportation industries, among others. Roughly a quarter of the class—23 percent—come from finance, and another 17 percent are former consultants.
On Instagram post, Byers shares that the Class of 2020 got into the spirit of things during pre-term week, adding to the school’s shared wall of values and expectations. Community, impact, collaboration, excellence, and teamwork were among those she highlights.
Click here to view the complete Cornell MBA Class of 2020 profile.
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from Clear Admit.
Cornell Study Reveals Curious Fashion Findings, and More – New York News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from New York business schools this week, including curious new findings from a recent Cornell study.
How Disclosing Sponsored Content Affects Consumer Trust in Bloggers – Johnson Business Feed
Cornell University SC Johnson Graduate School of Management Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations Sunita Sah, along with Georgetown’s Prashant Malaviya and Debora Thompson, recently co-authored new research that examines how “consumers react to disclosures of sponsorship from fashion bloggers.”
In a recent release from the Johnson Business Feed, professor Sah writes, “In contrast to much of the previous research on conflict of interest disclosures, we found that in the context-rich setting of online blogs, conflict of interest disclosures have the unanticipated consequence of increasing, rather than decreasing, consumer trust in the blogger and their expertise.”
Sah explains how the blogosphere could more effectively handle disclosures:
“If the purpose is to protect consumers by assuming they will make the necessary adjustments to the advice they receive, it’s crucial that we consider the impact of processing by readers and thoroughly understand any unintended consequences that may occur. We may just have to think harder for solutions other than disclosure to manage conflicts of interest.”
You can find more about the Cornell study here.
Round-the-Clock Work Emails Impact Health, Relationships – Lehigh College of Business and Economics Blog
New research co-authored by Lehigh University College of Business and Economics Associate Professor of Management Liuba Belkin, Virginia Tech’s William Becker, Colorado State’s Samantha A. Conroy, and Virginia Tech doctoral student Sarah Tuskey finds that “personal relationships and home life suffer for those tied to their work emails round-the-clock.”
Liuba Belkin, Ph.D., Lehigh Associate Professor of Management
According to the Lehigh College of Business and Economics Blog, the study is the first to “test the relationship between organizational expectations to monitor work-related electronic communication during non-work hours and the health and relationship satisfaction of employees and their significant others.”
Belkin notes that round-the-clock work emails are “an insidious stressor that not only increase employee anxiety, decrease their relationship satisfaction and have detrimental effects on employee health, but also that they negatively affect partner (significant other) health and marital satisfaction perceptions.”
Belkin recommends that organizations “set off-hour email windows and limit use of electronic communications outside of those windows or set up email schedules when various employees are available to respond.”
The researchers presented “Killing Me Softly: Electronic Communications Monitoring and Employee and Spouse Well-Being” at the Academy of Management annual meeting in Chicago earlier this month and is due for publication in the Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings.
You can read the full article here.
Professor Applies Principles of Operations Management to New Areas – Rutgers Business News
The Rutgers Business School recently published a profile of Supply Chain Management Department Chair and Associate Professor Lian Qi, whose research “goes beyond the traditional supply chain domain [to explore] new and relevant [topics] related to areas of high impact.”
According to the profile, highlighted in a recent release from Rutgers Business News, Professor Qi’s research “seeks to apply operations management principles and techniques to resolve customer service issues in … healthcare service and the service operations for electric vehicles.”
In the piece, Professor Qi explains why he opted to pursue a career in academia:
“My father is a professor who has inspired my various interests since I was a child. The second reason is that after I worked as a supply chain management consultant at SAP, I wanted to study more theoretical concepts in this area. I also love to work with students. This makes me feel that I can really help many people not just help a department within a company.”
YOu can read the full interview of Qi here.
Crypto Regulation, Military Experience in Business School, and More – New York News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from New York business schools this week.
Crypto Market Raises $13 Billion Since 2014, Amid Zero Regulation – Columbia Business School News
Columbia Business School’s Thomas Bourveau recently co-authored research, which analyzed 776 initial coin offerings (ICOs) shared between April 2014 to May 2018 to reveal a number of key insights into regulating the decentralized platforms that comprise the current cryptocurrency market, as well as the “value of disclosure in this fast-growing global unregulated market.”
According to the article, the market offers “virtually zero protection for investors since issuers are not required to register with any securities market authority.” Moreover, issuers are “not required to provide periodic financial or non-financial disclosures.” Crypto market participants prefer “self-regulation” and decentralization to securities regulation, although it’s unlikely that the “ICO market will remain completely unregulated for much longer.”
The research, which was co-authored by LBS’s Emmanuel De George, the University of Utah’s Atif Ellahie and Daniele Macciocchi, highlights characteristics of successful ICOs, which includes “disclosure of the source code; provision of genuinely informative white papers; substantial social media activity; disclosure of vesting periods for founders’ tokens; and issue of tokens that are well rated by crypto-market information intermediaries.”
You can read the full article here and the full working paper here.
Applying Military Experience To a Sustainability Challenge – Johnson Business School Feed
Johnson Association of Veterans VP of Community Relations Jason Buselli (MBA ’19) recently wrote about his experience using technology to solve “security problems of the Afghan National Police” to his semester working on the KAZNET mobile crowdsourcing platform in Kenya as part of Johnson’s Sustainable Global Enterprise (SGE) immersion.
According to Buselli, KAZNET was “developed by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and funded through a USAID grant to help alleviate data asymmetry within the livestock value chain in Kenya.” Data asymmetry contributes to exploitation of small holder farmers by traders and brokers.
The platform uses “contributions from mobile users to collect, synthesize, and distribute livestock market prices.”
Buselli writes of his semester in Kenya:
“I have gained invaluable exposure to work in emerging markets, in-field consumer research, value discovery/development, market sizing, tech platform monetization, financial modeling, and implementation strategy development. I am confident that I can apply the business skills I gained through the SGE immersion to my internship [at Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies] this summer.
You can read the full article here.
Summer Camp Introduces Students to World of Business – Rutgers Business School Blog
Rutgers Business School recently held its fifth annual Summer Camp, which hosted ninety high school students at its Livingston campus, over the course of seven days.
Assistant Professor of Professional Practice in Finance and Economics Ron Richter says, “The camp allows high school students to experience business and college life in a manner that allows them to make informed decisions about the next chapter in their lives.”
Yvonne Tang, a camper who took part in this year’s session, writes, “The Rutgers Business School summer camp opened my eyes to the world of adulthood and professionalism. Regardless of whether my peers decided they were interested in business, the most important part was that by the end of the week, we learned what business really meant. This learning experience is a must for anyone who thinks they’ll be interested in business.”
You can read the full article here.
Paid Maternity Leave Increasing, and More – New York News
Pack up the pool gear and beach towels: let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from New York business schools this week.
Father’s Day Data: Columbia Business School Research Demonstrates Popularity of Paid Paternity Leave – Columbia Business Blog
How has the culture of paid maternity leave been changing recently? New research from the Columbia Business School explores the topic, which has increased for 12 percent of private-sector workers in the U.S. There is still no current federal law requiring the implementation of paid maternity leave, leaving the U.S. with the precarious title as the only “industrialized” country in the world without a federally-mandated law. Individual states, however, can implement the policy, which has been increasing since the early 2000s.
Earlier this year, New York became the fourth state in the U.S. to create policy regarding paid maternity leave, alongside New Jersey, Rhode Island, and California, which implemented the law back in 2004. According to the article, “California’s paid family leave produced a 46-percent increase in fathers taking time off to bond with newborn and newly-adopted children.”
CBS professor Ann Bartel writes, “This study should help inform the conversation around paid leave, because research shows it is fundamentally a family issue – appealing to both mothers and fathers. At its core, paid family leave is a ‘dad’ issue as much as it is a ‘mom’ issue. As Father’s Day approaches, our research demonstrates that fathers will greatly utilize paid family leave if it is offered, and their employers are supportive of them taking that important time away from the job.”
You can read more about “Paid Family Leave, Fathers’ Leave‐Taking, and Leave‐Sharing in Dual‐Earner Households,” which was published in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, here.
How Social Media’s Powerful ‘Silent Majority’ Moves Bitcoin Prices – Stevens Institute of Technology Blog
Stevens Institute of Technology School of Business professor Feng Mai recently led an investigation to understand how social media public sentiment can significantly manipulate the value of bitcoin.
Professor Mai’s research, which was published in the Journal of Management Information Systems, encompassed scholars from Ivey, Dickinson, and the University of Cincinnati, all of whom “collected and analyzed two years’ worth of forum posts on the world’s most popular public bitcoin forum, Bitcointalk.”
The team found that “periods of increasingly positive social media commentary do in fact influence the rising price of Bitcoin significantly.” Mai writes, “We wanted to know who is affecting the price: a vocal minority, who may be biased, or the quieter majority, who do not seem to have a reason to be untruthful, or both.”
According to the article, “the “silent majority” — infrequent Twitter and Bitcointalk users who took the time to comment on the cryptocurrency’s prospects — moved prices more, as much as ten times more, when they posted positive comments.”
Mai writes, “This was a big finding, and it does seem to prove that people are trusting the silent majority much more, perhaps because they do not seem to have an agenda.”
Check out the full Stevens’ article here.
Johnson Women MBAs Boast Record-Breaking Attendance at Forté Conference – Johnson School of Management Business Feed
As we recently highlighted, Cornell’s S.C. Johnson School of Management reported that 49 Cornell students attended this year’s FortéMBA Women’s Leadership Conference in Atlanta, Georgia—29 from the two-year MBA program, seven from the one-year program, and 13 from the Johnson Cornell Tech MBA program.
The Forté Conference brings “together admitted, enrolling, and current women MBAs from Forté sponsor business schools to explore career paths, meet recruiters and mentors, and hear from today’s most influential businesswomen.”
This year’s conference featured keynote speaker Joanna Lipman, veteran journalist, chief content officer of Gannet, editor-in-chief of USA Today, and author of That’s What She Said, who spoke on “gender bias in the workplace and provided tips for how women can leverage their value.”
In addition to a Power Pitch session and a number of workshopsand panels on “on communications strategies, interviewing, design thinking, sustainable and socially responsible careers, LinkedIn, and the future of feminism, among others,” the conference also included talks from Accenture North American CEO Julie Sweet and State Street EVP and Deputy Global Chief Investment Officer Lori Heinel.
Anne Latham, Two-Year MBA ’20, writes of her experience:
“The Forte Leadership Conference was an incredible few days. I walked away feeling fortunate to have met so many of my incredible female classmates! The Dialogue with Leadership session, moderated by Dean Erika James, featuring Lori Heinel and Julie Sweet, was a particular favorite of mine, due to their incredibly engaging and thought provoking remarks. I hope we all continue to live by Julie’s advice: ‘If your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough!’”
You can read the full article from Cornell here.
Rutgers Supply Chain Analytics Student Spends Summer at Amazon, and More – New York News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from New York business schools this week.
Beginning a Career in Supply Chain at Amazon – Rutgers Business School
Rutgers Business School exchange student Qiying Xu recently had an opportunity to put her supply chain management theory and Lean Six Sigma course work to use as part of an entry-level management position she will pursue at one of Amazon’s new fulfillment centers.
Xu writes that the Rutgers specialty master’s program in supply chain analytics gave her “the picture of the whole supply chain. The data analytics skills she’s accrued have almost single-handedly “changed the course of [her] career.”
You can read the full article on Xu’s work here.
Bridging the Gap Between Politics and Renewables – Johnson Business Feed
In a new op-ed with his alma mater, recent Johnson SOM graduate Mark DesMeules, MBA ’18, wrote about the role his school played in his career pivot from politics.
“I came to Johnson to accomplish what is colloquially known in the MBA world as a ‘career pivot.’ Prior to joining the Johnson community, I worked in politics in the nation’s capital—Washington DC. After gaining nearly five years of advocacy experience through my work with start-ups, non-profits, and Fortune 500s on intellectual property and technology policy issues, I decided to shift my career trajectory toward an industry I had always been passionate about: renewable energy.”
DesMeules writes that he was immediately sold on Johnson because of the school’s “robust academic and extracurricular offerings on sustainability and renewable energy.”
He elaborates, “At Johnson, I had the chance to explore the intersection of energy, sustainability, and business, all while becoming comfortable with ambiguity and complex business problems.”
“My Johnson colleagues, peers, and professors helped me learn, grow, and successfully pivot from the world of policy to the renewable energy industry. I am excited for the future and look forward to continuing to grow in the next chapter of my career.”
You can read the full op-ed from DesMeules here.
Governor Phil Murphy Selects Stevens to Announce New STEM Initiatives – Stevens Institute of Technology Blog
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy recently visited Stevens Institute of Technology School of Business’ ABS Engineering Center to announce “two new STEM initiatives to retain highly-trained, technology-savvy college graduates in the state.”
The first is a “loan forgiveness program,” which will see “anyone who has worked in a STEM-related job in New Jersey for at least four years receive $2,000 per year, in years 5,6,7,8 at the same job, for a total benefit of $8,000. Employers and the state would split the covered amount 50/50.”
NJ Gov. Phil Murphy speaking at the Stevens Institute of Technology School of Business / Photo via stevens.edu
The second is an internship program for high school and college students in STEM fields, which reimburses “participating employers 50 percent of intern wages, up to $1,500 per student.”
Murphy said, “Stevens is one of the premier places where tomorrow’s leaders in innovation are learning the skills they will need to be successful and to change our world. If we are to grow the innovation economy again, we cannot lose our college graduates after graduation. I want them to stay here, in New Jersey, to be part of our economic future.”
Check out the full article here.
