YALI aims to empower young African leaders through academic coursework, leadership training, mentorship, networking, and follow-up support. The initiative was created through a partnership between Nelson Mandela and President Barack Obama in 2010. Currently, approximately 700 YALI fellows selected from more than 50,000 applicants spend six weeks in the U.S. each year. During the visit, the fellows study one of three academic tracks: business and entrepreneurship, civic leadership, or public management. The 25 YALI fellows who visited Goizueta operate in a number of industries, including sustainability, media, technology, agriculture, and cosmetics.

During their time in Atlanta, the fellows are hosted by Clark Atlanta University, and as part of their time in the city spend a day at Goizueta. Benn Konsynski, George S. Craft Professor of Information Systems & Operations Management, coordinates the fellows’ time at Goizueta. Their visit included a full slate of academic sessions with a combination of Goizueta faculty, alumni, and industry experts. After comments from Kristy Towry, John M. & Lucy Cook Chaired Professor of Accounting and Vice Dean of Faculty and Research, and Alicia Sierra, director, Human Resources and Diversity, the sessions began.

Engaging with Experts: Exploring AI, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation

First up was a discussion about artificial intelligence (AI) and the future of work, featuring a team from Microsoft. Bo Beaudion, director, transformation strategy, Microsoft, and Azim Manjee, senior account technology strategist, Microsoft, discussed the fundamental priorities shaping the AI transformation and introduced the fellows to Copilot, Microsoft’s workplace AI tool.

After the fellows spent lunch connecting with Towry, the guest speakers, and Konsynski, the fellows participated in multiple afternoon sessions. The first was “Revving Up Success: Entrepreneurship in the African Automotive Industry.” It featured Vinod Kadadi 12MBA, consulting partner, Automotive, Wipro Limited. Kadadi examined the role Africa plays in the automotive industry—as a consumer, supplier, and innovator. The session also touched on the evolution of propulsion systems and the opportunities such advances present to entrepreneurs in Africa.

Vinod Kadadi’s son,Tejas Kadadi, presented the following session on plastics and the environment. A high school senior at the Westminster Schools in Atlanta, Kadadi is also an entrepreneur. He is the founder of ReycloTech, an app that uses interactive AI to inform the public on how best to recycle and repurpose plastics. He also serves as the lead developer at Fund-A-Box, a company that aspires to connect farmers and plant-growers with donors. Kadadi focused on the transformative potential of generative AI in marketing, product innovation, technology strategy, and the labor market. “The YALI fellows engaged with and offered suggestions on Kadadi’s initiatives,” notes Konsynski.

The session that rounded out the day featured Rajiv Garg, associate professor of information systems and operations management. Garg shared insights on how generative AI is transforming industries. “The YALI fellows were engaged from the beginning and eager to expand the boundaries of learning by discussing the social and policy implications of AI innovation,” Garg says.

Learning from Industry Leaders Across Atlanta

The following week, Konsynski joined the fellows at Clark Atlanta University to discuss disruptive technologies. The fellows also spent time at Microsoft’s and IBM’s Atlanta headquarters during their time in Atlanta. While at IBM, Goizueta alum, Deepa Krishnan 06MBA, vice president of Worldwide Delivery Services, IBM Software, led a discussion on IBM’s cloud and AI initiatives.

Konsynski spent several days with the YALI fellows during their time in Atlanta. He describes them as “a bright, creative, energetic and fun group,” adding, “they return home with a great impression of Goizueta.”

To learn more about YALI, visit https://yali.state.gov/

Goizueta Business School is proud to be an active participant in a variety of organizations and initiatives that support and promote diversity in business and higher education. Learn more about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives at Goizueta.

The post Young African Leaders Explore AI and Entrepreneurship at Goizueta appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

Honoring the Leaders of Emory and Goizueta

The Emory Williams Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award is presented to faculty members from each of Emory’s four undergraduate schools during commencement every year. “The award celebrates the pinnacle of teaching excellence, honoring faculty who have profoundly impacted their students’ academic journeys,” says Wei Jiang, vice dean for faculty and research and Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Finance. The award was established by Emory Williams, a 1932 Emory College alumnus and longtime trustee, to recognize a record of excellence in undergraduate teaching.

Emory College of Arts and Sciences selects three award recipients, drawn from the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. Each of the other undergraduate schools—Goizueta Business School, Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, and Oxford College—selects one award recipient.

The 2024 honoree from Goizueta Business School is Richard Berlin, associate professor in the practice of organization and management.

The remaining 2024 honorees are:

• – Christopher Eagle, associate teaching professor in the Center for the Study of Human Health, Emory College of Arts and Sciences
• – Sarah Fankhauser, associate professor of biology, Oxford College
• – Gillian Hue, assistant teaching professor, Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology program and senior faculty fellow, Center for Ethics, Emory College of Arts and Sciences
• – Brajesh Samarth, teaching professor, Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, Emory College of Arts and Sciences
• – LisaMarie Wands, associate clinical professor, Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing

The Provost’s Distinguished Teaching Award

The Provost’s Distinguished Teaching Award for Excellence in Graduate and Professional Education recognizes outstanding scholars who excel as teachers within formal and informal educational settings. “This award honors exceptional teaching and recognizes those who guide their students with passion and expertise,” says Alicia Sierra, director of human resources and diversity.

One faculty member in each of Emory’s seven graduate and professional schools receives the award in recognition of the important role of exceptional teaching in graduate and professional education. 

The 2024 honoree from Goizueta Business School is J.B. Kurish, professor in the practice of finance.

The remaining 2024 honorees are:

• – Lauren Christiansen-Lindquist, assistant teaching professor, Department of Epidemiology, Rollins School of Public Health
• – Thomas W. Elliott Jr., professor in the practice of practical theology and Methodist studies, Candler School of Theology
• – George S. Georgiev, associate professor of law, Emory School of Law
• – Adriana P. Hermida, professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory School of Medicine
• – Lori A. Modly, assistant clinical professor, Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing
• – David A. Steinhauer, faculty, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics Program in the Graduate Division of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, and associate professor, School of Medicine Department of Microbiology and Immunology, James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies

The Keough Awards

The Keough Awards for Service are named after Don Keough, the legendary President of The Coca-Cola Company and a symbol of business excellence. This award is the business school’s highest service award and is awarded to one faculty member and one staff member. Each recipient receives a $2,000 award. “The recipient is a long-term contributor to the school and makes a significant impact or contribution to Goizueta,” says Jiang.

Keough Faculty Award

The recipient of the 2024 Keough Faculty Award is Professor Kristy Towry. Towry has served in many roles within Goizueta over many years. She has served as vice dean and significantly impacted the culture and comradery at the school. Towry also served as the chair of the executive committee, where she initiated a governance structure that has enhanced decision-making and evaluation. She served as a mentor to numerous junior faculty and doctoral students. In addition, Towry has shown true leadership by appealing to others’ values in helping and supporting the school.

Towry is a top researcher and has trained numerous influential students. She is a favorite teacher of hundreds of MBA graduates and has made a lasting contribution to the school.

Keough Staff Award

The 2024 Keough staff recipient is Krystle Arnold-Moore, administrative assistant, BBA program office. She has consistently made an impact since she started at Goizueta in the summer of 2019. Faculty and staff across the school quickly noticed her creativity, as she served as an active division student advisory council member and on the committee to build morale after the pandemic. She has helped other units with programmatic support during staff vacancies, all while continuing to grow her expertise in the BBA program office.

Staff Excellence Award: Collaboration

The staff excellence awards recognize staff who have “gone above and beyond in collaborating with others, managing resources, and overall influence at the school,” says Sierra. Each recipient receives a $1,000 award.

The 2024 recipient of the Staff Excellence Award for Collaboration is Brandi Baker, director of registrar services. Baker has worked tirelessly to accommodate Goizueta’s exponential growth as a school. She collaborates with program offices to meet the needs of faculty, students, and administrators and proactively finds solutions that create a more positive learning environment. Baker is in a position where she has to answer to colleagues across numerous academic programs. She is limited in terms of building capacity, and yet she manages to fit all the pieces together. In her work, she maintains a positive attitude and a “get to yes” philosophy.

Staff Excellence Award: Influence

The 2024 recipient of the Staff Excellence Award for Influence is Ron Harris, director of research computing. Harris has been the backbone of faculty research projects for decades. He helps faculty as a thought partner, sharing the work and thinking through choices. This ability requires a deep understanding of the datasets and faculty research challenges. He uses his data manipulation skills to clean data and make it serviceable for research. He also trains the next generation of scholars, our PhD students, in the use of statistical software. It would be fair to claim that the considerable pace of our research is due to Harris’s support.

Staff Excellence Award: Resources

The 2024 recipient of the Staff Excellence Award for Resources is Robin Dittmann, chief business, analytics, and operations officer. Dittmann has been instrumental in helping strengthen school finances. She has worked toward more efficient staffing levels, streamlined processes, and new policies to facilitate efficient resources by faculty and staff. She does so with expertise and transparency that instills confidence in the community.

Department Distinguished Teaching Awards

Emory and Goizueta also award those of exceptional academic excellence in each department. These awards go to individuals who represent their departments with outstanding education and lead the professionals of tomorrow. We would like to recognize them here.

• – BBA Distinguished Educator: Emily Bianchi, Goizueta Foundation term associate professor of organization and management.
• – Evening MBA Distinguished Core Educator: Omar Rodríguez-Vilá, professor in the practice of marketing.
• – Evening MBA Distinguished Elective Educator: Kevin Crowley, associate professor in the practice of finance.
• – Full-Time MBA Distinguished Educator: JB Kurish, professor in the practice of finance.
• – Full-Time MBA Distinguished Educator: Marina Cooley, assistant professor in the practice of marketing.
• – MS in Business Analytics Distinguished Core Educator: Rajiv Garg, associate professor of information systems and operations management.
• – MS in Business Analytics Distinguished Elective Educator: Emma Zhang, associate professor of information systems and operations management.
• – Master of Finance Distinguished Educator: Kevin Crowley, associate professor in the practice of finance.

We are immensely proud to celebrate the accomplishments of our faculty. Through their transformational work, they push industries forward, prepare the next generation of business leaders, and solve today’s toughest business problems.

The post Awards Recognize Distinguished Members of Emory and Goizueta Faculty and Staff appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

“South Africa is a really interesting place to think about drug discovery because they have the most magnificent floral kingdom there,” explains Kristy Towry, John M. & Lucy Cook Chaired Professor of Accounting.

This potential for innovation was what launched the relationship between Emory University faculty and South Africa in 2008. Emory School of Medicine professor Dennis Liotta originally pulled together the partnership, though it has evolved over the decades. Goizueta faculty still continue to travel to South Africa and teach business skills to budding medical entrepreneurs. Now, though, the relationship has expanded to include MBA students, highlighting the importance of this Goizueta global initiative.  

Biomedical Background

Towry was in a classroom one summer, when Michael Sacks popped his head in and asked if she wanted to go teach in South Africa later that year.

It was an immediate yes from Towry—after she checked her calendar.

“Going to Africa was a lifelong dream of mine,” she says.

In alignment with Goizueta’s emphasis on entrepreneurship and innovation, the faculty teach biomedical and medical entrepreneurs business basics. It’s a kind of crash course on how to launch a business idea and seek financial backing.

These individuals bring their ideas, medical devices, drug discoveries and cures to a competition. As part of the process, semi-finalists have the opportunity to participate in this weeklong executive education. They learn how to develop a business plan, the importance of team composition, and how to meet potential funders.

“The enthusiasm of the participants is absolutely contagious,” says Sacks, professor in the practice of organization and management, professor of sociology (by courtesy), and faculty director of Woodruff Leadership Academy.

Participating in our program is a huge deal to them, and they are completely invested in learning and applying what we teach. It’s incredible to see such quick learning of complex and challenging material.

Michael Sacks

In addition to Towry and Sacks, Steve Walton, professor in the practice of information systems and operations management, was another core faculty member who collaborated on the experience. More recently, Nikki Graves, associate professor in the practice of organization and management, and Sandy Jap have traveled across the globe to join.

Jap, Sarah Beth Brown Professor of Marketing, has taken Evening MBA students to Cape Town as part of Goizueta’s Global Experience Modules (or GEMs). While there, the group meet with entrepreneurs. Jap found their perspectives fascinating. So, when Towry extended the invite, Jap signed on immediately.

“I thought it would be a great opportunity to complement my previous learnings about what it means to try to start a company in South Africa,” shares Jap.

Towry says every trip—and all the individuals she meets—inspire her.

As a business professor, I don’t often get to feel like what I do saves lives. But that is what happens in this program. We change the trajectories of the businesses we touch, many of which have life-saving potential.

Kristy Towry

“These are entrepreneurs, and yes, they want to make money. But across the board, their main inspiration is to change the world and improve and save the lives of Africans,” says Towry.

Goizueta’s Global Impact

Though things have looked a little different since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Goizueta faculty have interacted with hundreds of teams throughout the years. The competition is also now housed under The Innovation Hub, an agency of the Gauteng Province in South Africa.

“We greatly value the partnership with Emory’s Goizueta Business School through the executive education training in the Gauteng Accelerator Programme Innovation Competition,” shares Phuti Chelopo-Mgobozi, acting senior manager of bio-innovation.

We have created a platform that transcends borders, connecting local entrepreneurs with top-tier business teachers and mentors.

Phuti Chelopo-Mgobozi

“Goizueta is a strategic partner to The Innovation Hub due to its commitment to fostering innovation and entrepreneurship through the holistic and interactive teaching approach,” says Chelopo-Mgobozi. “This brings fresh perspectives and expertise to our entrepreneurial ecosystem.”

The scope of the relationship continues to evolve and expand. Now, Goizueta MBA students act as judges in a virtual Shark Tank style competition for these entrepreneurs. This all takes place about a month after the weeklong executive education course.

In addition, MBA students make the trek to South Africa as part of Global Experiential Modules in the spring. There, they meet with the Innovation Hub leadership as well as the competition participants and winners.

Many South African entrepreneurs worked with Towry, Sacks, and Walton in previous years. The Goizueta MBA students get the chance to see how that education has impacted their entrepreneurial journey—how Goizueta’s partnership has impacted these individuals’ lives.

As Goizueta looks to the future of this relationship, it’s one that’s robust, comprehensive, and ever-evolving.

“We are utilizing these relationships as opportunities to say ‘Are there ways for us to connect our faculty with other researchers, for co-authoring, or for collaborative research grants?’” says Megha Madan, senior associate director of Goizueta Global Strategy and Initiatives.

Keeping these relationships really shows the depth that Goizueta has and the impact on our students, staff, and faculty as global citizens.

Megha Madan

“We are investing in Emory’s commitment to using knowledge to improve human well-being and a global perspective on the human condition.”

Goizueta’s global strategy is designed to equip students to meet the opportunities and challenges of an increasingly interconnected world, empower faculty to lead and influence global scholarship and research, and position Goizueta as a school known for its global impact. Learn more here.

The post Students and Faculty Empower Biomedical Entrepreneurs in South Africa appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

Recessions also hurt race relations

Economic downturns aren’t just bad for businesses and households. Recessions tend to spur heightened animosity towards Black Americans in the U.S., and this not only drives social inequality but can significantly impair the outlook for Black professionals. These are the troubling findings of research published in Psychological Science by Goizueta’s Emily Bianchi, associate professor of organization & management, and Erika Hall, assistant professor of organization & management. They ran a number of studies to capture people’s responses and shifts in attitude during periods of recession. They also looked at the impact on professional success for Blacks in areas like the arts and politics. What they found is that when times are hard, White people feel more negatively towards Black people and are more likely to stereotype or compartmentalize them. They’re also more prone to seeing racial inequity as acceptable and even “natural.”

Similarly, Black politicians and musicians were less likely to fare well in congressional elections and in the Billboard charts. Bianchi and Hall’s research is striking in that it explores the more nuanced and subtle forms of racism that manifest when communities face financial downturns. It suggests there is a certain fluidity in attitudes towards race that can be shaped by changes in our economic and social context — which may also help explain, at least in part, why Black people are particularly hard hit in times of recession.

Whose side are you on?

Protest marches grab headlines. But while heightened visibility for a cause might be good news for the social movement in question, the trade-offs for other affiliated organizations may not stack up so positively. So says a recent article in Organization Science by Giacomo Negro, professor of organization & management at Goizueta. Together with Stanford University’s Susan Olzak, he put together a data set of pro-LGBTQ protest events staged across a range of U.S. cities over 20 years to gauge how these events impacted local organizations — social movement groups on the one hand, and on the other, more loosely affiliated organizations like local businesses with customers and stakeholders both in and outside of the LGBTQ community. What they found was that greater participation in pro-LGBTQ protests lowered the market viability of these neutral organizations. Negro puts this down to having to “choose sides” and being less effective at addressing the needs of multiple audiences in the presence of polarizing events such as protests. Protests by nature pose a type of challenge to society, so people associated with the cause motivating the protest have to take a clear side or stance, explained Negro. And the visibility protests generate comes at a price for any participating organization that engages distinctly different stakeholder groups, from customers or clients to employees. If one group endorses a controversial issue, another can shun it. These insights come at a time when U.S. firms are increasingly involved with social causes, from human rights to race and gender issues. They will need to balance the pros of visibility against trade-offs in terms of their stakeholders.

IoT boosts online sales

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a system of smart devices or objects that are connected to the internet — objects that “talk” to each other and that can be combined with automated systems to gather and analyze information. IoT technology is making waves in business today because of a slew of benefits that range from rich data collection, enhanced security and reduced operation costs to enhanced customer-centricity. One space benefitting from the use of IoT is e-commerce. And a forthcoming article in Information Systems Research by Goizueta’s Panagiotis “Panos” Adamopoulos and Vilma Todri, both assistant professors of information systems & operations management, suggests that forward-thinking retailers would do well to understand the advantages of using IoT as an alternative purchase channel for consumers.

Together with NYU’s Anindya Ghose, they tracked sales data from a major multinational online retailer using IoT to automate purchasing and consumers’ convenience. They found that implementing the new technology led to significant statistical and economic gains for the company thanks to increased automaticity and more favorable mental accounting that made these products “easier to consume.” Interestingly, these gains were particularly associated with certain product characteristics, helping retailers determine effective future IoT strategies. As businesses continue to waiver about adopting IoT because of technical challenges that surround its implementation, these findings should provide interesting food for thought.

Learn from experience (just make sure it’s someone else’s too)

Businesses and business managers grow and develop because we learn. We learn from our performance metrics and KPIs — they tell us what we do well and not so well. But it’s challenging. For a start, there’s the issue of the metrics themselves. In today’s complex, fast-changing environment, it can be hard to pin down our KPIs with total accuracy. Then there’s the question of how we learn. Is it better to learn from our own firsthand experience — or from others’? Kristy Towry, John and Lucy Cook Chair and professor of accounting, and colleagues Jongwoon “Willie” Choi 11PhD, Gary Hecht, and Ivo Tafkov 09PhD have explored the science behind learning and decision-making in heightened complexity, and their new paper in The Accounting Review finds that when KPIs are messy, managers learn far better when that learning is vicarious, in other words, when we learn from each other and share our learning. And that’s because vicarious learning helps us to see the bigger picture, the trends and the patterns, Towry said. Learning from our own experience alone tends to make us over-focus on what’s happened most recently and what’s immediately in front of us and miss the greater scheme. The challenge, then, to businesses that want to accelerate their growth is to break through the silos and proactively look for ways to share knowledge, explained Towry. Learn from experience by all means. Just make sure it’s other people’s experience too.

Putting a value on peer pressure

Our colleagues can exert some influence over different aspects of our careers and even our private lives. There’s nothing too surprising about that. However, new research published in The Review of Financial Studies by Associate Professor of Finance Gonzalo Maturana should give households and businesses alike pause. When it comes to making big purchasing decisions — whether or not to refinance our mortgage, say — we could be more susceptible to positive peer influence than we realize. Maturana and Jordan Nickerson from MIT Sloan School of Management leveraged publicly available employment records — public school teachers from Texas — and unearthed something stunning: where there was notable mortgage refinancing activity in a peer network, individuals within that network were 20.7% more likely to refinance their own mortgage and access positive savings. And that’s not all. The peer effect also helped shape individuals’ choice of mortgage lender. And critically, the more savings they were likely to make by refinancing, the more of this activity there was across the peer group. These peer dynamics should be on the radar of policy makers looking to incentivize mortgage refinancing and to drive household liquidity, said Maturana, as well as banks who want to drive their customer base growth responsibly. The latter could leverage the multiplier effect of peer dynamics to make sure that valuable information on mortgage rates reaches more households more efficiently.

Is breakthrough innovation always a team sport?

If you’re looking to innovate, conventional wisdom says you need to build a team. You only get the breakthrough ideas when you have different people working together, collaborating and sharing knowledge, right? Not necessarily, says Tian Chan, assistant professor of information systems & operations management at Goizueta. Chan and colleagues put together a study, published in IdeaWatch, that reveals something striking: in certain circumstances, individuals can be just as effective as teams in creating breakthrough innovations. It all depends on how easy it is to break down your invention into different components or modules, he said. With design patents that cover innovations on the way something looks — think the iconic curved bottle of a Coca-Cola or Apple’s sleek iPhone — innovations tend to be holistic and don’t easily divide into chunks, and a team might get bottlenecked by coordination or communication issues. With utility patents that cover innovations on the way a product functions, you can have inventions that are very modular (such as the Dell PCs) to inventions that are hard to break into components (such as the internal combustion engine). So here, teams do tend to do better than individuals. His advice to business? If you want to increase your chances of a breakthrough, align your human resources and collaboration structures around the type of invention in your sights. But don’t assume you always need a team.

The post #GoizuetaKnows appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

Measuring your performance as a business is critical. If you want to grow and be successful, you need to understand what you do well—and not so well. To paraphrase a couple of old adages, we all learn from our mistakes and our experience.

But in today’s bumpy and fast-changing business landscape, measuring performance can be tough; tougher still if yours is a complex organization or industry.

Whatever you’re looking at to gauge your firm’s performance—whether it’s customer satisfaction, say, or repeat purchases—your measures might well be less than perfect. And that’s because of noise—abstruse or unreliable data that makes it hard to unpack key metrics accurately and to learn from them.

How successful a firm is in negotiating this performance measure noise depends on how that firm learns, said Kristy Towry, John and Lucy Cook Chair and professor of accounting at Goizueta.

She has led a study that looks at the way organizations and the people in them manage their learning. And she finds that we’re way more adept at cutting through the noise when we learn from each other, rather than basing our learning on our own firsthand experience.

Together with colleagues Jongwoon “Willie” Choi 11PhD, University of Wisconsin–Madison; Gary Hecht, University of Illinois; and Ivo Tafkov 09PhD, Georgia State University, Towry ran a number of lab experiments to explore learning strategies in situations of greater and lesser complexity.

They recruited 70+ university students and asked them to play a game, going head-to-head with a computer to pick the correct number in a sequence.

At first, these participants were asked to go it completely alone against the machine, building a strategy based exclusively on their own personal experience. Random noise was introduced at different points during the game play to capture how successful this lone decision-making was and whether there was any improvement in strategy over time.

The experiment was then repeated to capture the same insights, but this time participants watched each other play in order to assess how they learned from each other’s successes and mistakes as well as their own.

A final experiment looked at the impact of varying noise on both types of learning.

What Towry and her colleagues found was that when there’s a lot of noise in the data we’re working with, our strategic learning is considerably improved when our learning is vicarious—that’s to say, when we learn from each other.

This is down to how much of the big picture we see, said Towry. And experiential learning can make us myopic.

“We know from psychology and from the results of this study that experiential learning—basing what we learn mainly off our own firsthand experience—can limit us. Experience tends to make us over-focus on what is happening in the here and now or what has just happened. We forget what happened before and don’t build that into our decision-making.”

Vicarious learning, on the other hand, helps us to see the bigger picture.

“When we’re learning from each other, it’s also experiential, but the learning is augmented by other people’s experience, meaning that we have a broadened perspective. We’re better able to see the big-picture patterns and trends.”

When there’s a lot of noise and complexity to negotiate, vicarious learning helps us make better decisions. And this has huge implications for businesses operating in today’s environment.

“Our world is not cut and dried at the best of times. Right now we are dealing with the COVID-19 crisis and the fallout on world economies and trade. The business context for most firms operating in this context is very far from stable, so we can assume there’s a lot of complexity and noise affecting our performance indicators. And with so much change afoot, the experiences we are all having in the workplace are what I would call fairly idiosyncratic,” said Towry. “Business leaders should be very aware of this.”

To optimize strategic learning and thrive in complexity, firms need to find ways to allow vicarious learning to happen, she said.

That means thinking about how to break down barriers to knowledge sharing, be they organizational silos or emerging challenges associated with things like remote working. Sharing information, insight and understanding is essential.

Learn from experience, by all means, said Towry. Just make sure it’s someone else’s experience too.

The post Researchers urge: Learn from (someone else’s) experience appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic crisis are rewriting the rules of business anew each day. What worked yesterday may not work today — or ever again. It is testing executive leadership and the strength of leaders’ past performance in creating a strong market orientation, a sound financial base, effective people-based processes and a culture of innovation, engagement and trust.

“This is not going to be a ‘flip-the-switch’ situation where we are suddenly back to where we were in late 2019,” said Nicola Barrett, chief corporate learning officer at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. “It’s critical for leaders to think about how they are going to adapt to the next normal, and then the next normal after that.”

Smart leaders are rethinking, reimagining, and reinventing their businesses, Barrett said. “By taking stock of all of the tangible and intangible assets that you have and recombining them in a way that meets both the short-term survivability challenge with new and emerging business needs on which to build for the long term.”

Emory Executive Education, the unit Barrett leads at Goizueta, has focused on how businesses find and capture new sources of growth from the ideas, research and teaching of its faculty. While it may sound counterintuitive, now is the time to identify changes to your business model, potential new products and services and explore new market segments, Barrett said. This is about defining the next normal, not just adapting to what comes next.

The urgency for forward-focused change requires a high degree of organizational and individual agility and resilience. This has implications for several factors central to organizational success: leadership; strategy; a market orientation; complex problem solving and decision-making; and the ability to execute.

“Leadership starts with having a true understanding of your purpose and values, being willing to adapt and learn and inviting and inspiring others to do the same” says Barrett, expanding on statements made by Karl Kuhnert, professor in the practice of organization and management at Goizueta, in an article about becoming a competent leader.

When there is a high degree of uncertainty, top-down, hierarchical decision-making increases business risk. Organizations can’t flex quickly enough. According to Rick Gilkey, also a professor in the practice of organization and management at Goizueta. “as complexity accelerates, organizations don’t have people with all the answers.” Successful leaders provide an environment in which employees can thrive. Investing in people and cultivating a culture of innovation, in which ideas are encouraged and examined rigorously, increases the value of their knowledge and actions.

Kuhnert and Gilkey have identified common traits in successful leaders. They found mature, effective leaders think differently: they paint on a much larger canvas than less mature leaders. For example, either/or quandaries are replaced by both/and thinking. Closely associated with thinking like a leader are behaviors like:

• Staying curious.
• Continuously scanning, looking for weak signals.
• Identifying unconventional sources.
• Disconfirming information.
• Dissenting productively.
• Seeing patterns.
• Seeking opportunities, particularly in adversity or scarcity.

Opportunities emerge when leaders listen to existing and prospective customers through frontline employees, social media and other tools that help companies stay in sync with their suppliers and buyers’ interests, Barrett said. Robert Kazanjian, Asa Griggs Candler professor of organization and management at Goizueta, teaches that “strategy isn’t a once-and-done. You have to be constantly thinking about, talking to and understanding your stakeholders, where they are going, and the challenges they’re facing.”

In an article about anticipating market shifts and improving organizational agility, Kazanjian said that a company misses opportunities to grow when it only makes “small tweaks instead of big shifts” in its strategy. “They don’t revisit questions about where to compete and how to compete,” Kazanjian said. “Crises, for instance, require leaders to pay immediate attention to strategic choices for both short-term survival through cost reductions and to developing new revenue sources for long-term growth. It may be that existing trends and emerging practices are accelerated by crisis, requiring organizations to more quickly alter strategies and build new capabilities for the longer term.”

Leaders must challenge themselves to ask: will the business model used by their company be relevant tomorrow? Where are disruptors most likely to originate? Technology has elevated customers’ expectations while reducing barriers to entry. “Only a few years ago, the sale price of a taxi medallion was huge, but then, thanks to technology, anyone who had a car could effectively become a cab driver,” Barrett said, noting the success of disruptors like Uber and Lyft and the widespread adoption of these services by the public.

Businesses grow when they involve customers in the creation and delivery of value, said Steve Walton, a professor in the practice of information systems and operations management at Goizueta, in an article about creating, capturing, and delivering new growth. “[The future of business] will become even more customer-centric.” In other words, leaders need to think about how customers are using their products or services and identify ways to improve the value offered to them.

“You have new, nimble, technology-enabled companies that are coming in and disrupting the value chain of traditional industries. Business leaders have to be constantly mindful of where new competition may come from,” said Anandhi Bharadwaj, endowed chair in electronic commerce and professor of information systems, operations management at Goizueta.

“You have to think of an operating model that is conceived in the digital world and then how this spawns new growth opportunities,” said Bharadwaj. “Then, think about how to build the required operating model.”

Goizueta is following Bharadwaj’s principle – accelerated due to the pandemic, Barrett said. Faculty and administrators are using technology to deliver sophisticated digital learning experiences. “While in-person learning is great, technology-enabled learning can be highly engaging and effective if designed well.”

Technology, data, social issues, speed and avenues of information dissemination have changed how to reach, understand and deliver value to customers. Big data offers marketers a substantial opportunity to connect with current and prospective customers, segment and learn what each values, and predict their behavior over time.

Data can show how customers act at any point in their buying journey, from acquisition to retention to engagement. “This creates opportunities for marketers to interact with their customers and prospective customers more than they have in the past,” said David Schweidel, a professor of marketing at Goizueta, in an article about using big-data marketing initiatives to find new growth sources.

In many organizations the role of chief marketing officer is being replaced by that of a chief growth officer, said Barrett, and “new growth opportunities emerge at the intersection of disciplines like technology, marketing and finance.” Daniel McCarthy, assistant professor of marketing at Goizueta, recommends “leveraging individual-level transactional data using best-in-class marketing science models to predict what customers will do in the future, when they’re going to make their purchases, how much they’ll spend, and how much of that spend will be retained as profit.”

Analyses like this can be directly linked to company valuations. According to Kristy Towry, John and Lucy Cook Chair and professor of accounting at Goizueta, in an article about modern managerial accounting practices, “accounting and finance cannot be a silent part of an organization. Accountants are experts in measurement and should be working across functions using forward-looking accounting skills to inform strategic decisions and help execute them effectively via good measurements and controls.”

Barrett believes that “surviving and thriving through this current global crisis not only relies on how well we have managed our organizations in the past, how adaptive we are as leaders, our strategic agility, and rigorous decision-making capability but on the culture and people practices we have in place.” Regardless of whether you are in accounting, finance, marketing, sales, strategic planning, IT or operations, ensuring your people are operating optimally is critical for your organization to operate at its full potential.

It’s also important to take note of the research into the physiology of decision-making and the impact of stress on executive functioning, productivity and performance. “Several of our faculty have research in this area, and now, more than ever, it is critical for leaders to be aware of how they and their team members are functioning mentally, emotionally and physically and how this impacts performance,” said Barrett. Citing Walton, Barrett pointed out that “when business operations are optimized through people who are doing their jobs well, better decisions are made, better data is collected, and better technologies and processes are implemented.”

Though the future is unclear, leaders must continuously learn and adapt to grow their businesses today and tomorrow. “The best leaders, as they evolve in their careers, realize they don’t have all the answers and that the way they did things yesterday may not be the best way to do them tomorrow,” Barrett said. “This pandemic has accelerated the pace at which leaders have to consider and lay the foundations for the next phase of their organizations.”

“Growth is about finding and capturing new opportunities by continually looking at your business in a new light and truly understanding your customers. We are going to have to rethink and reimagine what business and our organizations are going to be like in the next normal, however long that may be,” Barrett said. “Our goal in executive education at Goizueta Business School is to help leaders do just that by equipping them with the mindset, skill sets, and tool sets they need to be effective for their organizations.”

If you’d like to learn how you or your organization can engage with Goizueta faculty on this topic, speak with a learning advisor at 404-727-2200 or visit our website.

Emory University’s Goizueta Business School was created in 1919 as one of the nation’s first business schools. Its degree and Executive Education programs consistently rank in the top 25 in the world among major publications including Businessweek, The Economist, U.S. News & World Report, and Forbes.

The post Learning and adapting to the new world of business appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

Today’s managerial accounting discipline focuses on more than profit and loss statements and extends into core functions such as designing systems, enhancing business relationships within organizations and across the supply chain, and implementing strategic performance measures. The most effective leaders working within a dedicated accounting department must take collaborative, interdepartmental approaches to achieving results. “Accountants are experts in measurement within an organization,” said Kristy Towry, John and Lucy Cook Chair and professor of accounting at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. “It’s important for individuals in those roles to be embedded throughout the organization rather than in a silo by themselves. Accounting and finance cannot be a silent part of the organization.”

Key areas of focus

Measuring performance for strategy execution. Managerial accounting competencies, such as performing high-level analyses on business strategy, can expose external threats to strategy execution. Once a company establishes a strategy or objective, management accountants can design systems so that actions lead towards achieving the goal of that strategy or objective, such as through performance management. “We want to make sure the employees work in the best interest of the organization and that we’re all pulling on one string,” Karl Schuhmacher, assistant professor of accounting at Goizueta, said.

“The key with measuring different aspects of performance in an organization is determining what is the underlying thing that we care about and then we can constantly test how well our metric measures that,” Towry said. “We can think of the metric as a shadow or reflection of the underlying dimension of performance we are interested in.”

For example, if a company wanted to evaluate customer satisfaction — a metric that cannot be directly observed — it might survey customers. “The purpose of a measure is to capture something underlying it that is invisible,” Towry said. ”We can’t directly observe customer satisfaction, but we can create various metrics — surveys, returns data, customer feedback, the number of repeat customers, and so on — which are all trying to capture an underlying idea of how satisfied our customers are.” Metrics like the number of patents an organization attains can help leaders gauge other key attributes that can’t be directly observed, like innovation, thereby enabling them to grow the company through informed decision-making.

“There is theory underlying performance measurement,” said Towry. Metrics should be evaluated in terms of the following characteristics, according to Towry:

• Congruence with organizational objectives. Would maximum performance on the metric achieve the company’s goals? How accurate is the reflection (e.g., number of patents) of what this metric provides relative to what the organization really cares about (e.g., innovation)?
• Sensitivity. To what extent do business decisions and actions affect this metric?
• Precision. Does the metric capture information without noise or error?
• Ease of measurement. Can the metric be measured within existing systems? All business choices are a cost-benefit tradeoff. The selection of performance metrics is no different.

“Importantly, no one metric is ever going to be enough,” Towry said. “There needs to be a larger set of metrics that link to the strategy of the organization with causal links so we understand that if we push a lever today it is going to lead to the outcomes we’re looking for tomorrow and the growth that we’re looking for in the future.”

Measuring performance for motivating employees. Performance measurement at an individual level, when tied to rewards (e.g., bonuses, promotions), is a primary way in which organizations motivate employees. Accounting professionals can help companies effectively incentivize employees by determining the right ways to evaluate their performance and the appropriate way to pay them for improvements given the job context.

Karen Sedatole, interim dean and professor of accounting at Goizueta, has researched the degree by which monetary incentives can improve performance and productivity, for example. According to Sedatole, monetary incentives can deliver performance and productivity improvements, but only if the following four core principles are followed:

• Performance targets are challenging but not too difficult to reach.
• Performance metrics match employees’ perceptions and sense of control.
• Monetary rewards are perceived as fair and as conforming to social norms.
• It is recognized that employees who perform tasks that offer intrinsic motivation (i.e., building something new, helping others in need) may not be as responsive to monetary incentives.

Key to an effective employee reward system is ensuring that metrics, rewards, and decision authority are well aligned, according to Sedatole. Employees should be held accountable for those performance outcomes over which they have control. Schuhmacher has studied the “controllability principle” of management, which holds that managers should only be evaluated in terms of results that they directly control. “The lack of controllability induces stress because managers feel they are evaluated based on metrics they cannot control,” Schuhmacher said. “However, to cope with this stress, managers cooperate and communicate with peers and, thereby, solve organizational problems they cannot individually control.”

Building internal and external relationships. The role that management accountants play within organizations helps build connections across business units. Breaking down silos between organizational functions like marketing, operations, and finance helps unleash new growth. “If we think of accountants as not being in only an accounting organization but actually embedded in marketing, then marketing can get a lot of information on demand in the marketplace, and accountants can translate that into decision-relevant information, such as which products to emphasize,” Towry said. Cost analysis of customers, products, and services is critical to effective decision-making throughout the organization, Sedatole said, and modern cost techniques are increasingly being used across a variety of production and service settings to gain critical insights with strategic implications.

And the source of performance metrics is ever-increasing. Schuhmacher cites the online ratings that customers give to products they buy as an example of data that accounting professionals can help companies capture and use. A company can grow by focusing on its best-rated products and improving those that rate poorly. “Salespeople understand better than anybody the demand for products, but they don’t necessarily understand which products are most profitable. Accountants understand that piece.” Selling strategically helps companies grow profitably, according to Towry.

Management accountants also create controls for establishing, evaluating, and strengthening external partnerships that generate new growth. One way is by establishing and overseeing operational audits of vendors in your supply chain. Knowing that partners are doing business as expected builds trust and strengthens partnerships.

“[Business] relationships are fraught with a lot of risks, including the risk of a partner failing to perform because of their inability to do so, and a trading partner taking advantage of you,” said Sedatole. “But they also have a tremendous opportunity. It can be a huge competitive advantage to forge a collaborative relationship with an outside party.” But the success of any external business alliance depends on the effective management of the partnership, which includes instituting the appropriate controls, including performance measurement.

Trust has been shown to be a critical determinant of the success of external business partnerships. Sedatole and Towry have researched types of controls that companies can use to build trust with other organizations. For example, Walmart shares inventory levels with suppliers electronically so that its partners can send shipments automatically instead of relying on humans to make those decisions, Towry said. Sharing such data electronically provides a control internally and externally.

Developing managerial accounting skills

Tools and techniques for strategic decision-making change fast and can become obsolete. So, Goizueta professors concentrate on imparting critical thinking skills, agility of thinking, conceptual thinking, versatility, flexibility, and nimbleness to their executive education students.

Since strategic decisions are increasingly data-driven, leaders and managers must also be comfortable with data, able to uncover their underlying assumptions, and capable of sorting through data to get to the important information. Managers and leaders can use a tool like strategy mapping to increase confidence in strategic actions.

Sedatole, as faculty director for Emory’s executive women’s leadership program, helps senior leaders pursue growth objectives through strategy-mapping exercises, for example. “Strategy mapping helps uncover all of the assumptions you’re making about what you need to do to execute on your strategic objective,” she said. Leaders learn to map out each step they would have to take, considering its implications on product and profitability, for example.

In today’s data-driven business landscape, managerial accounting moves business leaders beyond short term profit and loss to help make informed strategic decisions. “The best accounting professionals are doing much more today than recording transactions,” Sedatole said. “They’re engaging in strategy and record keeping and measurement activities focused on finding sources of new growth.”

If you’d like to learn how you or your organization can engage with Goizueta faculty on this topic, speak with a learning advisor at 404-727-2200 or visit our website.

Emory University’s Goizueta Business School was created in 1919 as one of the nation’s first business schools. Its degree and Executive Education programs consistently rank in the top 25 in the world among major publications including Businessweek, The Economist, U.S. News & World Report, and Forbes.

The post How modern managerial accounting practices help companies grow appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

This rich culture continues today.

As Dean Erika James stands at her desk surrounded by technology her predecessors would most certainly envy, she’s mindful that the challenges and goals for the future are in some ways similar to those that have come before.

James is one of many deans to lead Goizueta Business School since 1919, each leaving a noticeable thread in the school’s fabric. The priorities and visions of each administration have been reflected in updates to curriculum, research focus and building aesthetics. James looks to do the same while also keeping the school agile in the face of increasing change. Many, of course, consider this a requirement as the business world faces more complex problems on a global scale.

“Business is changing rapidly,” James said. “How organizations are structured, the technologies they use, where and how they do business and the skills they need to succeed are all changing. That means business schools, as a conduit to business, have to change as well. We hear a lot about the competition for talent. That’s because the people skills and capabilities have not kept pace with the speed with which business is able to operate. There is also, in some cases, misalignment between what current and future generations of professionals are looking for and the structures and goals of the organizations that are seeking talent. Business schools have a responsibility to try to realign the two, and doing so requires educating both employers and students.”

This must occur in a context of great challenges for business schools, including declining enrollment numbers and rising costs. Additionally, business must increasingly understand—and embrace—the changing needs and desires of students. Schools, and the business community, must foster diversity of background, culture and thought.

Research—the backbone of higher education—must ground itself in theory and applicability, thus bridging a gap between the academy and industry. James believes Goizueta is well positioned to address these areas in the coming years thanks, in part, to its commitment to serving the community and improving society.

Industry Has Taken Notice

In August, the Business Roundtable, an association of chief executives from America’s top companies, released a new “Statement of Purpose of a Corporation.” The document, signed by 181 CEOs, presented a stark contrast to previous work. It spoke to a new trend in business, one in which leaders are committing their companies to benefitting multiple stakeholders not just shareholders. This includes customers, employees, suppliers and communities.

Goizueta is ahead of the curve as evidenced by its centennial campaign that calls on businesses and business education to “go beyond” the status quo and focus more on the greater good.

“I was gratified to read the CEO statement and to see the support,” James said. “I think we have been on that trend in the business community because we have some very astute senior executives and CEOs who understand the value and role of business in society. And because, from the ground up, we have employee bases that are asking their companies to have a more impactful role in society.”

James, John H. Harland Dean and professor of organization & management, said business schools play an important role in advancing this vision. Entrusted with the future workforce, schools give students the tools to hone and refine skills and ideas to change not only how organizations operate but how they support a broad spectrum of stakeholders and the communities in which they operate.

Voting with Their Feet

The views expressed by the Business Roundtable come as no surprise to James and others at the forefront of business education. But they did shake the bedrock of a long history in management education.

The statement of purpose marks a departure from the Milton Friedman Doctrine.

“The Friedman doctrine has influenced all aspects of business since it was first published in 1970, from how corporations operate and compensate executives, to how we teach management in business schools,” said Brian Mitchell 00EvMBA/MPH, associate dean of Goizueta’s full-time MBA program and head of the school’s global programming and initiatives. “The singular focus on shareholder value has also led to a wide range of outcomes for businesses and society, including vast wealth creation as well as some infamous ethical failings.”

Today, students at all levels exhibit a deep interest in social enterprise and justice.

“Students are helping shape the future at schools because they have expectations about what they want from their educational experience and what they want from their professional experience,” James said. “They’re voting with their feet. If they don’t find a school they feel engages their interests, they will seek alternatives. And I think the same is true with their employers. If they don’t find companies that are aligned with their interests, they will seek alternative forms of employment.”

For example, Social Enterprise @ Goizueta supports classes with titles like “Business and Society” and reaches close to 300 students each year in curricular and co-curricular activities. The center also supports Start:ME Atlanta, a business accelerator program that, to date, has helped more than 200 small businesses succeed and pour resources back into the community. Start:ME Atlanta was recently recognized as a 2019 Lighting the Way grant recipient by the SunTrust Foundation.

Service and Responsibility

Of course, service to the community should not be limited to schools. James and many others believe in a growing sense of responsibility streaming out of the boardroom and into society at large (the multi-stakeholder effect from the Business Roundtable).

“I feel a growing sense of conscious capitalism in the world today,” James said. “Our students demand we pay attention to more than the bottom line. They want this in their lives, and it is something we are uniquely suited to bring out in them through our social enterprise, leadership and other programming and ultimately, through the heart of our community.”

But devotion to a learning community is also an integral part of the educational experience, something James and others in the school say should continually be leveraged.

To earn a certificate of advanced leadership in the MBA program, for example, students must complete a capstone course, finish military-inspired leadership training at Fort Benning, go through multiple reviews and serve as Delta Air Lines Leadership Coaching Fellows or “peer coaches” to new students.

“Traditionally, the rationale for fostering community in business schools is not only because students derive enormous value from the power of the networks they build but also because a significant portion of their learning is based on peer-to-peer interactions,” said Andrea Hershatter, senior lecturer in organization & management and senior associate dean of undergraduate education. “In professional environments, managerial effectiveness is in large part based on the ability to pull together organizational resources, communicate and work across boundaries and identify opportunities to create synergy. Thus, curricular opportunities that allow students to experience the power of working within and across groups is extraordinarily useful. Additionally, community-based learning fosters an appreciation for diverse viewpoints and serves as a means for developing nuanced, contextual perspectives in decision-making.”

Students want a clear path to their goals, which likely won’t fit in a syllabus full of lectures and theory. For this reason, Nicola Barrett, Goizueta’s chief corporate learning officer, refers to “learning journeys” rather than curricula or programs. Corporations contract with Goizueta for custom programming for their employees (a growing business), and degree-seeking students want more than boxes to check.

“We’ve moved from just-in-case learning to just-in-time contextual learning,” Barrett said.

Strength in Diversity

Goizueta is a diverse community that offers students opportunities to immerse themselves in different cultures multiple times during their education. Close to a quarter of BBA students will study abroad at some point during their career at Goizueta. Additionally, MBA students receive instruction on language, history and other cultural aspects through partner programs in the Emory College of Arts and Sciences.

Future generations will live in more diverse communities and encounter a wider range of perspectives and ideas.

“Ultimately, exposure to society, history and language is to help students show up with a level of empathy when visiting a new country,” Mitchell said in a previous interview with Emory Business. “When you show up with that increased level of empathy, it helps your learning, understanding, appreciation and ability to lead in that context. Instead of just showing up and going 100 miles an hour, you enter with an appreciation for how this environment came to be: from the political, historical and societal aspects.”

James sees work to be done in increasing the proportion of domestic minority and female students. One strategy is recruiting more diverse faculty. In recent years, the number of total faculty has grown along with the number of female instructors and researchers.

Since James’ arrival, nearly half of the 34 faculty members hired have been women.

“We have focused our efforts to attract and retain a diverse faculty and have had particular success with regard to female faculty,” said Kristy Towry, vice dean for faculty and research and John and Lucy Cook Professor of Accounting. “The more diversity you can bring in, the better the thinking gets, the better the problem solving gets. It just elevates everybody. This is crucial as we seek to build a faculty that reflects the diversity in our various stakeholders, including our students and the business community we serve.”

And Goizueta is a leader in the space.

A report last year from Poets & Quants indicated that, among U.S. universities on the Financial Times list of the top 50 business schools, Goizueta had the highest percentage of female faculty: 33 percent. Most notably, the school’s pre-tenured faculty was 46 percent female. Towry said women currently make up 34 percent of the school’s faculty. Currently, half of Goizueta’s pre-tenured faculty, those focusing heavily on research, are women.

“I think we’re intentional about identifying talent and opening doors to places that we potentially would not have considered,” James said. “You have to educate decision makers on what excellence looks like and where it can be found. And when you do that, you expose yourself to diversity in all of its types.”

This includes diversity of student goals. Goizueta offers degree programs for undergraduates and graduate programs for full-time and working professional students. Recognizing growth in career interest and student demand, in 2017 the school started a graduate program in business analytics. Another area of growth is non-degree offerings through Emory Executive Education, Goizueta’s arm for custom corporate programming and open enrollment for working professionals.

Executive Education offers a breadth of topics and delivery methods. “We’ve got to be able to meet learners where they are,” Barrett said. “So, if that’s in their office, if that’s on their smartphone, if that’s in person … I think those flexible modes of delivery are going to do well. But doing it in a way that is still about the learner and not losing the intimate learning environment, that is what our faculty do so effectively.” Barrett does not rule out future use of holograms and artificial intelligence to maintain levels of interaction sometimes lost in distance learning. She, and others in leadership, speak often of the Goizueta community and how it must continue to be a source of strength and pride regardless of external changes and challenges.

“I think we should also be thinking about, right from the start, what people need at different points in their career,” Barrett said.

The Business Value of Research

Meeting the needs of mid-career professionals comes in various forms. Partnerships with industry are one way faculty at Goizueta source valuable data for research but also the information to guide the creation of curricula and coursework. As business education enters a new era with up to four generations in the workplace simultaneously (Boomers and Generations X, Y and Z), understanding the dynamics of the office is increasingly important and valuable to both the researcher and the practitioner. To accomplish this, multiple faculty members at Goizueta conduct behavioral research to complement other cutting-edge methods involving data.

“Professional schools like ours are in a unique position,” Towry said. “Because the things that make for good academic research are not the things that necessarily make for good practical applications. For the academy, what we’re trying to do is very precise and theoretically grounded. It’s a balancing act, but I think the trend is definitely moving to that symbiotic relationship between the academy and industry. We’re bringing in faculty who know how to speak to both.”

Towry says faculty members, in increasing numbers, collaborate around new technologies and trends. Faculty learn from each other, melding the academic tradition with real-world experience.

Veteran professors have long incorporated wisdom from the real world into the classroom. Rob Kazanjian, Asa Griggs Candler Chair and Professor in Organization & Management and senior associate dean for strategic initiatives, says such methods will increase in higher education for added relevance in research and in the classroom. “There’s no better way to get to what’s important,” he said, “than interacting with executives.”

He envisions more researchers using organization data, like that captured by human resources departments, over the next decade. This comes as a benefit to students, who learn every day from professors charged with being on the forefront of new technology, new practice and new theories.

“As we think about the future of management education, it’s really important to combine grounding in traditional business functions and paradigms with future-facing skills,” Hershatter said. “In addition to changes that are driven by technology, increasingly complex, multilayer business issues will require new ways of analyzing, operating and structuring. Because many of our faculty members are engaged in groundbreaking research that informs practice, they are able to endow our students with insights and methodologies that will enable them to evolve along with the organizations they will lead.”

A Community that Goes Beyond

Indeed, Dean James continues to strategize with business leaders and educators for the benefit of students and to propel the school forward.

“Business education is at a crossroads, and Goizueta will be a leader thanks to its focus on building a community of influencers and valuable professional networks,” noted James.

These elements, along with a strong alumni base and committed individuals, will ensure Goizueta is not only meeting the needs of students and industry but encouraging world-changers to carry a sense of community and social-mindedness into their work and beyond.

“We will remain relevant and sought after by students and faculty because of our ability to deliver an excellent educational experience and research environment while, obviously, keeping that community focus first and foremost,” she emphasized. “We will build upon our past and welcome the changes that inevitably lie in store for our future.” 

The post 100 Years and Beyond: Goizueta positions itself for new era appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

March 2019 saw another worthy batch of PhD students awarded the Sheth Fellowship. Sponsored by Jagdish Sheth, Charles H. Kellstadt Professor of Marketing, and his wife, Madhuri Sheth, the $1,000 award provides much-needed funds to doctoral candidates who pass their comprehensive exams.

This year’s award winners and advisors pictured from left: Jinsoo Yeo, information systems & operations management; Da Young Kim, marketing; Kristy Towry, vice dean of faculty and research; Professor Sheth; Karen Wallach, marketing; and Brian Kim, organization & management.

The post 2019 PhD award winners appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

During the fifth annual Young African Leaders Institute, or YALI, 25 professionals from 19 countries stepped foot inside the Delta Leadership Hub at Goizueta to learn more about the school’s curriculum and culture.

“This is one of the most exciting days for us at Goizueta because not too often do we have so many professionals from Africa,” Director of Human Resources and Diversity Alicia Sierra said welcoming the group. “You all are sitting in the Delta Leadership Hub, and you all are leaders. You’ve been selected for the Young African Leadership Initiative, and it is fitting that you’re here today.”

The 25 individuals are recipients of the Mandela Washington Fellowship. Launched by former President Barack Obama in 2014, the program selects 500 fellows from an applicant pool of more than 50,000. The fellows are divided among 20 academic institutions in the United States to study one of three tracks: business and entrepreneurship, public administration and civic engagement.

The program provides opportunities for young Africans to enhance their leadership skills and create meaningful ties with American citizens, businesses and organizations, as well as each other.

The trip is part of a program at Clark Atlanta University, and the fellows will continue to visit Atlanta universities and corporations for six weeks.

“I’m always so happy to be hosted on your continent because of that sense of personal renewal I get,” Vice Dean of Faculty and Research Kristy Towry said in her opening remarks. “It’s really wonderful now for us to be hosting you here. We hope that you touch our soil and feel a sense of personal renewal here.”

The day was full of learning, meaningful discussions and key networking opportunities. Alex Chanson, senior account manager with sales at Google, kicked off the day’s events with a brief overview of Google and key technologies the company is working on.

“When [Google] designs technology, we try to think about how can we improve the lives of people around us,” Chanson said.

Chanson proceeded to show examples of Google Assistant, Google Home and Google’s self-driving car company called Waymo.

“The important lesson is to be able to be agile and think where we’re going and change the way that we design things for where you want to go,” he said.

The group also got to hear from Scott McNabb with the Rollins School of Public Health on the Google Loon in Africa, a project of using large balloons to bring internet access to rural and remote areas.

Dale Tuck, head of strategy, planning and channel development at Atlanta Applied Artificial Intelligence, discussed AI and block chain, and Assistant Professor of Organization & Management Demetrius Lewis gave a talk on social networks.

The day concluded with primary faculty organizer for the event Professor Benn Konsynski discussing technology and commerce futures. Konsynski brought a variety of technologies, such as a Raspberry Pi, virtual reality headsets and drones, for the group to look at and test.

View the Gallery

[ngg_images source=”galleries” container_ids=”26″ display_type=”photocrati-nextgen_basic_slideshow” gallery_width=”600″ gallery_height=”400″ cycle_effect=”fade” cycle_interval=”3″ show_thumbnail_link=”0″ thumbnail_link_text=”[Show thumbnails]” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″]

The post Goizueta welcomes Young African Leaders during fifth annual YALI event appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

It’s well known that individuals tend to have a stronger negative reaction to the loss of something than a positive reaction to a gain of an equal size. One might expect, then, a penalty for poor performance would be a stronger performance motivator than a bonus for good performance. However, there is a downside to penalties—they are often interpreted as a signal of distrust.

“To be motivated, employees need to know their employer believes they are capable of doing the job and trusts them to put forth the best effort. Penalties, on the other hand, can be interpreted as a sign the employer doesn’t trust the employee to work as hard as he or she should,” cautions Sedatole. The consequences of a culture of distrust include lower employee effort and greater employee attrition, especially in settings where trust in performance evaluation is critical. In these instances, performance evaluations are more subjective.

This research documents the role that rewards and penalties play in promoting trust in the workplace, employee retention, and ultimately organizational performance. Employers would be well advised to consider a more rewards-friendly approach, the researchers conclude.

View the paper at emory.biz/trust.

The post The effect of employee rewards, penalties appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

She succeeds Anand Swaminathan. The associate dean position carries a three-year term, and faculty can serve up to two terms.

Kadous, Schaefer Chaired Professor of Accounting, has been a part of the Goizueta community since 2003. She started at Goizueta as a newly tenured associate professor, was promoted to professor in 2010, and was awarded a chaired professorship this year. A prolific researcher, her work is published in an array of academic journals, including the Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research, the Journal of Accounting Research, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, the Journal of Behavioral Finance, and Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory. In addition, Kadous recently completed her second term as editor of The Accounting Review and sits on several editorial boards. Prior to becoming an academic, Kadous worked in the private sector as an auditor and controller.

No stranger to the doctoral program, Kadous is a PhD advisor, has chaired several dissertation committees, and has served as a member of many others. In her new role, she hopes to use that experience to push the program to the next level.

“Professor Swaminathan has been a great role model and mentor to our students,” she says. “I will continue his efforts to increase the stature of Goizueta’s PhD programs by focusing on admitting a diverse set of promising students, ensuring students have the resources and support needed to do their best work, and ensuring our program is designed and implemented in ways that facilitate the development of our students into true scholars.”

At the PhD placement reception in May, Kristy Towry, dean of faculty, thanked Swaminathan for his influence on and dedication to the program. She then welcomed Kadous: “I couldn’t be more pleased to have Professor Kadous take on this role. She has a proven record of mentoring successful doctoral students, as her prior students have won prestigious awards, landed esteemed faculty positions, and contributed meaningfully through their research and teaching to both academia and the business community. I look forward to her leadership as she shares her knowledge and vision for taking our PhD program forward.”

The post Kadous to take helm of Goizueta’s PhD program appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.