Professors at the Boston College Carroll School of Management have offered up insightful quotations in interviews with a number of high-profile media outlets, as well as in articles of their own. A quip from Professor Ran Duchin even ended up as The New York Times’s featured quote for the day.
“You’re buying a narrative. You’re not just buying the coffee.”
— Ran Duchin, New York Times Quotation of the Day, August 22
Duchin, the Coughlin Family Professor in the Seidner Department of Finance, was interviewed by the Times about Starbucks’s hiring of Brian Niccol as its top executive. Niccol lives in Southern California and will commute to Starbucks’s Seattle headquarters aboard the corporate jet. Duchin, who’s studied remote CEOs, said Niccol’s carbon-intensive commute “is an implicit stand on issues like sustainability.” And Starbucks does hold itself out as a sustainability leader, offering evidence on its website of its environmental bona fides. Hence Duchin’s quote about people buying the narrative (of sustainability), not just the cold brew or the apple crisp oat milk macchiato.
But bad optics may end up being the least of the coffee chain’s problems. Duchin’s research shows that many remote CEOs don’t work out—their companies underperform on a number of measures—and many firms that try them end up returning to a local leader. In a follow-up interview, Duchin added that Starbucks, with cafés on six continents, could be an exception, since its CEO likely spends much of his time traveling. He said too that companies aren’t being irrational by betting on an itinerant boss. They’re taking a risk to snag a better-qualified CEO than they might’ve otherwise hired. Niccol, for example, previously ran Chipotle and Taco Bell.
“Decreeing that people must stay silent on political issues also seems to run counter to the call for employees to ‘bring their whole selves’ to work.”
— Michael Pratt and a colleague in MIT Sloan Management Review, Sept. 30
During another contentious presidential election season, Michael Pratt, a professor of management and organization, and a colleague have weighed in on how managers might address political arguments in the workplace. They say in an online article that forbidding political talk is unrealistic in a world where nearly everyone’s social media postings are just a click away. Instead managers should put in place a process that enables people to exchange views without fear of retribution. To do this, they need to gather information on the issues employees care about, insist on norms of civil discourse and help people understand the complexity of opposing views.
“This problem has been so evident since 1990, and so we’re in 2024. And I don't think we're really going to move on this until 2030. And so a 40-year lag between the time the problem is identified and the time it's fixed is a little long for my taste.”
— Alicia Munnell on PBS News Hour, August 12
The Social Security trust funds are paying out more in benefits than they’re taking in payroll taxes. Munnell, the Peter F. Drucker professor of management sciences and director of the Center for Retirement Research, told PBS that retiree benefits will have to be cut in the coming years unless something’s done. Potential solutions are straightforward—higher payroll taxes, later retirement ages, or both. But politicians have been loath to apply them because, Munnell said, “Nobody wants to raise taxes or cut benefits.”
“Students are using [AI] tools, and they’re using them well.… It’s up to [the professors] to push them further and help them use those tools.”
— Sam Ransbotham on GBH’s All Things Considered, August 29
Universities, including Boston College, are grappling with what guidelines they should set for students’ use of artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT. Ransbotham, a business analytics professor, said students need to be proficient in AI, as proficiency will help determine who keeps their jobs in the AI age. His students already appear to know this: “I just quickly did a show of hands in my classes this morning about who’s using certain tools, and all the hands [went] up.” Educators’ challenge, he said, will be teaching students to combine AI and their smarts to achieve excellence, rather than just settle for chatbot-delivered mediocrity.
“A lot of [investing] fads and vibes and things like that really are just similar examples of, ‘This sounds like a good story.’”
— Samuel Hartzmark in Fortune, June 16
Can tarot cards foretell interest rate hikes? Do Capricorns rack up big gains in January? Fortune says some Gen Zs think so—and of course they tout those views on TikTok. One interviewee quit her job as a tarot reader to day trade. Hartzmark, a finance professor and a Hillenbrand Family Faculty Fellow, cautioned against chasing fads like this, saying stock buys should be based on superior information or insight, not occult and astrology. But he said he understood why people fall for silliness: “The illusion of control. Financial decisions are complicated and scary.” He added: “The psychology here is nothing new. How it manifests itself is a little bit different due to technological change.”
“We’re all realizing [AI’s] here—especially in a business school. How can you ignore this tsunami?”
— Jerry Potts in The Boston Globe, Sept. 3
Professors are having to rework their courses to account for widespread student use of artificial intelligence, Potts told the Globe. A lecturer in the Management and Organization Department, Potts now strives to create assignments where students must synthesize ideas and draw on their personal experiences, not simply parrot back facts. “I’ve had to rewrite all my assignments to be much more focused on connecting dots that aren’t out there” on material that students can’t readily retrieve from AI, he said. Potts has even run his coursework through an AI chatbot, both to understand how students might be using the technology and to surface ideas that might improve his class.
“There are few costs associated with most of the allyship behaviors uncovered in our research, yet the benefits are substantial—chief among them being the retention of working mothers in the labor force.”
— Benjamin Rogers and colleagues in Harvard Business Review, July 25
Returning to work after childbirth is challenging for mothers in the United States, which lacks paid federal leave. Research by Rogers, an assistant professor of management and organization, and colleagues has identified four “allyship” behaviors that can help postpartum mothers in the workplace: helping navigate HR policies, creating flexible work environments, validating both professional and maternal identities, and offering emotional support. In an online HBR article, the researchers note that anyone, not just fellow parents or HR staffers, can act as an ally to a postpartum mom.
“For public company shareholders who have nothing to do with the local community, they don’t internalize the benefits of what [CEOs] do for the community.”
— Nadya Malenko in The Boston Globe, Sept. 10
An activist hedge fund has pressed for changes at Rapid7, a Boston cybersecurity company. That could spell trouble for its CEO, Corey Thomas, because sometimes activists demand new management. Thomas is a standout in Boston business circles—he serves on the boards of both the Boston Federal Reserve Bank and the local chamber of commerce—so his departure would be a loss for the community. But out-of-town activists don’t care about that, Malenko, a finance professor and the Wargo Family Faculty Fellow, told the Globe. They’re focused on a company’s financial returns.