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Feb 4, 2019

The Future Time Slack Phenomenon, and More – Boston News

Future Time Slack

Let’s review the most interesting stories to emerge from Boston business schools this week, including a Harvard professor’s explanation of what exactly “future time slack” is and why you may be dealing with it on a regular basis.


Time For Happiness: Why the Pursuit of Money Isn’t Bringing You Joy—And What WillHarvard Business Review

New research shows that even if an employee receives a promotion or raise they covet, they may feel just as discontented. Regardless of the outcome of our efforts, we all feel increasingly strapped for time, and often the things that we believe will make us happy—and that we work so hard for—don’t.

Evidence shows that “time affluence” i.e. the feeling of having enough time is at a record low in the United States. Ironically, despite the perception that people today work longer and harder, data shows that most of us have more discretionary hours than ever before. Yet we still feel starved for time.

Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Ashley Whillans writes, “In a study of nearly 40,000 Americans, when people made time-saving purchases on Saturday or Sunday (versus those who did not), they spent about 30 minutes more socializing with friends and family. That in turn promoted greater end-of-day happiness. The people who made those purchases were happier not only because they socialized more but because they derived greater joy from doing it.”

Whillans notes the behavioral factors that affect our decisions to choose money or time. “We suffer from something called future time slack—the belief that we’ll have more time in the future than we do in the present. So, we decide to make some sacrifices now with the promise of enjoying more time later. Of course, when the future comes, we don’t have more time. We just repeat the same mistake.”

You can read more about Whillans’ research here.

Expert Witnesses: Accounting and MBA Students Testify in CourtSawyer Business School

In the Suffolk Law School Moot Courtroom, lawyers deposed Accounting and MBA students in a simulated embezzlement case. This marked the culmination of a semester of students interviewing a plaintiff and a defendant, gathering evidence, writing memos and reports and crunching numbers to determine how much money had been stolen from a fictional company.

As one student after another took the witness stand, the plaintiff’s attorney, Accounting Professor Martino Coviello, BSBA ’97, MSCJ ’04, and the defense attorney, Walter Nelepa, JD ’12, put them through lines of questioning.

Professor Coviello described the reasoning behind this simulation:

“A forensic accountant needs to keep a mindset that everything he or she does will, at some point, be scrutinized in a courtroom. So students need to understand not only courtroom procedures, but also withstand the scrutiny of a defense attorney. It never really clicks until you’re actually in a courtroom.”

Coviello notes how the courtroom simulation has a recognizable impact on the students abilities to recall and stand by their investigation. “You might have missed a date on a memo or you might have misplaced your notes, and that doesn’t seem like a problem until you’re in a courtroom and a defense attorney makes a big deal out of it.”

“He’s trying to instill doubt in the minds of the jurors by asserting that if you made a mistake on that stuff, then you must have made a mistake elsewhere in your investigation,” Coviello says.

You can read more from the article here.

Why AirAsia Boosts Marketing During a Crisis MIT Sloan Ideas That Matter

Tony Fernandes, CEO of AirAsia recently spoke at MIT Sloan to share lessons learned about finding opportunity in adversity and building a culture around people.

Fernandes purchased AirAsia back in 2001 when the airline was $11 million in debt, turning it around to become the world’s best low-cost airline. AirAsia has weathered a range of disasters since Fernandes took charge, from 9/11 to the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak, bird flu, high oil prices, and a currency crisis. Instead of panicking, Fernandes pays a visit to his advertising department. In fact, during the SARS outbreak, Fernandes tripled AirAsia’s advertising.

Image result for AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes

Tony Fernandes, CEO of AirAsia, bucked traditional trends, increasing spending during times of financial crisis, often to the company benefit.

Fernandes remarked, “Most companies cut marketing during a crisis, which is actually a huge mistake. Adversity is a great time to build a business.”

Fernandes adds that it’s important to remember that it’s always people who are the key to a company’s success, and that he is working to create a culture that reflects that.

“I probably spend 50 percent of my time walking around the office, because I think management by walking around is critical. Never lose sight that your biggest asset is the people in your organization. It’s not all about you—it’s about the whole team.”

You can read more about Fernandes and his visit to MIT here.

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Jan 29, 2019

UVA, Oxford, CEIBS Rise in All-New Financial Times 2019 Ranking

Financial Times MBA

The latest Financial Times MBA ranking is officially out, with several international schools rising closer and closer to the top in 2019.

Continue reading…

Posted in: Featured Home, Financial Times, MBA Rankings, News | Comments Off on UVA, Oxford, CEIBS Rise in All-New Financial Times 2019 Ranking

Dec 5, 2018

Americans Are Disconnected With Upward Mobility, Says New Kellogg Research – Chicago News

American Upward Mobility

Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from Chicago business schools this week.


How Close­ly Do Our Beliefs About Social Mobil­i­ty Match Reality?Kellogg Insight

New research from Northwestern Kellogg Assistant Professor of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences Edoar­do Teso assessed mobility rates among social classes in the U.S., U.K., France, Italy, and Sweden and found that Amer­i­cans’ over­es­ti­mat­ed and Europeans underestimated “people’s chances of climbing from the bot­tom to the top of the eco­nom­ic lad­der.”

According to the article, Teso won­ders whether the disconnect between people’s perceptions com­pared to the real­i­ty of social mobility might “explain why the Unit­ed States often resists income redis­tri­b­u­tion poli­cies such as high­er tax­es for the wealthy, while many Euro­pean nations embrace them.”

“These per­cep­tions are real­ly deeply root­ed,” Teso notes.

Image result for suburbs

“Amer­i­ca is famous­ly a land of immi­grants where many peo­ple did in fact build their own fortunes. In con­trast, Europe prac­ticed feu­dal­ism for cen­turies, dur­ing which a person’s fate was large­ly gov­erned by their fam­i­ly circum­stances,” Teso’s research claims.

You can read more about research here.

PIMCO and University of Chicago’s Center for Decision Research Announce Partnership to Guide Wiser Decision-MkingBooth School of Business News

To commemorate the partnership between Chicago Booth’s Center for Decision Research (CDR) and PIMCO, an “innovator in applying research to investment decisions,” the CDR laboratories will be rechristened the PIMCO Laboratories for Decision Research, which will “yield scientific discoveries with the potential to improve individual and social welfare.”

PIMCO Group CIO Dan Ivascyn writes, “Through this novel partnership, we hope to nurture exceptional insights into decision making behavior that will ultimately help PIMCO make wiser decisions for portfolios, clients and employees.”

Booth Dean and George Pratt Shultz Professor of Accounting Madhav Rajan writes, “PIMCO’s spirit of experimentation and interest in asking real-time questions about investing and the economy make it the ideal partner for Booth.”

According to the press release, the PIMCO Decision Research Laboratories will “include a new ‘storefront’ behavioral science research lab to foster greater engagement with the public and to broaden the reach and increase diversity of participants in the research studies.”

Rajan continues, “From PIMCO’s plans to disseminate CDR’s research findings, to conducting joint projects in behavioral science, the collaboration will have a transformational impact on our research enterprise.”

You can read more about the partnership here.

MBA Student Carley Mostar Secures Funding for Her CommunityUIC Business Blog

Carley Mostar, Gies MBA ’19

The UIC Liautaud Graduate School of Business recently profiled Carley Mostar, MBA ’19, whose “Info Park” project secured $25,000 in funding from the Ford College Community Challenge (Ford C3).

Conceived as a collaboration between Mostar, the UIC School of Architecture, and the community of East Garfield Park, Mostar dreamt a plan to transform “one of the lots into a member-use space for the community to use as our own public or private space.”

Mostar and the group have hit the ground running, working with “community engagement workshops and have even started researching fabricators and vendors to work with in preparation for construction, slated to start in early spring of 2019.”

Mostar explains the importance of incorporating the voices of the community into her “Info Park” plan.

“It’s very important to me when doing this kind of work to make sure that the people who the work is for have their voices centered in the outcome of the project,” she says in a recent interview.

You can read more about Mostar and the project here.

Posted in: Chicago, Featured Home, Featured Region, News | Comments Off on Americans Are Disconnected With Upward Mobility, Says New Kellogg Research – Chicago News

Oct 29, 2018

Investing In U.S. Innovation, and More – Boston News

american industry

Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from Boston business schools this week.


The 1 Thing Your Company Should Add To Its Retirement Benefits MIT Sloan Newsroom

MIT Sloan Professor Lotte Bailyn took part in a three-year research study under HBS Professor of Business Administration Teresa Amabile to understand the “organizational, social, and psychological forces that can affect people’s retirement experiences.”

Bailyn outlined two strategies to help “pre- and early-retirement individuals manage their transition out of the workforce”:

  • The “Phase-down” strategy enables a “retiring employee to work less while receiving a percentage of their pay, plus benefits. At the end of the phase-down — which can range from months to a handful of years —the person retires.”
  • The “Contracted rehire” strategy allows companies to hire back employees on a contractual basis, which Bailyn explains, “allowed the company to get the specific niche knowledge that that person has, and by working with other people, employees in the organization could pass on that knowledge.”

Questrom School of Business Professor of Management Tim Hall, one of the researchers on the study, adds, “It’s surprising how little employing organizations are doing to help them [transition]— even though at the same time they’re interested in maybe helping people move on and opening up opportunities for younger people, they’re not. I think there’s a great opportunity cost they’re suffering by not doing that.”

You can find more information on the study here.

How the U.S. Can Rebuild Its Capacity to InnovateHarvard Business Review

There is a growing trend of companies across all industries choosing to “invent and manufacture abroad” in what Harvard Business School’s Willy Shih describes as a loss of “industrial commons.” According to a recent Harvard Business Review article, “nearly half of the foreign R&D centers established in China now belong to U.S.-based companies.”

Cut-off Saw Cutting Metal With Sparks

“Over recent decades, VCs have overwhelmingly focused on software and biotech investments over ‘hardware’ investments, closing additional doors to manufacturing innovations. It’s no wonder that so many promising manufacturing enterprises have to look abroad to simply get off the ground—let alone soar,” writes Sridhar Kota, Justin Talbot-Zorn, and Tom Mahoney.

The article recently outlines four principles the U.S. could use to reinvigorate its industrial ecosystems.

  1. Don’t Fear Picking Winners: “Rather than allowing promising R&D results to languish in labs or even be commercialized by foreign competitors, the U.S. should launch a National Innovation Foundation to invest in engineering and manufacturing R&D to mature emerging technologies and anchor their production onshore.”
  2. Invest in Hardware Startups and Scale-Ups: “U.S. policymakers can … build on existing resources to help innovative hardware startups and scale-ups succeed—particularly through domestic government procurement [the way] China has employed government procurement, strategic technology transfer, and domestic technology development to build its respected high-speed rail industry.”
  3. Mind the Mittelstand: Small and medium enterprises (SMMs) “amount to about 250,000 firms, or 98 percent of all manufacturing firms. By strengthening and supporting these firms, the U.S. could rebuild the backbone of its manufacturing sector.”
  4. Power to the People: “While American high schools typically require students to dissect a frog, few require students to disassemble a power tool. Exposure to real-world engineering is a crucial and cost-effective way to build interest in manufacturing careers—through either four-year engineering degrees or vocational training.”

You can find the entire HBR article on re-investing in American industry here.

Legacies Catching OnCarroll School News

BC Carroll School of Management Professor of Information Systems Gerald Kane recently put together a new research report as part of a gig guest editing the MIT Sloan Management Review’s Digital Business Initiative. The report, Coming of Age Digitally: Learning, Leadership, and Legacy, emphasizes the need for companies to foreground experimentation in their “digitally maturation” processes.

According to the Carroll School News, “Nimble businesses create the conditions for employees to take risks and try new things. The key to [prepare] for more digital disruption is to not simply hire but develop digital leaders.”

“Part of developing leaders means giving employees the time and space to acquire new skills, an area where many companies need to improve. Ninety percent of survey respondents said they need to update their digital skills at least yearly—and 44 percent said they need to do so ‘continually.’ Yet at ‘early-stage’ companies (which are paradoxically often the older companies), nearly 30 percent indicated that their employers offered little to no support to do so.”

You can read more about Kane’s research here.

Posted in: Boston, Featured Home, Featured Region, News | Comments Off on Investing In U.S. Innovation, and More – Boston News

Jul 25, 2018

Finding the Best MBA Internship Destinations in the Pacific Northwest

Pacific Northwest MBA

The Pacific Northwest MBA job market has been rapidly expanding for years. The region is packed full of corporate giants, technology startups, and many more lucrative companies MBAs know fully-well, such as Starbucks, Amazon, Boeing, and Microsoft. Continue reading…

Posted in: Amazon, Deloitte, Featured Home, Featured Region, MBA Employers, MBA Internship, MBA Jobs, Microsoft, Salesforce, Stabucks | Comments Off on Finding the Best MBA Internship Destinations in the Pacific Northwest

Jul 13, 2018

Cryptocurrency Volatility, a Vacation App, and More – Boston News

Cryptocurrency Volatility

Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from Boston business schools this week.


Digital Tulips: High Risks, High Rewards in ICOsCarroll School News

Boston University Carroll School of Management Assistant Professor of Finance Leonard Kostovetsky and Ph.D. candidate Hugo Benedetti (’19) recently co-authored a draft paper that explores how the high returns associated with Bitcoin, for instance, are in part a byproduct of the uncertainty that surrounds cryptocurrency. But as crypto becomes clearer, the researchers note that “that effect might be declining.”

The Social Science Research Network published the duo’s paper, entitled “Digital Tulips? Returns to Investors in Initial Coin Offerings,” which finds that “startups set a low, low price at the initial coin offering (ICO) stage to compensate for the volatility. In effect, it’s an uncertainty discount that keeps the price down, which drives up the returns.”

You can check out the full article on the official BC website.

People Aren’t Using Their Vacation Time. These Alumni Want to Fix ThatD’Amore-McKim News

Treehoppr, “an online platform that tracks accrued time off,” was founded by Northeastern University D’Amore-McKim grads Kevin Corliss, DMSB (’16), Douglas Franklin, DMSB/E (’16), and Christopher Kenyon, CCIS (’17), in response to the “uniquely American” reality of how few working professionals take advantage of “paid time off.”

Treehoppr, an app created by a trio of D’Amore-McKim alumni, hopes to solve the uniquely American issue of not taking time off of work.

In an interview with their alma mater, Corliss says, “We want to help people eliminate these barriers to travel. What are the things you always hear when you ask people about traveling? They don’t have the time, the money, or the know-how when it comes to a foreign country. We want to help people solve all those issues.”

Dive into the trio’s story here.

The Gourmet MBASuffolk Experience

Suffolk University recently published a profile on current Sawyer Business School MBA Danielle Health (’19), whose @BostonBehavior Instagram profile demonstrates her knack for monetizing that very 21st century ritual of the meal snapshot—one she’s parlayed into a full-time job at social media management company Metter Media.

Health explains that she generally approaches the manager of “each restaurant she wants to visit as a one-time business partner.” She explains that her Instagram affords restaurants quite “a lot of visibility for a pretty minimal investment.”

She continues:

“Bigger food bloggers might have 100,000 followers. But that doesn’t matter if the people aren’t in Boston. About 90 percent of my followers are local to the Boston area, and most are my age. So I can deliver a really targeted and high-value group to a restaurant that I put on my feed.”

Check out the full profile here.

Posted in: Boston, Featured Home, Featured Region, News | Comments Off on Cryptocurrency Volatility, a Vacation App, and More – Boston News


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