In the news

If luxury brands rarely go on sale, it’s because their clientele prefer it that way, according to Audrey Azoulay-Sadka, who spoke to MarketWatch for a December article about high-end brands’ pricing strategies. “A Picasso never goes on sale,” noted Azoulay-Sadka, an assistant professor of the practice of marketing and an expert on luxury branding.

Edward Breen, the chairman and CEO of DuPont, spoke to the December 8 meeting of the Boston College Chief Executives Club, expressing his belief that the US presidential election would likely not influence DuPont’s pending merger with Dow Chemical, one of its major rivals. His remarks were covered by Reuters, Boston Business Journal, and Fortune. Along with the Boston Herald, Reuters and Boston Business Journal also covered the keynote address at the Club’s most recent gathering on February 2, which was given by Stephen Easterbrook, the CEO and president of McDonald’s.

John and Linda Powers Family Dean Andy Boynton was quoted in the recent book Woo, Wow and Win (HarperCollins, 2016), by Thomas A. Stewart and Patricia O’Connell, which is about effective service design.

TFE Times ranked the Carroll School number 13 on its 2017 list of the best master in finance programs in the US, and Bloomberg Businessweek ranked it among MBA programs, as noted in a Boston Business Journal article about Boston’s MBA programs. The Carroll School also placed number 40 on College Choice’s ranking of undergraduate business administration degrees.

Boston Business Journal cited the Center for Corporate Citizenship’s 2015 study indicating a link between volunteer programs and employee engagement.

Findings by the Center for Retirement Research were cited in a USA Today piece about the retirement housing crunch, a Bloomberg piece on how retirement age correlates with career, a Forbes “Next Avenue” column about the economic benefits of longevity, a Wall Street Journal piece on the legacy of the 401(k), a Time “Money” about cognitive decline and retirement planning, and the Economist’s coverage of the Dallas fire and police pension fund crisis. Salon also spoke about the Dallas crisis with Alicia H. Munnell, the Center’s director, who said that she believes the pension crisis is unique to Dallas and unlikely to happen on a nationwide scale. Munnell, the Peter F. Drucker Chair in Management Sciences, also spoke to Bloomberg Radio about the state of retirement in the wake of the election and The Wall Street Journal about the required distributions that retirees must take out of their 401k and IRA funds.

Research from the Center for Work and Family’s 2010-2016 “The New Dad” reports, which shed light on fathers’ changing roles at home and at work, was cited by NPR’s All Things Considered, The Christian Science Monitor, Bloomberg, the Miami Herald, and Success. The Center’s findings on the importance of paid vacation time were also referenced in Huffington Post and Atlantic pieces on Ikea’s new, generous parental leave program. Lauren Stiller Rikleen, a visiting scholar at the Center and the president of the Rikleen Institute for Strategic Leadership, wrote an article for WBUR’s Cognoscenti drawing on her experience as a former EPA lawyer to reflect on the EPA’s transition under Donald Trump’s administration.

Locally based and international venture capitalists can achieve the best results when working together, according to new findings by Thomas J. Chemmanur and two coauthors. Chemmanur’s research was profiled on All About Alpha’s investment analysis blog.

Camera Mouse, a Boston College-developed software program that helps disabled people operate computers, has been downloaded by over 3 million people in 128 countries since its release in 2007. The Boston Globe spoke to James Gips, John R. and Pamela Egan Chair in Computer Science and professor of information systems, who codeveloped the assistive technology with Margrit Betke. “It’s an incredible number, because we do no advertising,” Gips said of Camera Mouse’s widespread use. “That was beyond my dreams.”

Ani Ross Grubb, a part-time faculty member in the Management and Organization Department, spoke on a panel on women’s leadership at the Armenian International Women’s Association’s 25th Anniversary Conference. Held in Cambridge last October, the conference was covered in The Armenian Mirror-Spectator.

CNBC drew on Associate Professor of Marketing Henrik Hagtvedt’s research for an article titled “3 scientifically proven ways to break your bad habits.” Hagtvedt and a coauthor found that “I don’t” was a more empowering employee response to a challenge than “I can’t.”

Aligning the Organization for Its Digital Future, a global executive study conducted by Gerald (Jerry) Kane, associate professor of information systems and McKiernan Family Faculty Fellow, and several coauthors, was published by the MIT Sloan Management Review and cited in the CIMS Innovation Management Report and the Wall Street Journal. Kane also spoke to The Huffington Post about social media’s role in the 2016 presidential election. “I do think social media is an inherent part of what we have seen play out in the pre-election and post-election politics, but social media is not the whole story,” Kane said in the interview.

Associate Professor of Finance and Hillenbrand Family Faculty Fellow Darren Kisgen weighed in on the Dow Jones Index’s first-ever closing above 20,000 points in USA Today, U.S. News, Barron’s, and Forbes.

Accenture Professor of Marketing Katherine N. Lemon spoke to Forbes about the semi-annual trustees meeting of the Marketing Science Institute, which she directs. “All of our members come together to hear from leading lights in marketing scholarship and practice, to get insights on critical challenges and best practice from fellow members, and to identify top scholars who can help solve their critical business challenges,” Lemon said of the November 10-11 meeting, which had the theme “Marketing in the Real-time Future.”

Assistant Professor of Finance Nadya Malenko’s research on the influence of proxy advisory firms, which can have a powerful effect on shareholder votes and company decision-making, was cited in a Wall Street Journal “Morning Risk Report” on Congress’s legislative efforts to restrict such firms.

Stories about CEOs’ unexpected backgrounds and moral integrity do not influence employees’ behavior as do positive stories about peers. These new findings by Sean Martin, an assistant professor of management and organization, were profiled in Fast Company, Business News Daily, and Canada’s BCBUSINESS.

Richard McGowan, S.J., associate professor of the practice of finance, weighed in on the legality of the lottery ban in Mississippi and the economic consequences for the state in two articles for the Sun Herald. He also spoke to The Christian Science Monitor, The Atlantic, NECN, and BC News about the efforts to legalize marijuana in Massachusetts and the Catholic Church’s opposition to those efforts, and to the Boston Globe about the November merger between rival fantasy sports companies DraftKings and FanDuel.

In October, it became clear that the National Labor Relations Board’s efforts to reverse rulings that make it possible for employers to make arbitration agreements that forbid employee class actions would reach the Supreme Court, Professor of Business Law and Society Christine Neylon O’Brien told Legal Newsline. If employers can make signing away the right to class action mandatory, O’Brien argued, employees’ statutory rights “don’t mean much.”

Our brains are much better at recognizing when a product or portion has been downsized than at noticing increases in size, according to findings by Assistant Professor of Marketing Nailya Ordabayeva. Ordabayeva’s research was cited in an INSEAD Knowledge post about food “supersizing.”

The growing potential for computerized objects, from home security devices to public objects like streetlights, to communicate with one another is cause for much excitement—and trepidation regarding data accuracy, security, and personal privacy. Associate Professor of Information Systems Sam Ransbotham’s commentary on the possibilities—and the limitations—of the so-called “Internet of Things” was quoted in an Internet of Things Institute post, “Can Internet of Things Data Be Trusted?”

In addition to his day job as an associate professor of management and organization and global strategy specialist, Mohan Subramaniam is a gigging Bollywood singer. On October 28, he performed in front of some 400 business and community leaders at the New England Choice Awards gala. The event was organized by INE MultiMedia and India New England News, which also covered Subramaniam’s performance.

Professor of Management Sandra Waddock, the Galligan Chair of Strategy at the Carroll School, spoke with the Boston Herald about how a high-profile allegation of sexual harassment at Uber could deter both investors and customers.

The Boston College Chief Executives Club’s Executive Director Warren Zola—also a part-time professor in the Business Law & Society and Operations Management Departments and a sports lawyer—spoke to Forbes about the NFL’s efforts to improve its advisory committee for college players considering the NFL Draft. “Any initiative that provides more, impartial information to those considering entering the NFL Draft early should be applauded,” Zola said.

 

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