For some, thoughts of artificial intelligence, doom and gloom, or robots taking over the world might come to mind. After all, it’s the age of generative AI—a seemingly magical technology that can create artwork, write papers, or build code—all within seconds.

Where do humans fit in?

Goizueta Business School graduates fit in everywhere. The future of work is an exciting prospect, and they are ready for it. These workers of the future are embracing their passions and pursuing multiple careers, making business decisions for the betterment of society, leveraging technology to enhance their
skills, and learning how to lead dispersed, remote teams.

Goizueta graduates don’t fear the future. They embrace it.

The Value of High-Tech Skills

“Technology is what it is, and we have to keep up with it and be familiar with the latest tools, but at the end of the day, the theory is a theory. [We] know the underlying math that goes into AI and that enables us to make informed decisions that will eventually make an impact on whatever project we’re working on,” says Sebastian Peña 19BBA 20MSBA, a management consultant for Accenture.

Recently, Peña faced having to write JavaScript, a language he doesn’t know, for a client. He planned on taking a course, but with the popularity of generative AI (like ChatGPT), Peña decided to turn to tech. Armed with a basic understanding of how to write code, Peña leveraged AI to fill in the gaps. A task that would have taken Peña several weeks took an hour.

Being a worker of the future means utilizing available tools to amplify your existing skills, he says.

“It’s easy to imagine a dystopian future, where most jobs are automated and workers disappear, but I think our students today are equipped to imagine a future where technology instead enables more prosperity and sustainability,” says Wes Longhofer, associate professor of organization and management, associate professor of sociology (by courtesy), and executive academic director of Goizueta’s Business & Society Institute. “If they can imagine it, then they can create it.”

Gathering the Data Points of Your Career

Research shows that younger generations find job-hopping beneficial. Multiple careers are—and will continue to be—the norm. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that, in September 2022, employees stayed with their current jobs an average of four years. This is especially true for younger generations.

Urvi Bhandari 99BBA 06MBA has no problem admitting that many of her career choices were directly tied to what was going on in her personal life at the time. That’s not to say her decisions weren’t driven by her professional aspirations. But they were equally tied to what was best for her, whether it was working for AT&T, The Coca-Cola Company, IBM, or Walmart—or being a nomad while in her executive roles.

“I want people to understand that life matters,” says Urvi, executive career coach and co-founder of peppercorn.ai.

The premise of Peppercorn.ai is to remove resumes from the equation and focus on the candidate. Rather than having prospective employees mold their story to fit a job description, the platform revolves around supporting the candidate to have clarity and confidence in their journey.

“We make business decisions with data points. Why don’t we make decisions for ourselves based on data points?” argues Urvi. “The world is changing. There is no one way to approach a career.’”

“Workers of the future are no longer going to be doing things because ‘that’s what the path is.’ There is no path,” Urvi continues. “People are making their own paths by taking control of articulating who they are, knowing where they’re going, and marketing what they offer.”

Forward Facing: How Business and Society Can (and Should) Mingle

Longhofer has nothing but optimism for the workers of the future and what they can accomplish for businesses—and for society.

Generation Z values a business’s societal and cultural impact, sometimes over salary and benefits, according to research by Deloitte. A vast majority (77 percent) of respondents cited social activism, and the evidence of it, as a high priority when deciding whether to work for a company. Workers of the future want companies with good values and ethics and a commitment to confronting societal issues, such as sustainability, climate change, and hunger.

As technology and AI advance at an unprecedented pace, workers of the future will be the ones who remind us that human flourishing and planetary survival are still essential.

Wes Longhofer

Workers of the future will have to combine their analytical and technological skills with creative solutions to address business needs. “It’s not enough to optimize your supply chain for peak efficiency. You also need to embed human rights into it and report your scope 3 emissions,” says Longhofer.

As complex as these challenges might sound, students at Goizueta are already rising to the occasion. The Business & Society Institute embeds this system-thinking approach into classes, experiential learning, global modules, directed studies, clubs, conferences, and case competitions. Students are being introduced to climate change and inequality. They’re given ample opportunities—in a variety of formats—to put their skills to the test in safe, supported environments before bringing their knowledge and ideas to their future companies.

The Power of People Skills

Workers of the future need not only the technical skills learned in class, but also soft skills. Whether a company conducts business in person or operates remotely, leaders of today and tomorrow must know how to lead through a screen and across time zones.

“The human factor of leading becomes increasingly important in a complex, uncertain, and volatile world where you’re not just leading in person anymore,” says Lieutenant General USA (Ret.) Ken Keen, associate dean for leadership and associate professor in the practice of organization and management.

As technology continues to advance, managers and executives must also know how to lead those whose technical knowledge surpasses their own. Whether you’re the chief financial officer or chief operating officer, you must know how to lead a league of people with varying skill levels.

“Every business is a people business,” says Brian Mitchell, associate dean of the Full-Time MBA programs and Goizueta Global Strategy and Initiatives. “You have to be able to relate to people and be relatable. A great leader cannot lead one way and expect everyone else to conform. They have to be able to manage many different work styles and personalities.”

Adapting to the Shifting Landscape

In addition to learning how to manage across styles and personalities, growth is key. That’s where continued education comes into play, shares Nicola Barrett, Goizueta’s chief corporate learning officer. “Changes in both technology and societal expectations require anyone in business to adopt new skills, approaches, and mindsets. They must become digitally fluent and to re-create their playbook to see, design, and unlock new growth opportunities. Emory Executive Education works with organizations and their professionals to develop these critical capabilities to catalyze new growth possibilities.”

Goizueta’s leadership is also constantly reviewing and tweaking its programs. The undergraduate BBA program, led by Andrea Hershatter, senior associate dean of undergraduate education and associate professor in the practice of organization and management, launched adjustments following a deep review in order to remain relevant to the latest scholarly research, recruiter and business needs, and alumni feedback.

“The revised curriculum enhances our ability to equip our students for an increasingly data-driven world in which the outcomes of business decisions are multifaceted and far-reaching. It simultaneously helps us build our student competencies and address their desire to create individualized and customized academic experiences,” says Hershatter.

The school’s highly ranked MBA program is next. One of the focus areas of the review is enhancing the global nature of the program, more deeply weaving experiential learning into the curriculum, rather than treating such opportunities as optional additions to the standard MBA track. 

“So much of the work of the future is going to happen irrespective of borders,” shares Mitchell. “Workers of the future are going to be global by definition.”

Gaining Global Perspectives

For Evan Lyons 22MBA, being global is inherent. Lyons learned to walk in England, and played soccer in Brazil as a teenager. He participated in an exchange program, then internship in France, and met his wife in Mexico. He can speak English, French, and Spanish fluently and has a working knowledge of German and Portuguese.

Lyons found immense value from his global experiences when he owned his own consulting company. He now uses that experience in his job as an investment banker for Bank of America. Lyon tries to begin meetings in the language of the country he’s in. He always downloads the local holiday calendar to be aware of how the area’s cultural traditions might impact workflow.

MBA graduates and workers of the future have to understand the global perspective because most major companies are global. If you want to rise up in any organization in any industry, you have to be able to understand where the company is playing, how to build relationships across cultures, and develop strategies that can flex and work in other places.

Evan Lyons 22 MBA

This diverse perspective—and the willingness to meet people where they are—builds relationships and strengthens leadership skills. Both of these are critical skills for workers of the future.

“The future is now for all of these things. They’re incremental steps. They are small innovations that lead to big innovations and big changes,” says Lyons. “The workers of tomorrow, the leaders of the future, they are in the workplace today.”

Interested in pursuing a business degree? Learn more about the unique programs Goizueta has to offer.

The post Preparing the Workers of the Future appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

In reality, a new kind of leader is rising to the top of the finance field in some of the world’s largest firms with trillions of dollars in assets under management: Goizueta women graduates.

Through innovative degrees, focused forums, networking groups, and its newly launched Finance Lab, Goizueta Business School is actively preparing women to advance in the industry.

Within the United States, arguably the world’s largest economy, the financial services industry accounts for approximately $4.8 trillion in annual revenue.

Across the country, close to one million businesses actively serve the finance and insurance industries. At Goizueta, nearly 23 percent of Full-Time MBA graduates accept employment in financial services businesses, with more than 32 percent taking roles in finance and accounting.

Though finance employment openings for women have increased since the early days of their entry into the workforce, advancement opportunities still lag those for men. Consider this fact about the financial services industry shared in Deloitte’s “Leadership, representation, and gender equity in financial services:” By mid-year 2021, women held only six percent of CEO roles within the S&P 500 companies.

Statistics show that parity, equity, and equality for women in finance may have improved slightly in recent decades. According to the newly released Crist|Kolder Associates “Volatility Report 2022,” the percentage of female C-suite has increased for the fourth consecutive year, with the number of female CFOs nearly doubling over the last ten years.

The industry is eager to see better representation, and there are really no barriers anymore. There has never been a better time for women to enter the field of finance.

Allison Dukes 06EMBA, chief financial officer at Invesco Ltd., a financial services firm with approximately $1.5 trillion in assets under management.

Finance Leaders Need Influence and Skills

As Dukes notes, “Finance is a broad field, and there are so many paths one can take. Fundamental finance skills are obviously necessary to master in a finance career.” She adds, “To lead, one must have the ability to influence decision making and strategy. A successful finance leader doesn’t just keep score, rather they seek to create more value for a company.”

Still, rising to leadership requires knowledge, technical skills, and charisma. In the historically male-dominated financial leadership community, “There is some progress, but it’s far too slow given the number of talented people from underrepresented groups I’ve come across during my career in finance,” says Kirsten Travers-Uyham, Goizueta associate professor in the practice of finance and academic director for the newly launched Master of Analytical Finance degree program. Travers-Uyham has deep experience in senior roles for the investment banking and hedge fund industry.

In addition to technical finance skills, we want our students in our Master of Analytical Finance program to learn the soft skills necessary to thrive and grow in the modern finance workplace. These skills will help open doors for our students, including the women in our first cohort who comprise 46 percent of the class.

Kirsten Travers-Uyham

Goizueta is intentionally focused on recruiting a more gender-balanced class for this degree, partnering, for example, with Spelman College to recruit their female graduates into the program. In addition, Goizueta partnered with MBAchic to sponsor the event “Breaking into the Field of Fintech,” for which Mari Kikaleishvili 21MBA, product manager at Fiserv, served as a panelist.

For students Lauren O’Banion 23MAF and Minjeong Seok 22C 23MAF, the Master of Analytical Finance degree will merge their love of finance with the technical, hands-on, practical experience needed to embrace opportunity within the industry. O’Banion builds on her recent internship with Regions Bank where she was a business capital analyst for Regions Business Capital. Seok comes to the program with internship experience as a performance and insights intern for The Coca-Cola Company. Both women gained invaluable industry knowledge in data analysis and project management as well as time management, critical thinking, and teamwork.

Drawn to the unique composition of this new degree program, O’Banion shares, “This internship-style graduate program allows us to gain more real-world experience than a typical master’s program. There are four different rotations: global markets, asset portfolios, investment strategies, and a final ‘in practice’ rotation on a global leadership team.”

In Goizueta’s newly constructed Finance Lab, students gain an immersive experience. O’Banion continues, “We’ll be learning from the best of the best and have access to state-of-the-art tools, real-time market data, and trading platforms to model, trade, and collaborate on real-world consultancy projects with industry clients.”

Seok, too, was captivated by “the program’s classroom setting–a feature I’m familiar with–and preparation for the industry–a challenge I would face to advance my future.”

Mentors Matter

Forging a path from business school to the C-suite includes many milestones. Rebecca Ginzburg 94BBA, president and chief operating officer of Junto Capital Management, a $5 billion long/short equity fund with 50 team members, collaborated to build her firm almost a decade ago. As president she leads the firm and works closely with team members, representing the firm to external partners and driving the strategic direction of the firm in conjunction with the CEO.

Ginzburg exemplifies leadership and shares her core values. “It is unfathomable to me that anything outside of my own performance would impede my success,” she says. She encourages women who aspire to grow. “We need to have a mindset that we control our own destiny and that we own our outcomes.”

“Mentors are critical and have shaped who I am as a person–wife, mother, friend–and who I am professionally and how I affect my role at Junto. I credit my relationship with my parents for recognizing early that I had a lot to learn, and that forging relationships founded on trust was critical,” she says. “I have incredible mentors, both men and women, and they are extremely important to me. Mentors are the ones who tell you what you may not be able to see on your own, who expose your blind spots, who provide you with constructive feedback to understand where you are falling short, and who give you the confidence and reassurance to get back on track.”

“No one can succeed without having failed. Take the time to evaluate mistakes and failures and to learn from them,” Ginzburg says. “Turn to your mentors in those dark moments–they want to see you succeed.”

As history has shown time and again, women help women along the rise to the peak of their careers. Networking and mentoring are critical to success in the finance world, and nonprofit organizations and social groups such as Women of Wall Street, 100 Women in Finance, CEO Circle, and Girls Who Invest offer industry educational opportunities for women, supporting career growth at all stages, from pre-career through C-level and beyond.

Paying It Forward

In Finance circles, talk surrounds a concept known as the “multiplier effect.” The theory is that for every one woman who advances to a C-level or board position, three more will be promoted to senior level roles.

Clifton Green, Goizueta’s John W. McIntyre Professor of Finance, elaborates. “The multiplier effect describes the important influence of role models,” he says. “Studies have shown that women teachers and leaders can have significant effects on the choices that young women make.”

Goizueta offers women access to powerful personal and professional development opportunities. The Goizueta LeadHership Program was designed to nurture female business students and provide a series of workshops throughout the year that address topics such as communicating your personal brand, executive presence and leadership style, managing career and family obligations, and cultivating advocates. Goizueta also partners with The Forté Foundation to further women’s advancement in business leadership.

BBA students are invited to join Goizueta Women in Finance, a forum that focuses on the unique challenges and opportunities that exist for women in the finance industry. At the graduate level, and for those BBA students with professional experience, Executive Women of Goizueta and Graduate Women in Business help women encourage each other to remove barriers, promote diversity, and develop into stronger leaders. Both groups offer interactive events, seminars, and speaker series featuring business and academic leaders to explore roles beyond Wall Street in corporate finance, budgeting, lending, credit, and risk management, among other specialties. Students are also invited to participate in the Goizueta Alumni Mentor Program for practical insights, professional coaching, and industry-experienced guidance.

As Goizueta women finance leaders agree, intentionality in career choice is vital. Ginzburg points out, “You must consider their interests and their talents, and hopefully find an industry and company that enables you to leverage both. There needs to be a balance of searching for growth while working hard to be elite in your current role.”

Don’t let being a woman get into your psyche about what you are or are not capable of doing, of what you may be limited by.

Rebecca Ginzburg 94BBA

She continues. “A career is a journey. One step needs to be sturdy and successful before the next can be taken. This does not mean that you should not take calculated risks and push yourself to do more–this is critical,” says Ginzburg. “Of great importance is aligning yourself within a firm and team that you believe in, where you share values and ethics, where you believe in the culture. When this comes together, and you have trust, you are off to the races!”

Learn more about Goizueta’s Master of Analytical Finance degree program.

The post Charging Ahead: Women Rise in Finance appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

That’s the news a corporate leadership team receives one Tuesday morning, interrupting their quarterly review and strategic planning meeting.

The room falls silent as the executives absorb the severity of the crisis. One by one, these critical leaders begin to recognize the role each will play in dealing with the tragedy. Accurate information will need to be gathered for press releases, communicated internally with factory management and the company’s board of directors, as well as externally with the families of the employees who died and with those customers affected by a factory shutdown. Media will need immediate and frequent updates. The community will demand assurances. The list goes on and on.

Each action these executives take—or do not take—will result in vastly different financial and reputational implications for the company. Time is of the essence and their well-organized response is critical to the company’s success.

What will these leaders do? Better yet, what should they do to ensure effective leadership through crisis?

Real-World Stakes

In our recent history marked by an unpredictable pandemic, social unrest, and political upheaval, crisis leadership has become an even more important component of a leader’s overall business plan.

“Classroom lectures and reference materials are great prep for understanding academic concepts, but nothing prepares a leader more than having experienced decision-making based on well-informed, timely, and critical information,” notes Lieutenant General (Ret.) Ken Keen, senior lecturer of organization and management and associate dean for leadership.

“With real-world stakes, leaders need authentic practice in managing business crisis response. Goizueta builds this credibility in our graduates.”

Ken Keen

Currently, Keen and his team are designing a crisis leadership simulation with funding from The Goizueta Innovation Fund’s Advances in Teaching Experimentation Zone, which encourages and provides funding for faculty and departments seeking to leverage advanced technology-based educational tools that support the cognitive engagement experience for students.

According to Stephanie Parisi, associate director of instructional design, the simulation will allow participants to have “the opportunity to play unique roles where their actions and decisions impact the crisis experience and their team performance,” she says. A leadership decision in an earlier round will affect later rounds—including what information is given to players and/or the intensity of a situation. “We are spending a lot of time linking the different scenarios and outcomes so that participants can experience leading during a crisis as close to the real thing as possible,” Parisi adds. In addition to offering participants an impactful experience, Keen and his team are striving to push the envelope of leadership simulation by including meaningful innovation.

“Goizueta prepares its leaders to guide businesses through the problems we face now, and those that we have yet to anticipate,” says Karen Sedatole, Interim John H. Harland Dean of Goizueta Business School. “If the pandemic has taught us to be prepared, simulations like these are crucial to prepare responsive leaders to face unforeseen challenges tomorrow.”

Innovation through Adversity

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, attending class took on new meaning. Several of Goizueta’s experiential learning programs, such as the Leader’s Reaction Course at Fort Benning, had to be re-imagined or put on hold when classes began to meet virtually. When Keen couldn’t put groups of students through this course, he looked for alternatives that delivered the same learning objectives, but that could be delivered online. Keen had used simulations before and decided they could play a bigger role. 

Throughout 2020, student teams virtually climbed Mt. Everest, mitigated wildfires in the western U.S., and fought to stop a pandemic spread by zombies. While the simulations helped students deal with team building and crisis leadership issues, they lacked a basic component: the multi-faceted impact of a business crisis. “The simulations we used were very effective to attain learning outcomes, but what we were really looking for was a business simulation where we place students in executive leadership positions within a company,” Keen explains.

A Proprietary Crisis Leadership Simulation Platform

Keen spoke with multiple vendors in pursuit of a “dynamic online simulation centered on business crisis leadership,” but couldn’t find one. He thought—why not design it ourselves?

With the help of Parisi and Nicola Barrett, chief corporate learning officer, Keen is doing just that. “We’re bringing in expertise and thought leaders to help us build a unique platform simulation for our students,” Keen notes.

“We all face business crises at some point in our careers, whether it is the shared experience of the COVID-19 pandemic or other business crises that impact the financial strength, reputational integrity, or legitimacy of our businesses. The more we can do to help professionals prepare themselves, their teams, and their companies to avoid, reduce the impact of, or handle a crisis, the more resilient they will be,” says Barrett. In her role, she was instrumental in helping the program secure funding from The Goizueta Innovation Fund.

“A simulation like the one we are creating will put professionals in realistic crisis situations that will stretch their skills and build their capacity to shape the outcomes of whatever future crises they will face.” 

Nicola Barrett

Sudden and Smoldering Crises

Keen has worked on the project since the end of 2020, but he and his team began to build the simulation platform in late spring 2021. The team is working with Forio, a software company based in San Francisco, to create a simulation capable of offering a breadth of crisis scenarios, from sudden events—an earthquake, a massive cyberattack, a significant product failure—to smoldering events, “those that create disturbance in the company, but if dealt with could be overcome fairly easily,” explains Keen. “If you don’t pay attention to these types of events, or if you react to them in an inappropriate way, they could spiral out of control and lead to a crisis.”

Keen hopes to roll out a pilot by the end of this year, gather feedback, and iterate. The plan is to begin running the simulation by late spring 2022.

The intent is to develop crisis leadership simulations that are as multidimensional as the real world in which an actual crisis might play out—integrating business decisions, leadership behaviors, change management, and communications strategies with the ability to assess learners against defined competencies in these and other areas. The simulations may replicate a particular market environment (such as a global health crisis that affects the entire economy) or present something more esoteric (a product failure that opens the door to competitor advantage).

“We plan to make these simulations adaptable and agile,” Keen notes.

Leadership Built on Experience

Over the course of his military career, Keen has experienced firsthand his share of crisis leadership. As part of the U.S. Southern Command, Keen was stationed in Haiti in 2010 when a devastating magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit, affecting more than three million people. The quake destroyed almost all of Haiti’s government ministries, and Keen was tasked with mobilizing a multitude of support efforts.

While he plans to draw on personal experiences like this to develop the simulations, Keen recognizes the need for thought leaders to provide a business-centric perspective. “We want to develop storylines that are realistic, challenging, and forward-looking,” Keen says.

In addition to his Goizueta colleagues, Keen will consult with experts within Emory about the physiological impacts of stress on human behavior that will add a critical dimension to the leadership simulation.

“These types of simulations allow students to be immersed in real-world experiences to strengthen their leadership skills,” says Jaclyn Conner, associate dean, Executive MBA. “We are ecstatic to offer this experiential learning in our classes as it will provide a realistic leadership environment for students to practice and shape their skills.”

Onset of a Virtual Crisis

The crisis simulation will run three to four hours and can be completed in a half-day or incrementally. The simulation will integrate virtual reality (VR), videos, and “cross-functional responsibilities, situational awareness, team dynamics, and other real-world issues,” Keen says.

Because the simulation is still in development, the team can’t reveal too many specific details. “Our simulation is unique in that it will offer interactive video components and immersive opportunities for learners to experience real-world crisis leadership situations through the use of virtual reality in targeted areas that support learning outcomes,” Parisi explains. “What we’re not doing is just throwing in virtual experiences for flash. We really care and are being very thoughtful about how we include VR and how it impacts the learning experience.”

Key focuses will be on-brand messaging development that reflects core values, timely public and internal responses, empathy, personnel concerns, corporate financial repercussions, service interruptions, logistics changes, supply chain needs, communications delivery, governmental agency interaction, communication engagement, media relations, and much more.

Each player will be designated a different role, such as chief executive officer, chief people officer, chief financial officer, media relations director, head of human resources, and more. Coordination of on-brand messaging is key and should reflect a unified response.

For instance, in the previous example focused on an industrial accident with fatalities, the chief executive officer would deliver a message to the board that may not reflect what the chief people officer wants to communicate to employees, as well as to the families of the employees that died. And the chief operating officer may have a completely different message he or she wants to deliver to customers and supply chain partners. Response organization is paramount. The biggest questions to be answered before anyone responds are, “What is the chain of communications command, who does which task, with whose approval, and in what sequence?”

Keen says that through the simulation, “You send the players off and they craft their statements independently. Then you ask, ‘Are the talking points synchronized? Is one person suggesting saying one thing that contradicts another statement? Did the executives talk before they finalized their statements? Did they compare notes?’”

As he did when he ran the out-of-the-box simulations during the pandemic, Keen will enlist business coaches to assist the players as they go through the game, albeit with a twist. “Coaches will be able to observe what the players are doing. That capability doesn’t exist right now,” says Keen. The simulation will be run on computers, but as in a true crisis, players don’t have to be in the same location. They could be together in one room, meeting virtually, or a mix of both.

“Regardless of how you run the simulation, the coach will witness what the players are doing and how they’re communicating with one another,” Keen adds. While coaches won’t manipulate the simulation in any way, having them observe in real time will allow coaches to better facilitate an after-action review.

Keen envisions the simulations being offered across many of Goizueta’s programs—MBA, BBA, Executive Education—and as leadership development opportunities for faculty, staff, and other organizations within Emory University, such as the Rollins School of Public Health. According to Keen, it’s conceivable that Goizueta could design a simulation platform that would fit almost any curriculum/cohort at Emory. “If you’re training at the university for crisis events like contending with an active shooter, for example, you can use a simulation to deal with the crisis as part of your training,” says Keen.

It’s a fact. Crises happen. “It’s not a matter of if—but when—you will be faced with a crisis, so the more we can help prepare business leaders and the more realistic that learning preparation is, the better they will handle these situations,” says Barrett. “The bar has been raised, and at Goizueta, we are raising it further by investing in advanced simulations like the crisis leadership simulation.”

Learn more about Goizueta leadership programs. Gain insight from alumnae who take the lead.

The post Leadership through Crisis appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to change how we work and learn, organizations, including business schools, are not only having to adapt to survive but also are reevaluating their business models for a new reality. 

In 2020, Goizueta faculty pivoted to online teaching and were quick to adopt new interactive tools and applications, including online case discussions, breakout room technologies, online polling, and many others, according to Anandhi Bharadwaj, vice dean for faculty and research. To strengthen the teaching transition, Goizueta established faculty forums, discussion boards, tips, and idea sharing.

“The ability to not only adapt but to innovate is critical,” said Nicola Barrett, chief corporate learning officer at Goizueta Business School. “As with other sectors, higher education and executive development is undergoing significant change from new entrants, new technologies, and changing expectations of professionals and organizations.”

“For Goizueta, the time is now to explore the benefits and possibilities of digital learning and what it means for the future of teaching,” she said. Digital learning tools provide a perfect fit for busy working professionals as more individuals appreciate the flexibility of being more productive from the comfort of their home, she notes. 

Denys Lu, Goizueta’s chief technology officer, agrees and explains that digital learning enables everyone to take a more active role in the learning process. “The way students want to learn today is very different than 10 or 20 years ago when the most important person in the room was the teacher,” he said. “Now, everyone contributes and learns from one another, including the teacher.” 

Setting the Pace for Change

If 2020 was about adapting teaching methods and keeping pace with change, 2021 is about setting the pace and exploring the future of business education. Even before the pandemic, Goizueta was looking ahead to future learning innovations. “The goal is not to use digital learning to replace all of our traditional classrooms but to reach a different audience AND provide a top-notch educational experience,” said Jaclyn Conner, associate dean for Executive MBA. Conner has been spearheading the teaching innovation efforts. 

With three next-generation global classrooms, hologram technology, and augmented and virtual reality projects being developed, Goizueta is poised to take digital learning to the next level by providing business professionals with a truly immersive, dynamic experience from anywhere in the world.  

“Digital learning offers an opportunity to expand Goizueta’s global reach and offer an amazing learning experience that other schools do not provide,” according to Lu. 

By eliminating the need for travel for many working professionals, the technology draws in a more expansive set of students both domestically and internationally with a greater diversity of thought, experience, and culture. “To really enhance the level of conversations and engagement in the classroom, you have to bring people in who are as different as possible,” he said. “That’s what digital learning enables. It breaks the barriers for people who can’t afford to travel for a length of time.”

Investing in a More Dynamic, Interactive Student Experience 

Digital learning is another important way to further develop and hone business leaders that shape and drive organizations, according to Barrett.

“The future of work and the future of learning are so intertwined with technology that we must constantly challenge ourselves to imagine more effective ways for professionals to enhance and broaden their perspectives, learn new skills and tools, and adopt more successful behaviors,” said Barrett.

Goizueta is leveraging a generous donation from The Goizueta Foundation to move forward on teaching innovations in three key areas: virtual classrooms, holograms, and virtual reality or gamification. This summer, Goizueta’s Executive Education and EMBA students will be the first to experience The Roberto C. Goizueta Global Classrooms, which create online and hybrid learning opportunities that don’t sacrifice one-to-one connection.

Goizueta has partnered with X20Media—a third-party vendor—to power the digital learning platform that drives each of the three Global Classrooms. With multiple camera angles and state-of-the-art audio, faculty and students will be able to see and hear each other through a wall of 20 to 40 high-definition monitors positioned with each student’s video feed assigned to a monitor, all in a familiar format. 

The Global Classroom technology involves a lot more than just connecting students on a Zoom-type call. Making this possible is new in-house talent hired to run a production or control room in which production members can communicate with professors in real time regarding questions and topics that arise in the online chat. This allows students to interact with each other and the instructor. Conner likens the production or control room to a sophisticated TV studio. “It’s Zoom on steroids,” she said. Goizueta’s in-house instructional designers will work with faculty to help them prepare to fully leverage the world-class platform, and each session will be recorded for those who can’t attend or want to review.

Perhaps the greatest advantage, notes Conner, is the system’s learning analytics, which are the hardest to collect in a traditional learning environment. Faculty can conduct real-time polls to get the “temperature of the room” on any given topic. “The ability to use a digital platform to capture that data to provide to the instructor in real time is revolutionary,” Conner said. “As you are teaching, managing a chat board is almost impossible. But having a system that is looking for commonalities and provides a report showing keywords mentioned a number of times by a significant number of students — that is a game-changer!” 

In addition to real-time data analytics, the system also allows for greater flexibility and collaboration through break-out room options, white-board technology, and sharing of common assets to store files and presentations. 

Expanding Reach with “Pop-up” Classrooms, Holograms, and VR

Goizueta encourages faculty and staff to explore new technology and innovative approaches to teaching by funding high-impact proposals from the Experimentation Zone. The Experimentation Zone has enabled faculty and staff the freedom to explore additional learning opportunities by proposing ideas to create virtual reality learning experiences.

Expected to be in use later this year, holograms will allow Goizueta to invite guest speakers from all over the world, appearing as if they are right in front of students. Holograms also would make “pop-up” classrooms possible in locations around the world. This method is far less expensive than sending a faculty member to far-away places like Shanghai or Rome for in-person instruction. In the long run, this technology is expected to increase flexibility for new programs and create unique opportunities for innovation. 

Additionally, gamification or the use of game-like virtual reality (VR) simulations can pave the way for immersive learning experiences without incurring the costs of associated travel to off-campus locations or relying on external partners to create these learning experiences. 

Faculty are excited to explore how VR and holograms can enhance the student learning experience, Conner said. Barrett has co-submitted and received approval for two proposals involving virtual reality, including one with Lieutenant General USA (Retired) Ken Keen, senior lecturer in Organization & Management and associate dean for leadership. They are developing a customized VR crisis leadership simulation that transports learners into “real-world” scenarios. The simulation is designed to be flexible with unexpected challenges inserted mid-simulation to test business decisions, leadership behaviors, change management, and communication strategies. The simulation allows for forward-looking learning when dealing with a crisis or challenge as opposed to case study review to see how a company handled a previous crisis. 

“This simulation will make Goizueta unique,” said Keen. “What will differentiate this innovative crisis simulation will be how it uses state of the art technology, like virtual reality and holograms, to put leaders in roles within an organization, where they must deal with both sudden and smoldering crisis events that represent current research and future challenges.”

Barrett, along with Professor in the Practice of Organization and Management Michael Sacks, also proposed a VR negotiator simulation that has the potential to revolutionize how educators teach and research negotiations while providing a potential revenue stream through corporate education.

“Our goal with both the crisis leadership simulation and the VR negotiator is to provide our executive participants with highly relevant and engaging learning situations that can better assess and build competencies and provide practice opportunities, faster, more effectively, and with less variability than the current approaches most providers use,” Barrett said. “By standardizing negotiation practice, we will be able to take biases out of the experience and better evaluate, for each learner and for each negotiation, based on multiple data points over the negotiation rather than on the outcome alone.” 

For Steve Walton, professor of Information Systems & Operations Management, having the opportunity to explore how this technology can be integrated into the educational experience makes it interesting and fun. “This creates an opportunity to think creatively about what digital learning really means.” 

Walton’s proposal to create a virtual reality experience of the Delta TechOps facility has been approved for a prototype this year. Walton regularly takes his students to the Delta TechOps facility but the VR learning experience, developed in partnership between Goizueta and Delta, would enable every section of process and systems courses across every Goizueta program to have the learning experience. It will also allow Delta to experiment with augmented and virtual reality at TechOps to further its own business.

The Future of Digital Learning

“It is an exciting time to be in higher ed as we are constantly challenged to reimagine ‘what’s next’ and how do we better help professionals, managers, and executives adopt new mindsets, skillsets, and toolsets to lead their organizations,” Barrett said. 

But investing in technology by itself is not the end goal, Bharadwaj notes. Leading in the digital learning space means figuring out how to use it to add significant value for students and organizations.

“What you want students to remember is not the technology but the experience and how it enhanced their life,” said Lu. As a result of the increased flexibility and collaboration that digital learning tools provide, we will see more and more of this type of technology, Lu noted.

For Goizueta, digital learning tools will be one more differentiator from the competition while providing greater global reach.

“Technology will continue to be an important enabler, and we will continue to invest, learn, and adopt new technologies,” said Bharadwaj. “We will use technology to increase our school’s reach, to stay connected with our students and alumni on a global scale, and to improve our range, which is our ability to do more things in more meaningful ways to improve business and society.” 

Learn more about Goizueta’s Executive MBA program and Executive Education.

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This year Two-Year MBA students participating in Goizueta IMPACT, one of the school’s signature experiential learning programs, were in the fast lane with Porsche Cars North America (PCNA). It is the company’s first major collaboration with Goizueta thanks to former Goizueta Evening MBA student Alexander De Clerck 21EvMBA, PCNA’s corporate business development manager, who served as the client contact. Just a year ago, in the fall of 2019, De Clerck completed his own semester-long Goizueta IMPACT project, which allows students to solve real world problems for real clients, so he felt doubly invested. “It couldn’t have gone any better,” De Clerck said.

PCNA enlisted three student teams to help with two projects. The first two teams focused on data strategy — how best to utilize Porsche vehicles’ sensor data. The third team was tasked with an “Inspirational Storytelling” project: how best to frame Porsche’s sustainability efforts to increase the brand’s appeal to a younger generation of car buyers.

De Clerck, who described Porsche vehicles as, “wonderful, untapped resources full of data,” explained that the data strategy project was an effort to explore “new ideas on how to utilize that data.” PCNA challenged the students to provide the company with an actionable data strategy.

“I knew I’d get to leverage a lot of the stuff we’d learned during our Data & Decision Analytics class,” said Tom Egge 21MBA who worked with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, New England District, before coming to Goizueta.

After working on the projects throughout the spring semester, the teams presented their recommendations to a panel of clients, business leaders, faculty, and staff at “Showcase Day.” Twenty-nine MBA student teams worked on 26 projects for more than 20 different clients, but it was the Porsche Intentional Storytelling team that garnered the top prize — Goizueta Gold.

The students on the Intentional Storytelling/Sustainability team (Alexa Newfield 21MBA, Jordyn Hodge 21MBA, Emma Sveen 21MBA, Mustapha Sakr 21MBA, Steven Saldanha 21MBA, and Naveen Srikakulam 21MBA) were all part of the target market Porsche had asked the team to research. By taking a closer look at trends within sustainability, the team was able to suggest nuanced ways that Porsche could make its brand more marketable while simultaneously appealing to young buyers’ commitment to the environment. This included suggestions to frame sustainability through the lens of new technology and taking a “peripheral approach” in messaging.

Newfield credited the team’s faculty advisor, Omar Rodríguez-Vilá, associate professor in the practice of marketing, with keeping the team on task.

“Having the chance to try and solve a client’s problem within your student team – while also having the safety of your professor to turn to with questions – was a great balance between being thrown in the deep end and taking swimming lessons,” Newfield said. In addition to faculty advisors, the student teams are connected with current second-year MBA students, who act as mentors.

De Clerck, and team coaches Mette Reichert 22EvMBA and DeHaven Prillerman, were so impressed with the presentations, that they arranged for all three teams to present their recommendations to Porsche’s senior management, including Klaus Zellmer, president and CEO of PCNA.

“This was stellar work, both insightful and actionable,” Zellmer said. “My take-away from the presentation was that in Goizueta, we had found an impressive pool of talent who contributed real value to evolving our business strategies.”

Egge, who was assigned to one of the two data strategy teams says the projects did not come without hurdles. A week after he and other students found out they wouldn’t be returning to campus due to the coronavirus, his team was thrown another curveball.

With just three weeks before the projects were to be finalized, his team discovered Porsche had recently implemented one of the recommendations the team planned to present. While it validated the team’s thought process, it meant they needed to regroup.

“Our ‘big idea’ was that Porsche create a data marketplace so that they have a channel to find partners to license their data to, but then we found out they were already doing this, “ Egge said. “We pivoted to focus on some next steps, creating a framework that would allow them to evaluate which opportunities were the most worthwhile to pursue. The key was to scope the size of opportunities and determine a customer’s willingness to pay for the data. We also wanted to make sure that opportunities aligned with Porsche’s brand and strategic positioning.”

Elizabeth Hitti 21MBA who was on the second data strategy team, which placed third, says whenever her team attempted to narrow the project focus by asking the PCNA contacts targeted questions, the contacts responded, “You tell us.”

“This challenge is very real-world, where the client either doesn’t know what they’re looking for or doesn’t want to pigeonhole your team’s thinking, yet they’re expecting your team to come in and provide a strong, supported answer.”

Hitti, who came to Goizueta from Deloitte where she’d worked as an analyst and a consultant, spent less than a week with her project teammates before meeting with PCNA. On most consulting teams, there is a hierarchy, but with student teams, everyone is a peer. To help figure out what worked best for the group, the team created a “team charter” that included everyone’s preferences and expectations. Doing so forced the team to communicate upfront to avoid any later surprises.

“This situation was both realistic and effective, and in our team’s case, made us trust and lean on each other quicker than we would have otherwise,” said. “I would definitely repeat this process in a future team environment.”

Adjunct lecturer at Goizueta and founder of Springboard Strategy, Amy Zehfuss 99MBA, says learning how to communicate with team-mates, and the client, is part of the experience. As a result, students are forced to draw on what they’ve learned in their MBA courses in order to think critically and to problem solve.

“It’s an integrated and holistic experience,” said Zehfuss. “These are tools I’ve used my entire career. I think the students will too.” Zehfuss spent years in internal strategy roles at both Turner Entertainment and Spanx. By design, these projects are both “ambiguous and complex,” she added.

De Clerck knew from experience how intense the project process would be for the students. He also knew how rewarding it could be for Porsche.

“I was acutely aware of how much of a collaborative, meticulously nurtured project the professors, mentors, and students craft for the client and how much passion is poured into the final deliverable,” he said.

De Clerck made sure the student teams had access to the relevant subject matter experts and to data sources. The better informed the student teams were, noted De Clerck, the greater chance Porsche would get relevant, actionable recommendations that it could build on. Recommendations it could, “take to the next level, and ultimately, out into the market and to the customer,” he added.

Knowing that the client was counting on her team’s recommendations to inform its business decisions and thereby impact its bottom line, Hitti felt real pressure. “That tangibility gives the project a purpose and meaning that can’t come from a grade in school,” Hitti said. “We had the chance to work on an interesting and exciting project, manage a real client relationship, determine what was important and own all of our decisions as a team. I don’t think there is any way to recreate that type of experience in a classroom setting.”

Hitti was also impressed that PCNA’s CEO blocked off two hours on his calendar to meet with the three Porsche project teams. “He took the time to hear what everybody had to say,” she said. “I admired that.”

Newfield found the exercise of presenting the project multiple times insightful. Every time her team presented, they were able to condense the presentation.

“This helped teach me how important it is to be concise, sharp, and to the point,” she noted. And, how to “cater a presentation to an audience based on its prior knowledge of the topic, understanding what the audience will find most important based on its particular perspective.”

Lynne Segall 99MBA, associate dean of Goizueta IMPACT, spent nearly 16 years at Accenture before coming to Goizueta and says the projects are meant to accelerate career readiness by providing the students with the opportunity to apply the lessons from the classroom to solve real-world problems.

“Porsche pushed these teams to deliver high quality, high impact work,” she said. “The invitation for the teams to present to senior management is a testament to the value of the students’ work and the power of the Goizueta curriculum. We are fortunate to have strong partners like Porsche that provide excellent opportunities for our students to grow their capabilities while making a difference for the organization.”

IMPACT is currently sourcing project sponsors for Spring 2021. If interested and to learn more, contact Kore.breault@emory.edu.

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“The COVID-19 pandemic continues to challenge the business status quo like never before,” said Amelia Schaffner, director of entrepreneurship at Goizueta. “Entrepreneurial resilience in the face of adversity, relentless problem hacking and pivoting to new needs are critical components for companies to not only endure a major economic shift such as this, but also emerge stronger once the pandemic subsides.”

While the United States continues the rolling process of reopening businesses and defining a “new normal,” the pandemic is far from over. “The international community is working together like never before to produce a coronavirus vaccine,” said Elissa Prichep 08MBA, project lead for precision medicine at the World Economic Forum. In her recent article on the forum’s website, she stated, “If a vaccine is developed in the timeline predicted, then people will have a preventative option should COVID-19 recirculate next year. Protection from the virus will save lives and help society return to functioning as normal.”

Prichep noted, “This timeline feels excruciatingly long as the coronavirus pandemic continues to ravage the world around us. But it deserves some context. New technologies combined with international cooperation to fight infectious diseases are enabling faster responses to new disease outbreaks, shaving several years from traditional vaccine development timelines.”

Funding global efforts like vaccine development is a key priority. Jeff Miller 10MBA is senior director of global creative strategy for Snapchat. “Now, people are leaning into the platform, connecting with close friends and family when they can’t be face-to-face,” he said. For World Health Day on April 7, his team created an innovative way to fund the United Nations COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for the World Health Organization. “We’re encouraging Snapchatters around the world to take action in response to the pandemic
by showing them that every dollar can make a difference. Their loose bills can make real change. We launched the first-ever global donation augmented reality (AR) marker experience on Snapchat to raise funds for hospitals, medical supplies and research and development,” Miller said of the campaign developed in under two weeks in 11 languages across 33 countries. For this ongoing initiative, “With marker technology, Snapchatters can hold bank notes in front of their cameras to trigger AR visualizations of the causes that the fund supports.”

Emergency room doctor Angela Fusaro 01C 17WEMBA cofounded Physician 360, which now operates in 50 states providing convenient, cost-effective and diagnostically accurate care for common medical illnesses such as anemia, urinary tract infection, strep throat and flu. When the coronavirus pandemic took hold, the infrastructure of Physician 360’s direct-to-consumer model was already in place to handle increased demand for virtual medical care. At the onset of the pandemic, the company built a resource database of testing sites for patients who were at risk and needed access to confirmatory testing. Now, an individual who may have been exposed to coronavirus can purchase a consultation through the smart phone app or the website. Working alongside local pharmacies, board-certified physicians will then guide eligible candidates through the process in their state for coronavirus testing if screening indicates they may have the virus. Physician 360 is working to expand the scope of its low-cost and convenient testing capabilities, including COVID-19 antibody testing. “Seeing the overcomplexity and excessive cost in the health system, I want to be part of the solution to these inefficiencies and not just work within a broken system,” Fusaro said. In these medically challenging times, “For people who can’t wait for a doctor’s appointment, or don’t want to be exposed to others’ germs, telemedicine is an innovative solution.”

“Healthcare professionals, scholars and public agencies are creating enormous amounts of data on COVID-19, but it’s highly fragmented,” said Eric Crane 09BBA, chief operating officer and cofounder of Flatfile, which helps companies import and manage data. That’s why his team accelerated the launch of their latest venture, CSV.org, last week in collaboration with scientists from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as well as technologists at Google and Airtable. Crane explained, “With CSV.org, we’re doing what we do best: aggregating, healing and normalizing data. Only instead of doing this for companies, our goal is to make all public data easily accessible.” The site offers a curated and normalized set of thousands of global metrics free of charge, with an initial focus on COVID-19 data. “We aren’t scientists or journalists, but we can do our part to make those experts’ jobs easier,” he added.

Changing conditions demand swift response from businesses

Factory shutdowns and consumer hoarding may have temporarily impacted the natural flow of our nation’s supply and demand, but businesses are keenly aware of changing customer needs. Arming frontline healthcare workers and patients has taken
top priority across the world as the virus continues to spread. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to minimize hazardous and potentially illness-causing exposure is in limited supply, yet Goizueta alumni and the companies they work for are stepping in to quickly change that reality.

INVISTA, a division of Koch Industries, is known for its innovations in the nylon, spandex, polyester and specialty materials industries. Renita Jones Anderson 02EMBA, marketing director, and Daryl Lipscomb 10WEMBA, global sales director, shared news about the company’s responsiveness to COVID-19. “INVISTA’s Kingston, Ontario, manufacturing plant has been able to respond quickly by providing nylon 6,6 fiber for medical isolation gowns in the United States and Canada without a change in our equipment,” Lipscomb noted. “As a key supplier of this fiber to the global airbag industry for nearly 50 years, we are grateful that our products are going into these gowns and helping to protect people in a different way.”

In response to economic challenges faced by the retail sector, Vice President of STAINMASTER Brook Brown 10WEMBA explained, “STAINMASTER brand has quickly developed a simple 3-step process supporting local businesses, allowing them access to corporate-level tools that provide them a way to sell flooring virtually,” she said. “Supported by customer leads driven by the national brand, local retailers are being allowed to keep their storefronts (virtually) open at a time when many other businesses are being forced to shut down.”

Preparing individuals on the front lines to safely protect themselves against COVID-19 has evoked tremendous response across businesses. Linda Burhance 95EMBA, vice president of product development for United States Class I medical device manufacturer The Marena Group, designed a reusable antibacterial non-surgical PPE mask. These masks meet the criteria of the FDA guidance for a Class I medical device to be used by the general public and by healthcare professionals in a healthcare setting under the Emergency Use Authorization Act. The one-size-fits-all devices can be washed without losing effectiveness and can be worn over N95 respirators or on their own. “Many personal protective devices (PPDs) can cause some facial bruising or irritation,” Burhance said. Marena’s proprietary TriFlex fabric has been used in healthcare settings for many years and contains an active silver ingredient with antibacterial properties that is familiar to those in the medical field. “I designed a mask to be breathable and soft against the skin yet still protect the face, nose and mouth against respiratory droplets, germ particles and splashes.”

Also rising to the challenge is Doris Mukangu 17MPH, founder of the Amani Women Center in Clarkston, Georgia, which empowers and provides support to refugees. As an Emory-trained public health professional and now a nonprofit leader, Mukangu specializes in prevention. “I understand very well the importance of taking all preventive measures when it comes to a pandemic like COVID-19. We are currently supplying sewn masks not just to healthcare workers in hospitals like Emory and the Clarkston Community Health Center but also to police forces, public work departments, post office workers and many businesses,” said Mukangu, a graduate of Goizueta’s Start:ME accelerator, a 14-session training program for small business owners. “Masks are also available through the website not only to frontline workers but to the general public as well.”

In addition, the Amani Women Center provides timely information from the Georgia Department of Health to the refugee community. Using social media platforms in languages area refugees can understand, “We have become a trusted voice to provide credible and digestible information from the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to a community that has linguistic and literacy challenges.” She added, “Refugees are resilient, and they want to give back to a country that has been so welcoming to them.” Our country, struggling with coronavirus on many fronts, “is the country they now call home.”

Editor’s Note: Have you or your company responded to the COVID-19 pandemic or helped to mitigate its impact? Please use the hashtag #EmoryTogether when you share your stories and images and mention us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. We will periodically share stories on EmoryBusiness.com and social media posts on the myriad ways our alumni are involved in this effort.

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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.

Influence.

It is a subtle element of leadership, but its power and lasting impact are undeniable. For Roberto C. Goizueta, former chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company, his influence was demonstrated through example, consistency, generosity and an intuitive sense for building something greater than himself.

Even today, his mark as an influential leader on The Coca-Cola Company, its employees and truly all global businesses still resonates. The story of his remarkable journey from the shores of Cuba to the head office of the world’s largest soft-drink producer brings with it time-tested lessons that continue to educate and inspire us today.

This is that story.

A rarity and an exception

In 1981, Roberto Goizueta’s appointment as chairman of the board of directors and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company was met with skepticism. Although he’d risen to the rank of president, he’d held mostly technical roles to date and had little marketing experience—a common skill possessed by most past CEOs of the company. But Roberto Goizueta had a champion: 91-year-old Robert W. Woodruff.

Woodruff, elected president of The Coca-Cola Company in 1923 and chairman of the board in 1939, ran the company until 1959, when he stepped down as president. He remained a member of the board of directors until 1984, and Roberto Goizueta had impressed him. Although Woodruff was no longer formally in charge, he carried considerable clout as chairman of the board’s finance committee. Woodruff would invite Roberto Goizueta to lunches, sometimes just the two of them, other times to “power” lunches attended by political and business leaders from Atlanta and around the world. Reportedly, Roberto Goizueta would stop by Woodruff’s home on occasion to talk. Ultimately, it was Woodruff who convinced the board to appoint the 49-year-old executive as CEO of The Coca-Cola Company. “Mr. Woodruff trusted him and admired his integrity and saw in him a fundamental toughness,” Donald Keough, Coca-Cola’s former president and chief operating officer told Fortune magazine in 1995 (Keough passed away in 2015).

Woodruff was on to something. Under Roberto Goizueta’s guidance, the company’s market cap grew more than 3,500 percent—from $4.3 billion in 1981 to a high of $180 billion in 1997, the year of his death. What was it about this reserved but formidable man that enabled him to take a company embroiled in battles with its bottlers, laden with an odd collection of businesses (a shrimp-farming enterprise among them), and suffering from shrinking profits and ultimately create nearly $175 billion of value for company shareowners?

According to Herbert “Herb” Allen, a member of Coca-Cola’s board of directors since 1982 and the former president and CEO of Allen & Company Inc., a privately held investment firm, Roberto Goizueta was one of those leaders who come once in a generation. “He was a rarity and an exception,” says Allen.

With opportunity comes obligation

Born to a well-off family in Cuba in 1931, Roberto Goizueta’s father worked for the sugar refining business that his father—Roberto Goizueta’s grandfather—owned. The entire family—grandfather, father and son—lived in a large home in Havana. His grandfather, a Spaniard with a love of Spanish parables and a penchant for writing, made an indelible impression on young Roberto Goizueta.

Growing up, Roberto Goizueta received a topnotch education at Jesuit schools in Cuba before attending boarding school in Connecticut. In 1953, he graduated from Yale University with a degree in chemical engineering. The plan had been to return to Cuba and work in the family business, but he decided to try something else. He answered a want ad for a bilingual chemical engineer at a Coca-Cola bottling plant and got the job.

He was working for a Coca-Cola subsidiary in Cuba when Fidel Castro seized power in 1959. The new government made significant policy changes, seizing land and private businesses, and the Cuban people, especially the country’s educated upper and middle classes, lived in fear. Two months before Castro seized control of Coca-Cola’s Cuban operations, Roberto Goizueta; his wife, Olguita; and their three children fled the country, arriving in Miami with $40 and 100 shares of Coca-Cola stock. It was a courageous and dangerous decision that would ultimately change the course of their lives.

In 1969, Roberto Goizueta became a U.S. citizen, “one of the most significant days in my own history,” he told a group of “new” Americans at a Fourth of July celebration in Monticello, VA, in 1995. During his speech, he recounted his departure from Cuba. “Every material possession we owned . . . overnight became government property. But amid that turmoil, two treasured possessions remained mine because they simply could not be taken away. . . . I still had my education. And secondly . . . I still had a job. And it wasn’t just any job. It was a job with The Coca-Cola Company.”

“Roberto Goizueta was one of those leaders who come once in a generation. He was a rarity and an exception.”

Over time, Roberto Goizueta earned (a word he chose deliberately) the opportunity to lead The Coca-Cola Company. He told the Fourth of July gathering that leading the company taught him a great lesson—that “opportunity always comes accompanied by obligations.” He encouraged them to seize the obligation, to “take it in your hands and mold it . . . into value for society,” he shared. “Carry it on your back all day long. . . . Defend it.” He paraphrased Thomas Jefferson, stating that people can indeed govern themselves when they work hard “to put the interest of our nation ahead of their own personal interest.”

These ideals were reflected in Roberto Goizueta’s determination to add value to business and to the community. “He had a sense of stewardship, of leaving things better than when he found them,” says Clyde Tuggle, Goizueta’s executive assistant for six years and The Coca-Cola Company’s senior vice president and chief public affairs and communications officer from 2008 until 2017. “He understood that it was about creating opportunities for people ahead of you—not necessarily for yourself.”

As leader of The Coca-Cola Company, Roberto Goizueta’s focus was to produce long-term results. He believed a publicly traded company existed for one purpose and one purpose only—to increase shareowner value. “If it does that,” he said repeatedly, “all the other good things will follow.” According to William “Bill” Newton 75C 76G, former vice president at The Coca-Cola Company and Roberto Goizueta’s long-time executive assistant and chief of staff, the leader spoke often about business decisions being based on what was best for the organization. “He would say that if it were only about what’s best for your group or for a specific situation, then it would ultimately fail,” notes Newton. “It was about what was best for the company.”

Values and leadership

Did being with The Coca-Cola Company for over 40 years—16 of them as CEO—produce in Roberto Goizueta a leadership mindset, along with undeniable business results, that would be impossible for leaders of today to achieve? Rick Gilkey, associate professor of organization & management at Goizueta Business School, thinks the average CEO’s tenure, considered to be roughly three to five years, isn’t always accompanied by strong performance, adding, “Goizueta was an exceptional leader.”

What made him exceptional, explains Gilkey, was the fact that his values matched the values of The Coca-Cola Company. “Leaders do a lot of things we don’t often think about,” Gilkey explains. One of Roberto Goizueta’s favorite phrases was “Everything communicates.” He not only communicated directly—sending personal letters to friends and members of his network—he communicated through body language, carrying himself with grace and style. “He had tremendous presence,” recalls Newton. “He looked important.” The CEO was a meticulous dresser who believed it was better to be overdressed than underdressed. He rarely, if ever, took off his suit coat. He understood that he was a manifestation of the brand and, notes Newton, made it clear to those around him at the company that they were as well.

“Suddenly, Coke employees paid attention to how they dressed,” Gilkey says. Every weekday (when he was in town), the elevator on the 25th floor would open at 7:45 a.m. and out would stroll Roberto Goizueta. He was never late and would sometimes show up 15 minutes early for an appointment. Those around him adjusted to “Goizueta time.”

Roberto Goizueta established a level of trust and consistency within the organization. “These things deeply affected the posture of the company,” says Gilkey. “And they’re all very contagious.” One of Roberto Goizueta’s more memorable quotes was, “Communication is the only task [a leader] cannot delegate.” And he didn’t. He spoke with a level of candor and authority that remains legendary within The Coca-Cola Company.

Linda Peek Schacht, former vice president, director of public affairs and communications strategy at The Coca-Cola Company describes Roberto Goizueta’s style as “very, very direct.” Peek Schacht, in her current role as leader in residence, associate professor of practice, College of Leadership and Public Service at Lipscomb University in Nashville, recounts lessons gleaned from various leaders she’s worked with, including former President Jimmy Carter. (Peek Schacht was Carter’s White House press officer and campaign press secretary.) She believes a key trait of Roberto Goizueta’s leadership style was how his character influenced the organization. “If you have [a leader] who values truth and integrity, the organization is going to value that,” she says.

E. Neville Isdell, former chairman and CEO at Coca-Cola, witnessed the effect Roberto Goizueta’s character had on the company. “[Goizueta] clearly demonstrated a level of integrity that flowed through the ethos of the business,” says Isdell, who began his career at Coca-Cola in 1966 and became CEO in 2004. “And he had a complete dedication to The Coca-Cola Company.”

While he was Coca-Cola’s CFO, Jack Stahl 75C, who also served as president and COO, made a trip to Austria for a week of meetings. As he unpacked his bag shortly after arriving in Vienna, he received a call from Roberto Goizueta. The CEO had noticed an incorrect figure in an internal report. He told Stahl, “It needs to be fixed,” Stahl recalls. He explained to Roberto Goizueta that he’d handle the problem from Austria and report back to him when he returned to Atlanta. A moment of silence followed before he asked Stahl what flight he’d be on in the morning. Believing he’d misunderstood, Stahl reiterated that he’d focus on the problem when he returned the following week. “There was another long pause,” says Stahl, “then he said very clearly, ‘No, Jack. I want you back here on the first plane tomorrow to deal with this.’” After that incident, Stahl admits, “I paid much closer attention to reporting details.”

“He had a sense of stewardship, of leaving things better than when he found them.”

Also the author of Lessons on Leadership: The 7 Fundamental Management Skills for Leaders at All Levels (Kaplan Publishing, 2007), Stahl spent 22 years at the company and considered Roberto Goizueta a mentor. The former CEO’s leadership style and abilities make an important appearance in Stahl’s book.

Stahl, who left Coca-Cola in 2001 to assume president and CEO duties at cosmetics giant Revlon, believes a high-impact leader understands the need to be situational, and that Roberto Goizueta was one of the best at doing so. One moment, Stahl says, he was focused on the “so-called big picture  relating to our company’s strategy.” Hours later, the leader would be poring over the minute details of a complex foreign exchange transaction. “He was comfortable operating in both worlds,” adds Stahl. “His ability to do whatever was necessary to help the business had a real impact on me and so many others.”

Big picture, details and delegating responsibility

In 1996, while speaking to a group of engineers at Yale University, Roberto Goizueta reviewed the audience’s thought processes—and subsequently revealed his own. “First, we assess the big picture,” the one-time chemical engineer said. “Second, we burrow into the details. We deconstruct the problem before us. . . . Third, we follow up. We ask questions. We challenge assumptions. And then, finally, we put ourselves in the mind of someone else . . . the user of the machine, or product or process in question. We see if our thinking is correct. We confirm our beliefs. Finally, we see if it works.”

According to Peek Schacht, there was an art to how Roberto Goizueta collected the information on which he based decisions. “His news wasn’t filtered through other people,” she states. He set up a system for getting facts from out-of-the-ordinary sources. His friends around the world updated him on news and/or goings on in the company. Luminaries like former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher were special guests at company conferences. “He took time,” notes Tuggle, “to educate himself about the world in which we operated and how that affected business.”

Roberto Goizueta was famous for taking time to think and analyze. He made it a point not to overschedule himself. He roamed the hallways and ducked into people’s offices for impromptu conversations.

He understood that he didn’t know everything. He surrounded himself with smart people and wasn’t afraid to ask questions. Keough, a man who had been up for the very CEO job that Roberto Goizueta landed, was one of those people. It’s not unheard of for newly appointed CEOs to let their head-to-head competitors go. But Roberto Goizueta elevated Keough to president of the company. As Roberto Goizueta once told a group of analysts, “It would be absolutely a crime for me to try to lead the bottlers the way Don Keough can. . . . My job is to pick the people then give them the responsibility and authority to get the job done.”

Allen believes that the traits central to Roberto Goizueta’s character—intelligence, integrity, taste, energy and fastidiousness—were the traits the CEO also wanted in the people around him. When he discovered people with such traits, “He invested power in those people,” explains Allen. “He wasn’t afraid to delegate or share power with the people around him.”

This was possible not only because Roberto Goizueta was self-assured but because he believed in the betterment of The Coca-Cola Company. He saw great value in Keough’s communication skills and salesmanship and thought it would be to the company’s advantage to have Keough be the “face” of Coca-Cola. It was Keough who spoke regularly with the media, and it was Keough who appeared on national television to unveil New Coke in 1985, one of the company’s biggest product launches.

“He wasn’t afraid to delegate or share power with the people around him.”

When New Coke proved disastrous, Roberto Goizueta realized he’d made a wrong turn, admitted the mistake and quickly changed course. “He didn’t view loss or failure as a negative if you learned something from it,” notes Peek Schacht. At a press conference less than three months after the release of New Coke, Roberto Goizueta expressed his thanks to those who liked New Coke. For those who didn’t like New Coke, he added, “Our message to this group is simple: we have heard you.” The New Coke experience affirmed Roberto Goizueta’s belief that Coke was unique. He rebounded from the New Coke experience in time to utilize the media attention it received to renew the brand in the form of Coke Classic.

Loyalty and obligation

Roberto Goizueta had a tremendous amount of loyalty for the company that had given him so much. It imbued him with a deep sense of obligation to help the business succeed. He knew that 10 percent of the company was owned by philanthropic institutions and that the success of endowments and college funds, like those of Emory University, were impacted by the success of the company. His mentors, including Woodruff (who established the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, a charitable organization, in 1937), helped Goizueta assign himself and others with “the challenge of producing something beneficial for others . . . leaving something positive in your wake, wherever life takes you.” That’s what he told the 1996 graduating class at the Emory University business school a few months before the dedication of the Goizueta Building.

Through The Goizueta Foundation, established in 1992, Roberto Goizueta’s indebtedness to his adopted country and his commitment to education are realized. Nowhere is this more apparent than at Goizueta Business School, named for Roberto Goizueta in 1994, where thousands of students continue to learn from his legacy. Roberto Goizueta understood that each graduate of Goizueta Business School carried a piece of his legacy into the world, and he explained that to graduates in 1996. “Being so closely associated with this great school ties me to each one of you,” he said. “And that’s one of the highest honors anyone could ever achieve.”

Intelligent Risk-Taking

Throughout his tenure, Roberto Goizueta took a number of calculated risks. Most paid off, but some either were misunderstood or failed completely. He learned from those failures, though, and through them gained the strength to build a dynasty.

In fact, Roberto Goizueta was known for taking intelligent risks. “If you take risks, you may fail. But if you don’t take risks, you will surely fail,” he said, adding, “The greatest risk of all is to do nothing.” Although New Coke was memorable for all the wrong reasons, many of Roberto Goizueta’s risks earned rich rewards:

• Departing from the company’s unwritten rule of not tagging Coca-Cola products with the Coke trademark, Goizueta introduced Diet Coke in 1982. Diet Coke was the most successful consumer product launch of the 1980s.
• Before Goizueta became CEO, Coca-Cola had never borrowed money. Goizueta borrowed billions, enabling him to make billions for the company.
• Goizueta spent $30 million to acquire a third of the company’s troubled bottler in the Philippines, a country where Pepsi outsold Coke more than two to one. At the time, it was Coca-Cola’s largest single investment outside the United States. (Isdell, then president of Coca-Cola’s Greater Europe Group, recalls the purchase as “a complete break with tradition, but he knew it was needed for a turnaround.”) By 1996, Coca-Cola outsold PepsiCo internationally more than three to one.
• Goizueta spent $692 million to buy Columbia Pictures in 1982. When he sold the film studio in 1989, the company netted $1.5 billion.
• The Coca-Cola Company moved into Eastern Europe immediately after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989—in spite of the fact that East Germany had no convertible currency, chaotic business regulations, and poorly designed, state-owned bottling plants. Within three years, Coke overtook Pepsi as the preferred soft drink in Europe.

The post The Lasting Legacy of Roberto C. Goizueta appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

It’s not every day a research paper sparks a stock sell-off on Wall Street.

The reverberations began shortly after Daniel McCarthy, assistant professor of marketing, and his co-author Peter Fader, a professor of marketing at Wharton, published a journal article exploring the valuation of two e-commerce companies, Wayfair and Overstock.com. Using a methodology they named customer-based corporation valuation,” or CBCV, the researchers produced valuations on contractual and non-contractual companies based on customer value. This method is particularly useful for companies that rely heavily on returning customers or subscription models.

McCarthy and Fader used CBCV to conclude Wayfair spends about $69 to acquire each new customer but earns only $59 after that acquisition. Overstock, in contrast, earned a profit of about $10 for each newly acquired customer. The upshot? The researchers estimated Wayfair’s stock was overvalued by 84 percent, while Overstock was undervalued by 11 percent.

But it didn’t end there.

“A famous short-seller began to tweet about the article, and Wayfair’s stock price fell about 9 percent in a day,” said McCarthy. McCarthy was featured on the CNBC show Mad Money, and soon his article and its implications were being mentioned in a number of leading media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal. The article, or more accurately the valuation process described in the article, continues to receive attention because of its impact on business.

McCarthy’s CBCV framework sheds light on a very difficult problem — how do you quantify the incremental cost and value of acquiring and retaining customers at direct-to-consumer businesses? Further, how do these factors affect the financial valuation of the business? These questions aren’t asked by researchers with views of the campus quad. They are asked daily by men and women with views of earnings reports, investor portfolios and the world’s largest stock exchanges.

“It’s a wholly different way of looking at the valuation process,” McCarthy said. “At the same time, because it just makes sense that the up-front cost and ongoing benefit of acquiring customers affects valuation, this work has struck a chord with the financial community.”

Researching the new economy

Customer loyalty and retention is another area where McCarthy has used his methodology to enlighten businesses. He studied the unique world of delivery meal kit companies like Blue Apron to assess in more detail how long customers remained with the brand.

Meal kits were a $5 billion business in 2017 and are projected to grow at a 20 percent annual rate in the years to come. Competition in this direct-to-consumer industry is fierce.

Using publicly disclosed SEC data, McCarthy found customer retention numbers shockingly low. For example, in April, the proportion of customers remaining six months after signing up is just 28 percent at Blue Apron and 17 percent at HelloFresh. Consumers tend to cycle through meal kit providers as they offer promotional deals for new customers, so spending too much to acquire new customers may be a loss-making strategy for the company. By using sophisticated predictive modeling, McCarthy generated a forecast of what customers do after they are acquired. He used this to calculate how much these firms should spend to acquire new customers.

“Luckily, direct-to-consumer subscription businesses are fastidious in their collection of customer data, and that’s what initially pulled me into researching them,” he said. Not only is McCarthy’s methodology shaking up the way investors value private and public firms, but his research is knocking down the barriers between marketing and finance.

“This work opens the communication channels between the marketing departments and the finance departments — the CFO, CMO and CEO — and shows them how all the actions marketers take, how customers are treated, will actually affect the stock price of firms,” he said.

McCarthy is pleased by the response to his research and, in fact, wants it to have practical applications. He co-founded Theta Equity Partners to apply customer-based corporate valuations to private equity firms, venture capitalists and hedge funds.

“In addition to having perspective from academia, I will actually have some tangible examples and real-world experience to draw from,” he said.

The rule of three

If anyone understands the impact of a theory that changes behavior and shapes corporate strategy and policy, it’s Jagdish Sheth, Charles H. Kellstadt Chair in Marketing.

Sheth’s groundbreaking theory of generalists and specialists in the world of corporate competitors, and how companies caught in the middle were unlikely to survive, set the stage for a number of corporate mergers. This research has also been used in antitrust lawsuits related to M&As. A subsequent book, The Rule of Three: Surviving and Thriving in Competitive Markets, brought the theory to a wider audience. Sheth’s research into client loyalty and the book Clients for Life: How Great Professionals Develop Breakthrough Relationships helped to shape how financial planners, wealth managers, lawyers and accountants establish themselves as trusted advisors.

“When there’s a surplus of human capital, it’s important to understand how to transform from an expert-for-hire to a trusted advisor, because expertise can be sourced from Google,” he said.

Sheth’s theory of buyer behavior ushered in a new (and more nuanced) approach to consumer psychology and marketing for companies across the globe by providing an understanding of why consumers become brand loyal.

Today, firms face tremendous difficulties gaining and retaining customers in an increasingly competitive, global and dynamic business environment. Clearly, consumer psychology is something businesses need at the forefront of strategy, but hitting the mark with a consumer is so often like aiming at a moving target.

That’s where the seasoned researcher steps in. “In a rapidly changing environment, business leaders can’t always anticipate what will happen next,” Sheth said.

Geopolitics and cultural influence can change how a company makes and markets its clothing or the type of car it chooses to advertise or import, he said. Immigration can impact the need for a different type of product or service.

“Businesses have to be prepared to improvise and adapt to the needs of the customer,” he added. For example, Sheth notes how salsa supplanted ketchup as the most popular condiment in the U.S. He attributes that shift to the influence of a growing Hispanic population and an adaptation of traditional American tastes.

According to Sheth, academics also need to adapt to stay connected to the issues that are most pressing to society. He admits academic study used to be a much more detached process, but now there is a dialogue between academics and industry leaders, leading to innovative research that provides timely solutions to policy makers. His latest research? How differences in climate determine cultural differences in food, shelter and clothing as well as traits such as punctuality and uncertainty avoidance.

Roadblocks to innovation Another example of a researcher with influence beyond the scholarly journals can be found in Anandhi Bharadwaj, Roberto C. Goizueta Chair in Electronic Commerce. She’s written extensively on digital business strategy, intellectual property rights and health information
technology.

Her latest work examines how shareholders — always a focus of publicly traded firms — can negatively impact innovation.

“Shareholders are often blinded by their short-term financial interests, keeping some businesses stuck with outdated technologies,” she said.

The article attracted the attention of Harvard Business Review and was published on the site in August under the title, “When Companies Want to Innovate, but Investors Won’t Let Them.” As one of the most popular business publications in the world, Harvard Business Review made the work mainstream.

In the study, Bharadwaj and co-authors completed a sweeping study of U.S. companies, including GE and Tesla, to better understand investors who value a company for its immediate profits versus its potential for future growth after an investment in digital technology.

Established and high-profit businesses suffered lower stock market valuations for this sort of innovation,while growth companies were rewarded by the market for the same sort of technology initiative.

According to the article, “Despite healthy profits and publicly committing to and investing billions of dollars in technologies similar to those pioneered by Tesla, both GM and Ford have struggled mightily to ignite investor enthusiasm for their stocks.”

Bharadwaj proposed a number of solutions for high-profit businesses facing the issue, including a more strategic use of communications to help investors understand the digital transformation.

Such action can be taken quickly and with confidence thanks to one of the age-old elements of academic research: time.

Researchers provide businesses with sometimes painstaking collections and reviews of data, then add a healthy dose of carefully considered conclusions. In Bharadwaj’s study on investors and innovation, for example, 24 years’ worth of data was examined (from 1984 to 2008).

“The data collection in this case was a huge step, as the study uses information from the early 1980s, and we needed to access and merge data from a variety of sources, such as theGoogle Patent Database and financial and stock price databases from multiple sources,” she said.

A lengthy and elaborate peer-review process for scholarly journals, while not for immediate gratification, also helps validate the findings. Other timely research gets disseminated to the popular press, into a published book or in a class syllabus. Once that happens, a professor’s work can have a far-reaching effect on business and public policy.

Productivity, motivation and the knowledge worker

Important as investors may be, companies have many inputs to success, and human capital can be one of the most valuable. Yet corporations struggle to retain the most skilled employees.

The U.S. Department of Labor recently reported the number of employees who voluntarily left a job hit a 17-year high. Recent data also shows an increasing dissatisfaction with work. According to the 2017 Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report, “85 percent of employees are not engaged or actively disengaged at work.”

Conventional wisdom — and recent research — suggest a motivated and well-trained employee is less likely to abandon ship.

Kristy Towry, vice dean for faculty and research, John M. and Lucy Cook Chair and professor of accounting, concentrates her research on managerial accounting, or the use of accounting information to make managerial decisions. She focuses on managerial control systems, including financial incentives.

Her research uses experimental methods, utilizing theories from the worlds of economics, psychology and other social sciences to provide a window into complex managerial problems.

Keeping employees motivated and well trained often requires a better understanding of management control systems — the various tools used to ensure the organization is effectively pursuing its strategy.

“With a well-designed control system, employees are able to learn over time what behaviors and actions will lead to the best outcomes, benefiting the organization and its employees,” Towry said.

Managers hear quite a bit about experiential learning in business schools, but Towry said “vicarious learning” — learning by watching coworkers — offers even more opportunities to gain knowledge. When employees are able to observe the successes and failures of coworkers, they process the information in a more holistic manner. Towry’s research is helping organizations think about the best ways for employees to share their “war stories” with coworkers instead of placing employees in the spotlight for their mistakes.

The next phase of her research deals with the physical responses resulting from employees putting effort into work.

“We are learning to measure effort levels using physiological responses, such as pupil dilation,” she said. “If we can measure effort in the laboratory, then we can start examining directly how different incentive methods induce greater effort.”

Managers empowered with such information can make better decisions, make sure employees are satisfied and help ensure a healthy workforce. While Towry’s research is certainly cutting-edge, the potential business applications remain at the heart of the work.

Erika James, John H. Harland Dean and professor of organization & management, views such a link between academia and industry as a symbiotic relationship. Since assuming the role of dean in 2014, her drive to collaborate with industry has provided the business school with a way to showcase its research talent.

“It’s always been important to have a strong relationship between business and business schools,” she said. “However, as the world evolves, there needs to be a way to move education and innovation beyond and think about how schools can help drive change in a way that positively impacts the future.

“More research with direct applications is one way to ensure the relationships between business and higher education remain strong and mutually beneficial.”

Investigating patient outcomes Recent research by Diwas KC, associate professor of information systems and operations management, has direct applications to an industry in much need of innovation and hope for the future: healthcare.

“Many of the issues in the industry seemed like operations management problems,” he said.

The American Hospital Association found hospitals are closing at a rate of about 30 a year. Rural hospitals are particularly at risk. From 2010 to the beginning of August 2018, the National Rural Health Association found that 87 rural hospitals shut down. While technology has helped to transform and streamline some parts of healthcare, it alone cannot be the saving grace.

“Operations management research,” said KC, “provides a way to correct inefficiencies and, in turn, improve patient outcomes and reduce costs.”

According to KC, it takes time to figure out the many hurdles to surmount in a complex system deeply entrenched in doing things a set way. One of the major challenges hospitals face is readmissions.

“When people are likely to bounce back and be readmitted for surgical complications, care becomes much more expensive,” the researcher said.

In one stream of KC’s research, he found readmitted patients would often stay three times longer than the original stay. The reasons for readmission are multifold, of course. Hospital closures are putting increasing pressure on the remaining ones, resulting in increased bed occupancy rates. The rush to get patients out of the ICU, to a hospital room and out the door sometimes leads to readmission for complications.

His research came up with a solution. Instead of taking a patient from the intensive care unit to a hospital room, he proposed creating a less-costly intermediate care unit. The patient could leave the ICU and transition to this “step-down unit” and not be rushed into a hospital room. There would be fewer medical professionals needed in the step-down unit, but a full-time attending physician would still be on staff. KC saw his idea implemented at a large teaching hospital on the East Coast in 2009 and 2010. The step-down unit led to fewer bounce backs and the ability for more capacity in the ICU, improving patient care and, ultimately, saving money for the hospital.

Pinning down the cost of care Steven Culler takes a more cross-disciplinary approach when it comes to healthcare research and its day-to-day applicability.

As an associate professor in health policy and management at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and an adjunct associate professor of finance at Goizueta, he has a unique vantage point when it comes to the study of hospital inefficiencies and patient care.

“No one would suggest scrimping on patient care to save costs, but there are areas for analysis in operations management that might suggest a better pattern of care for hospitals to follow,” Culler said.

One of his most important findings comes with pinning down the total cost of care. He looked specifically at knee surgeries and cardiac procedures as examples.

By using Medicare data, Culler and his co-researchers were able to track a sampling of patients through the course of their care, from admittance through surgery, as well as readmission for adverse occurrences or additional episodes of care.

“The system is so siloed that few know how many different places of care patients accessed or how much it all costs,” he said.

The researchers traced post-acute hospital care, such as admittance to skilled nursing homes or rehabilitation facilities, which are often left out of the cost equation for a typical treatment episode.

“We have to focus on the additional resources used to treat adverse events that occurred during the procedure, and we need to ask ourselves, ‘How much are complications from surgery hurting patient care and inflating healthcare costs, and what are the alternatives if we wait to offer this care when a patient may be more stable and able to tolerate surgery?’”

Culler says academia is uniquely qualified to provide such insight — a deep dive into the utilization of healthcare resources provided by many different stakeholders. That knowledge translates into innovation, which can be applied to shareholder value, the new economy, marketing strategy or employee learning.

And it is, of course, in innovation that business makes a lasting impact on society. Some research is empirical in nature, confirming and reassessing conclusions, while other projects strike out onto new paths of thought and ideas. It is in the combination that faculty research has its greatest effect.

“It’s not the individual paper or book, but the body of literature that emerges, which prompts the change in thinking,” Towry said.

According to Sheth, the business world is much more receptive of academic research, especially as more companies rely on data mining and algorithms to target customers, better understand employees and assess operations.

In the case of McCarthy’s valuation model, it also affects the bottom line.

“There’s simply too much data mining without an understanding of the relevance to the policy maker,” Sheth said.

–Myra Thomas and Nicole Golston

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The challenges of global business go well beyond language barriers. To create lasting, authentic partnerships, one must embrace culture, history, and societal norms.

Even standing in line for a cup of coffee can offer the chance to learn.

“One of the most notable differences is ‘personal space,’” says Arturo Gonzalez Jr. 19MBA, who recently returned from a class trip to Brazil. “We take it for granted in the United States. In Brazil, it is not uncommon for a stranger to stand inches behind you in line or for a local pedestrian to sit right next to you. Our professors made us aware the culture was more intimate than it is the US, but it was still a surprise when it happened.”

Exposure like this brings a new level of awareness that is at the heart of an effective business education.

At Goizueta, gaining global perspective comes in many forms. Students in every degree program spend hours poring over cases, listening to lectures, and learning the skills necessary to navigate an increasingly complicated and ambiguous world. Additionally, there are more informal ways to gain cultural awareness, such as by gleaning insights from fellow students sitting beside you or on teams.

For instance, 17 percent of the current Class of 2021 at Emory University are international students representing 39 countries. Plus, each year Goizueta welcomes nearly 100 exchange students into the undergraduate program. More than 20 enter the MBA programs along with 31 international company-sponsored students, primarily from Japan, Korea, and Colombia. This type of multinational mix at a school that values team-based learning ensures a high level of interaction and exposure for the entire student body.

In the two years Sangjae Lee 18MBA has lived and studied in the United States, he’s been a member of several teams, taken his family to numerous American cities, navigated Atlanta traffic, and enjoyed having a yard—a luxury considering apartment life in Korea. Back home, Lee is a senior associate at Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation, the company that sponsors his graduate studies at Goizueta. After graduation and a return to Korea, Lee will surely reflect on the cultural norms he’s absorbed to inform his business knowledge moving forward.

“In Korea, getting a job or securing a business deal is done through quantitative aspects such as entry exams or public bidding,” notes Lee. “Here in the US, job interviews based on networking and selected bidding based on previous business relationships are very common. By living here, I have come to realize that paying attention to cementing business relationships is as important as working on capacities or credentials.”

Just as Lee has learned the beat of American commerce through immersion, so too are students who seek the adventure of international exchange. According to the 2017 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange, study abroad for American students has tripled in the past two decades.

 A tradition of excellence

Nowhere is this growth and vibrancy more evident than in the undergraduate BBA program, which has a long and decorated history of semester-long study abroad opportunities. Students immerse themselves in the nooks and crannies of a country. Approximately 100 BBA students (36.3 percent of the 2016–2017 class) study abroad each year. To date, the program has partnerships with 45 schools in 29 countries, with the most popular areas to travel being Australia, UK, Czech Republic, Italy, and Singapore.

For undergraduate students who leave the states to study abroad, culture shock can quickly set in. Many supports provided by US schools, like housing or meals, are not offered at other schools.

“When I first arrived in Prague, our dorm room had no working outlets or Wi-Fi,” notes Hallie Mather 19BBA, who is studying at the University of Economics in Prague this spring. “We discovered there was no cafeteria and that we had to make all of our food in the dorm kitchen, which only has one hot plate and no oven. There are very few Americans in the program, and a lot of the students have a hard time communicating in English.”

[Read about Goizueta’s evolving global strategy]

Anna Gibbons, director of international programs for the BBA Office, is accustomed to hearing these types of concerns. It’s all part of students learning to gain independence, which begins before students leave for a trip. Participants have access to an online course through the Canvas platform, which walks them through assignments, from how to apply for a visa to cultural aspects of the country they will visit.

“We have a process that empowers students to realize they can figure out information on their own. They can understand the visa process, they can work with the school directly to figure out their coursework,” says Gibbons. “But, one of the big pieces is oftentimes the campuses abroad don’t have the same level of amenities and campus services that we do. Housing or a gym to work out in aren’t things the campus readily has for them, so they have to go find those resources.”

Mather and her roommates have since adjusted to their new surroundings and gained confidence with resolving their own issues. Says Mather, “Now I’m having a fabulous time! I have learned so much about the culture, its lingering communist influences, and what it means to be an American, especially as a female.”

For Raina Devrai 18BBA, her experience in Barcelona in 2016 was transformative.

“By studying abroad, I realized the importance of being adaptive and flexible when interacting with individuals from around the world. There are significantly different ways of conducting business in the United States and conducting business in Spain. Allowing myself to become more flexible in a dynamic environment is a byproduct of my study abroad experience,” she says

In addition, Devrai says the experience has provided a new level of awareness. “When I meet new people now, I actively seek to learn their history, roots, and way of thinking,” she says. “By taking the extra step to learn more about where someone comes from, whether it be from another background, state, country, or continent, I open the door to learn something new.”

This immersion for BBAs is a cornerstone of the program. With Emory’s international student body along with exchange students, there is a blend of cultures that ensures exposure for every student, whether they travel abroad or not.

“Much of the cultural exchange happens almost naturally. In our curriculum, there is so much group work and there is a lot of team-based learning in the business school, so connections between the students happen automatically,” says Gibbons.

For students coming to the US or Goizueta for the first time, Gibbons is the point person.

“While they’re here, I am their point of contact for everything, from helping them to secure housing to navigating campus,” she notes. “I usually become their as-they-need-it one-stop shop” for advice on getting a doctor if sick, to ensuring they are taking the right classes, or even meeting with them if they are having adjustment problems.

Gibbons can relate to students because she lived abroad for a time as well. Her father was in the military, so as a teenager, her family was stationed in South Korea. She soon learned her preconceptions were misconceptions and found her language skills increasing as she melded into the culture.

It’s an experience she shares with students in her role. “Living abroad definitely gave me a knowledge base for the Korean experience,” notes Gibbons. “So when I meet Korean American or Korean students here, I can relate to them because I was immersed in their culture.”

Expedited experiences

While the traditional form of international immersion comes with built-in cultural experiences, both undergraduate and graduate students are taking shorter ventures to explore certain segments of industry.

Wesley Longhofer, assistant professor of organization & management, took 18 BBA students to Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic over spring break. For six years this trip has exposed students to the many development challenges faced in Central America and the Caribbean. The trip engages students in discussions related to how business principles and market-based solutions can be applied to achieve meaningful societal impacts.

“The social enterprise owners we met, like Tio Antonio, were so inspiring, and meeting them really put the whole class into perspective,” says Jill Vijaykumar Diwankatera 18BBA. “I could have spent the whole semester learning about social enterprise, but nothing beats actually going down to Nicaragua and meeting people whose entire lives revolve around making the world a better place.

“I would go back in a heartbeat.”

With trips built into classes, students may have multiple opportunities to travel.

Full study abroad opportunities exist for Full-Time MBA students as well, but most gain international experience through 7- to 10-day trips led by members of the faculty. The program introduced “Lead Week” Modules in 1998 that included organized travel, guest faculty, and courses focused on particular industries and regions, management, or professional development topics.

The model, though expanded to include working professional programs, remains largely intact.

“Just as global business has moved to the forefront of business, forcing change and innovation, so too are the programming efforts at Goizueta,” says Harriet Ruskin 90MBA, director of international and joint degree programs for Full-Time MBA students.

“In the last three years, we have added a post-summer travel option for One-Year MBA students. We are always changing locations, and in the past two years we have moved to rotation schedule for some destinations, with others added more on an ad hoc basis.”

The reason? Meet increasing and changing demand from students who want more international experience before graduation.

Faculty continue to shape the agenda for travel and international exposure inside and outside the classroom. Ed Leonard, senior associate dean for graduate programs, has led more than 20 international trips, exposing students to business in Europe, Asia, South America, and South Africa.

“For each country to which we will travel, the students do a market analysis,” he says. “For example, 18MEMBAs (executive MBAs) did projects on companies including The Home Depot, Chick-fil-A, Tapestry, and Tesla. The students have to determine if and how the company’s business model would need to change to successfully operate in the country.”

Personal experience also plays a role.

Ray Hill, senior lecturer in finance, has lived in Hong Kong, Portugal, and Switzerland. He now leads trips to London, Paris, Istanbul, Colombia, and Portugal.

“We discuss how to think about corruption generally, including behavior that is not illegal but still should be avoided,” Hill says when asked about working international topics into coursework. “I share examples from my own business experiences. One general theme I try to emphasize is that good business practices and good personal relationships really don’t vary across countries. Politeness and listening succeed no matter what the local ‘idiosyncrasies’ are.”

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Is the time of the employee close at hand? After more than 20 years of downsizing, offshoring, buyouts, and innovation setting fire to traditional rules of the workplace, things are looking up for experienced, in-demand professionals. Many economic trends are on the uptick, and the unemployment rate continues to drop, from 8.2 percent in July 2012 to 4.3 percent in July 2017.

For workers with specialized skills, the job market is ripe with opportunity.   

Top talent can be picky about where to work, and it isn’t necessarily about more pay. No, highly educated and skilled professionals are looking to work for companies where they feel motivated, engaged, and appreciated.

Employers must learn—quickly—what that means.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 25 percent of US employees quit their jobs in 2015.

The ability to recruit and retain top talent has become a valuable competitive advantage. Human capital, like equipment or products, translates to the bottom line. So why do established companies find it difficult to attract and keep the best and brightest? While many factors contribute to such turnover, research suggests one key reason workers leave jobs is because they aren’t sure they can trust their employer.

Recessions, globalization, and technological advances lead companies to downsize. But downsizing can exact a heavy emotional cost on workers—on those who lose their jobs and on others who remain.

These actions alone can breed distrust. It’s no wonder much of the workforce takes pause when choosing a place to spend their workdays.

According to Emily Bianchi, assistant professor of organization & management, trust and fairness impact recruiting and retention. She says employees must have confidence in employers to feel committed to their work and to the company.

“People are more likely to stay with employers they believe are trustworthy and fair,” she says. Indeed, a study from the Society for Human Resource Management ¹  indicates that “a culture of respect, trust, and belonging” is a key component for creating an effective workplace.

The rules of engagement

Long ago, corporate leaders embraced the importance of feelings in the workplace. But the competition for talent is steep and deep in intangibles, particularly for older companies looking to compete with Millennial-heavy firms embracing work-life balance, community activism, and any number of perks. A large, well-established corporation may not be seen as nimble or creative enough to attract experienced executives or retain more motivated employees. Highly skilled workers often seek smaller, more innovative firms that can add to their skill set and ability to pivot to the next career opportunity. With less hierarchy, smaller companies often offer a better chance for advancement and the opportunity to play a more decisive role in the organization’s future.

The result? Employees are more engaged.

A new guard of technology firms dominates Fortune magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2017. Bianchi believes employers underestimate the role of trust, fairness, and engagement in recruiting and retention. She finds engagement improves recruiting and retention efforts and adds to worker productivity.

Culture and profit are connected.

Understanding fairness

So, what’s a company to do?  Bianchi argues corporations should work hard to develop a sense of trust in order to win—and keep—the best and brightest.
One way organizations can build trust is through transparency.

“Organizations and managers that are transparent about how they make decisions tend to be more trusted,” she says. “When they are not transparent, there is a sense there is something people are hiding—a reason they don’t want employees to know what is really going on.” 

Bianchi says it’s in a company’s best interests to figure out what truly motivates employees. That’s more than throwing money at the problem. She says employers assume employees care primarily about outcomes—how much they are paid, chances for promotions, and titles.

Not completely true.

“Of course people care about these things, but they also care a lot about whether they are treated respectfully and in fair and transparent ways,” Bianchi says.

Research suggests employees form trust judgments early in their tenure with an organization. Bianchi says once an employee forms a judgment, it’s hard to change and recommends managers do their best to earn employees’ trust early and often.

“Being fair and transparent is an inexpensive and relatively easy way to recruit and retain the best employees,” she says.

And retention is certainly in a company’s economic interest. According to the Society for Human Resource Management², employers shell out about six to nine months of an employee’s pay to recruit and train a replacement.

And don’t forget productivity.

The IBM Smarter Workforce Institute’s research report “The Employee Experience Index” notes, “Positive employee experience can contribute to higher motivation to apply extra effort at work and go ‘above and beyond’ typical job responsibilities.”

While it’s inexpensive (and smart) to be fair, Bianchi’s research suggests several ingrained behaviors work against managers. For example, people often have different assumptions about whether other people are trustworthy. Bianchi says employers may not recognize it, but some people are simply more trusting than others.

“They assume others have good motives and will act in the common interest,” she says. “Others tend to view people with suspicion and expect that others will somehow harm them. People who are more generally trusting tend to have more positive perceptions of whether their workplace is fair and equitable.”

In this sense, it can be hard for employers to change people’s preexisting beliefs about whether or not workplaces are fair.

A sense of belonging

But building trust and creating a culture of fairness can’t occur in a vacuum. A long stream of academic research, including that performed by Goizueta’s Erika Hall, reveals the power of bias in the workplace.

Hall, assistant professor of organization & management, notes racial and gender bias hurt employee engagement. Her research indicates most bias is not obvious, but the mere perception of bias can impact job performance and employee retention.

“People tend to know about overt prejudice, but bias isn’t always readily apparent,” she says. For example, a manager might favor one employee over another for a position simply based on perceived gender roles and what they think a “male” or “female” job should be.

Hall argues companies can work to handle covert biases and begin to create a fairer and more trusting workplace by acknowledging that bias exists and that most people have preconceived notions about a group or gender.

“If you’re conscious of bias and you have a desire to create a bias-free environment, it means you can work against it,” she says. “If employers can recognize the systemic bias in commonplace incidents, they can counteract it in the workplace.”

According to Hall, companies can select leaders who recognize what an inclusive workplace truly means. According to research from Catalyst³, “inclusive leaders both value their employees’ unique diversity and also find a common ground to foster a sense of belongingness.” 

As employees place an ever-increasing value on the company culture, it’s impacting the job decisions they make. If company culture is seen as inviting and accepting, then prospective employees will likely hear about it.

If the company is seen as a place where opinions and people aren’t valued, then the world will know it.

“Current and prospective employees are, generally speaking, looking for their companies to be more
socially minded or conscious,” Hall says. “Reputation follows a company, and even prospective employees know about the ‘feel’ or environment at certain companies.”

All things being equal

If negative impressions have an impact outside company walls, what is the impact inside? Rarely do decisions affect an internal or external audience exclusively. Willie Choi 11PhD, associate professor of business administration at the University of Pittsburgh, says choices managers make about an employee are observed and assessed by other employees in the organization. His research into “vicarious learning” shows a trickle-down effect leaders should recognize, especially if there’s a misstep.

“Imagine two coworkers, one more senior than the other,” Choi says. “If the more senior employee is let go, the more junior coworker sees that decision and will immediately think about the implications for himself or herself.”

But Choi says issues of fairness and trust can have differing implications depending on whether or not the manager makes decisions for recruiting or retention.

“I think there is a distinction regarding what fairness and equality mean for recruiting compared to what those concepts mean for retention,” Choi says. “In particular, recruiting processes are embedded within an external labor market, in which there are many prospective job candidates looking for jobs and, likely, many employers looking for qualified candidates.”

Uncertainty exists in an external market. No one is certain any specific job candidate is a perfect match for the position. That uncertainty affects what job candidates and employees view as fair or equal.

In contrast, retention is part of an “internal” labor market where employers and employees have
more information about the nature of the job and its demands.

“Both sides have tangible, firsthand experience of the employment relationship and thus have a better sense of the match between the employer and employee,” Choi says.

Those assessments relate to how the employee is performing in his or her current job and how said employee might perform if promoted.

A strategic approach

Additional insights change what employers and employees view as equal or fair.

Research indicates employers take a proactive approach to creating a fairer and more engaging work environment. Unfortunately, employers may not be making the critical link between improving the company culture and its positive impact on retention.

Karl Kuhnert, professor in the practice of organization & management, says high employee turnover is no surprise given a large number of companies have no efforts to address attrition. To rectify this, formal and informal training, as well as mentorship, should focus on future jobs, not merely improving current performance. Kuhnert’s research shows younger employees especially want to feel like the company is invested in them. Kuhnert joined the Goizueta faculty this fall, and for more than 20 years his research has focused on leadership development and organizational change.

“Your best employees want access to ways to increase their skills to rise within the company,”
Kuhnert says.

It’s no secret employees want work with a purpose.

One of the best retention strategies, according to Kuhnert, is to have a company purpose that deeply resonates with the people in the organization.

“If I am contributing to a worthwhile mission, and we are doing that together, I am unlikely to seek out [other] employment options,” he says. “Most employees want to know how they’re doing on their jobs. In too many jobs, people don’t see a connection between their work effort, pay, and rewards.” 

Employees and leaders working as one is of great importance, says Graham Geiselman 06BBA, manager in the human capital practice at Deloitte Consulting. He says collaboration can go a long way to bridging the gap between employer and employee. He recommends companies encourage a collaborative environment to build camaraderie and trust between employees and, consequently, the organization.

The end result, he argues (and research supports), is a more productive company.

For managers looking to encourage collaboration, they’ll need to think beyond the office. Leaders should appreciate work-life pressures their employees face and how the same pressures can tank a productive and collaborative workplace, says Geiselman. He notes Deloitte and its own generous leave policy as an example of such understanding. But the upstarts in the corporate world are leading the way and changing what top employees expect from a company.

“It seems that some of the companies that are best at embracing the balance of work and play are smaller startup organizations that feature things like unlimited PTO, flexible work schedules, and outstanding family benefits,” Geiselman says.

Value of empathy

Successful leaders are attuned to the particular needs, values, and motivations of their employees. In the book titled The Map: Your Path to Effectiveness in Leadership, Life, and Legacy, Kuhnert and coauthor Keith Martin Eigel argue great leaders lead where others are, not where they themselves are. This level of understanding creates a sense of inclusiveness and trust, and, in turn, employees feel more committed to the organization.

“Effective leaders know how to put themselves in another’s shoes and see what others see,” Kuhnert says. 

It’s a big mistake for top managers to forget their empathetic side, says Kuhnert, especially given the demands of a younger workforce. Perks like time off and higher pay are relevant, but growth opportunities, like increasing job responsibility and access to leadership development programs, are essential.

“What young leaders want is a chance to help grow the company,” he says. “Too often many managers miss the opportunity to invest in employee loyalty by not including young leaders in their executive development programs.” 

Loyalty is bred through trust and a sense of fairness in the workplace.

“In today’s organization, we are all networked, and we depend on one another to do our jobs,” Kuhnert says. “When we let others down, communication and relationships become strained and problems go unaddressed, and it eventually impacts bottom-line profits. With so much daily stress, there is little time for the important kind of reflection that unlocks commitment, trust, courage, loyalty, and other vital virtues necessary for leadership.”

The takeaway

Research is clear.

Companies must invest more time and money toward motivating employees—as much or more than skills training.

Bianchi says the absence of investment can have devastating consequences, whether it’s a drop in employee productivity or an increase in attrition.

While her research continues to delve into trust and fairness issues in the workplace, she has expanded it to study CEO misconduct, the impact of the economy on ethics, and the effect of economic recession on individualism.

But she isn’t surprised trust and fairness remain at the top of her mind in today’s ever-evolving and fractured workplace.

For organizations hoping to change the current dynamic, Bianchi recommends leaders start at the beginning and understand what causes employees to worry about trust and fairness in the first place.

“It’s simply because humans are hardwired to care about it,” she says. “Our attention and anger spike when we believe we are being treated unfairly. It’s something we see very clearly in children, but what we may not recognize is that adults care just as much about it. Employees who don’t believe they are being treated fairly are likely to be looking for other opportunities and putting in less effort towards helping the organization succeed.”

1  Society for Human Resource Management’s “Effective Workplace Index,” 2017

2  Society for Human Resource Management’s “Human Capital
Benchmarking Report,” 2016

3  Prime, Jeanine and Elizabeth R. Salib. “Inclusive Leadership:
The View From Six Countries.” New York: Catalyst, 2014

The post What attracts talent to the table? appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

For Metro Atlanta, that chance is at hand.

There’s a right place, right time scenario playing out in ATL. The environment is increasingly ripe with opportunities in real estate development and investment. It’s a towering chance for success illustrated by growing corporate interests and reimagined urban spaces for work and play.

While other areas of the country continue to move slowly after the Great Recession, Atlanta, true to its history, has emerged from the ashes stronger and in position for long-term gain.

Emory Business explores and examines the pieces coming together for Atlanta’s next epic rise.

For the past nine years, any talk of real estate or new development has usually been accompanied by shudders or, at the very least, sighs of disappointment. But thanks to the recent economic upswing and increased job creation, cities across the country are getting a facelift and a population boost.

Atlanta is no exception.

First, let’s look at the numbers.

The strengthening economy is both reflected in and in some ways driven by real estate. Commercial real estate is big business. More than 410 million square feet of commercial real estate was created in the United States in 2016, with the capacity to house 1.1 million workers.

“Demand for industrial space is currently white-hot in every region of the country,” says Cason Bufe 10WEMBA, vice president of industrial development for Rooker, a company that, in recent years, has developed and leased approximately 1.3 million square feet of industrial space in Atlanta. Bufe notes that for 26 consecutive quarters, US industrial supply has not kept up with demand. This demand is being driven, in part, by e-commerce growth. Every month, the US population is buying more goods online. Companies selling or delivering those goods need more industrial space to accommodate growth. As one example, since July 2016, Amazon has committed to lease 2.1 million square feet of new industrial space in Jacksonville, Florida, alone.

Real estate construction in 2016 also hit a new high with more than $1.1 billion spent—the most since 2008. Those numbers are projected to rise again in 2017 as the economy continues to grow.

So long suburbs

Healthy numbers in corporate development create an urge to return to the city. Urban development is ramping up as developers realize a growing segment of the population does not want a house in the suburbs. “Atlanta has become a vibrant business hub and as a result has attracted a very diverse—in age and culture—workforce,” says Nancy Miller 88WEMBA, president of the national net lease investment group at Bull Realty. She also cites the climate and close proximity to major transportation as big selling points for the city.

Atlanta paces ahead of the national average in overall population growth, boasting a 2.2 percent increase from 2016–17 against a 0.8 percent increase nationally. Metro Atlanta is one of just 11 major metropolitan areas growing at a pace of more than 1,000 persons per week.

“There’s a national trend of people moving back into cities. They want to be close to where they work,” says Rob Brawner 06MBA, executive director of the Atlanta BeltLine Partnership. “They want to spend less time in their cars. They want to be able to connect with their neighbors, not just pull into a garage and not interact with others in their community. It’s all driving the move back to cities, and cities have to build the infrastructure to support that.”

Of course, younger professionals are attracted to the city. Atlanta is a hot spot for millennials, and over the past five years, the city’s millennial population has grown 12.3 percent. The national average is just 2.6 percent.

Atlanta’s growth also comes while maintaining affordability.

In the past five years, the city has lagged slightly behind the national average in disposable income increases (3.2 to 4.2 percent), but it remains attractive to home buyers. The median home price of $190,937 is well below the national average of $243,425, according to a trend report from PricewaterhouseCoopers.

“We have matured as a real estate community. For many years, Atlantans didn’t live in high-rise buildings of any type,” notes A. J. Robinson 77BBA, president of Central Atlanta Progress, a private, nonprofit corporation that strives to create a robust economic climate for Downtown Atlanta. “You had office buildings, but most things were three- to four-story apartments or condos, and now we’re getting to be like most cities, where people live way up in the air. And we’re building high-rise towers as residential. We’re sprouting up everywhere. And that’s dramatic.”

For instance, in February 2016, Post Properties broke ground on a $96 million, 438-unit apartment building called Post Centennial Park in Downtown Atlanta. The design features luxury, walkability, easy access to transit, and greenspace—all elements in demand for today’s workers.

“What’s happened is the next generation of the American workforce is now in the position to make decisions, and they’re saying, ‘No, we don’t want to drive to the next stop on the highway,’” says Jim Irwin 07MBA, president of New City LLC. “We don’t want to battle two hours of traffic a day to go back and forth from work.”

“Millennials are very big into low maintenance,” adds Aty Biswese 14WEMBA, managing director of Third Story Capital in Washington, DC. “They’re always on the move, so they want homes that are low maintenance.”

All eyes on Atlanta

“Atlanta has reemerged as a center for significant job creation and employment growth,” says Randy Evans 79MBA, managing director of Eastdil Secured. “Of course, we always have fundamentally been a central location in the Southeast, strategic to serve that market.”

The proximity of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and a positive business climate has made the city highly attractive to companies like Mercedes-Benz, which relocated its headquarters from New Jersey, and State Farm, which is consolidating its regional operations on a new campus along Perimeter Center Parkway.

“Atlanta is a big service industry,” says Robinson. “We don’t make a lot of things in Atlanta. But we have a tremendous service economy, and we go all over the world both serving and being global companies. So the airport is critical to that.”

From 2010 to 2016 Atlanta has seen a 46.7 percent jump in tech-industry jobs. The number of high-tech service jobs in the US is expected to rise 56.4 percent by 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics.

Clearly, businesses are following the workforce, and companies want to be in a place to attract good talent quickly and efficiently. Further, the City of Atlanta is making major improvements in the water and sewer program and investing in infrastructure. New taxes have been passed to improve roads and support mass transit.

Traffic disasters like the recent collapse of a portion of I-85 near Midtown and the buckling of a section of road on I-20 have exacerbated the need for improvements and increased the desire for expanded public transportation.

With Atlanta and Georgia already recognized as the healthcare IT capital of the nation, it wasn’t a surprise when a company like athenahealth Inc. expanded its operations in the city. The new home for this provider of cloud-based services for electronic health records was not a suburban office park, but Ponce City Market in the city.

Tech companies like athenahealth are leading patterns of real estate development. The desire for cool spaces has powered the preservation and redevelopment of historic properties throughout the city.

And the demand isn’t slowing.

Out with the new, in with the old

There is perhaps no better example of the new urban trends of adaptive reuse than the aforementioned Ponce City Market. The former City Hall East is a sprawling, two-million-square-foot structure that was once the Sears regional distribution center. Now it’s a mix of offices, retail stores, restaurants, and residential development.

The award-winning development project is not exactly unique. It was built by Jamestown Properties, which modeled it after New York’s Chelsea Market. Yet it is in many ways a perfect expression of Atlanta’s changing real estate market.

And an example of how timing is everything.

“If you had tried to do Ponce City Market ten years before, it wouldn’t have worked,” says Roy Black, director of the real estate program and a professor in the practice of finance at Goizueta. “People were still heading for the burbs, and we weren’t ready for it.”

Its success has spurred other developments, such as New City’s redevelopment of a Kroger shopping center just across the street from Ponce. Now called 725 Ponce, it will include the grocer and 360,000 square feet of office space. Like PonceCity Market, it will face out on the BeltLine, a redevelopment of a former rail bed that encircles the inner city.

“The new Kroger store has elected to raise the entire footprint to be level with the BeltLine and build a second direct connection,” explains Irwin. “It’s harder from an operational perspective to manage two entrances, but when you have north of two million people walking or biking in front of your store, that’s a material demographic you want to pay attention to.”

The BeltLine is one of the largest, most wide-ranging urban redevelopment programs active in the United States. Eventually it will connect 45 in-town neighborhoods by way of a 22-mile loop of multiuse trails, streetcars, and parks. It has spurred the adaptive reuse of historic industrial spaces, like the Atlanta Stoveworks. Long-neglected areas such as Krog Street have also become trendy sites for mixed-use development.

According to the Atlanta BeltLine website, one walkable development valued at $80 million is planned near Decatur Belt Railway and calls for a mix of residential, loft office, restaurant, and retail space, while another $1.1 billion worth of projects is estimated to be completed around the BeltLine in the next 18 to 24 months.

“The amount of development you’re seeing around the BeltLine, the number of cranes in the air, the cachet of the project . . .” says Brawner. “All of that is a clear sign that it’s a very attractive place to be developed.”

More than $3.7 billion of new, private development has sprung up within a half mile of the BeltLine since it was announced in 2005. In addition, about $450 million of public and private dollars have flowed into the creation of infrastructure, including parks and trails that now link Atlanta’s inner neighborhoods.

“People who work and live near the BeltLine are afforded the opportunity to live their lives in a way that more closely reflects their personal priorities,” observes Irwin. “It is actually possible today for someone in Atlanta to live without a car. Even ten years ago, you’d say that’s ridiculous.”

The popularity of the BeltLine is reflected in both the growing number of homes and residential units being built nearby and the millions who use it already.

“That’s what my students want overwhelmingly,” says Black. “I poll them every semester, just to see where their heads are in terms of what they want for jobs and where they want to live. The trend has been that they want to live in an urban environment, and they like the walkability concept. They like to live near a MARTA station or near a subway station in New York. Those are our two biggest markets, New York and Atlanta. That’s what they want.”

Lights, Camera, Atlanta

One of Atlanta’s most unexpected real estate development trends is the rapid growth of the state’s film and television production industry. When movie companies first began coming to the state, they desired scenic locations in the North Georgia Mountains.

The passage of Georgia’s film tax credit—coupled with other states repealing their own—has transformed Georgia into the third-biggest film capital in the nation after Hollywood and New York. The rush of productions has created a $2.2 billion industry (direct spend) in the state, but with an economic impact of $7 billion. This comes with the rapid growth of film studios, such as Tyler Perry’s facilities in South Atlanta and Pinewood Studios in Fayetteville. More studios are being built throughout the state in places like Covington and Savannah.

Lynn Hylden 16MEMBA, associate producer at Atlanta-based POPfilms, has seen that growth first-hand. “I think that the growing investment in infrastructure in terms of production stages, crew, available gear, and technology and the reputation of Atlanta as being a friendly and overall great place to bring production to, is really helping sell Georgia to the studios and big decision-makers in Los Angeles,” she told Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Her company has produced three television series and two movies in its 100,000-square-foot warehouse, which used to be a Staples distribution center.

Vibrant growth is mirrored in the high demand among Emory students to enroll in the Film and Media Management concentration, spearheaded by co-creators Andrea Hershatter, senior associate dean and director of the BBA Program, and Matthew Bernstein, the Goodrich C. White Professor of Film and Media Studies and chair of the Department of Film and Media Studies.

The program is open to BBA students and Emory College students majoring in film. Approximately 50 students are enrolled as juniors and seniors, and demand continues unabated.

“The growth of the media entertainment industry in Georgia has greatly enriched our instruction and programming,” notes Bernstein. “We had the Oscar-nominated cinematographer Roderigo Prieto speak to our students about his work after he completed shooting Passengers (starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt) in early 2016. Gareth Unwin, one of the Oscar-winning producers of The King’s Speech, spoke to our students in December 2016 and even passed around his Academy Award to the students.”

Bernstein says the growth in the industry is bringing a rise in internship opportunities and creating the need to formalize the process. Graduates of the concentration are finding work in the industry and more than half of them take jobs outside of Georgia, which shows the depth of the coursework.

Says Bernstein: “From the film and media studies side, the concentration, combined with our offerings in screenwriting and filmmaking, within a liberal arts context (rather than a film school) is a tremendous draw— even to Los Angeles students whose parents are in ‘the industry.’”

Goizueta gets real (estate)

The extensive development of real estate in Metro Atlanta and the many companies that make it happen have produced an excellent training ground for Goizueta students.

“We’re switching more to an experiential-oriented education rather than strictly classroom,” says Black. “Atlanta is a super laboratory in which to do that. We have a base in excess of 300 Emory real estate alumni working in the industry in Atlanta and 300 professionals in New York.”

These practitioners come to campus for lectures and meetings with students and often provide opportunities for internships and employment. The vibrant alumni network has an affinity group that meets to share best practices and provide a forum that students can take advantage of.

Also providing insight and access to students are the industry insiders who teach in the program.

Marvin Banks, adjunct professor and president of M. Banks Realty Partners, feels strongly that many of his experiences are teachable. He says providing this knowledge at an earlier age in the students’ careers gives Goizueta students an edge to outperform their peers.

The experiences Banks brings include $8 billion of transactional experience in the private and public arena involving property acquisition, development, disposition, operations, finance, organizational infrastructure building, M&A, and more.

“Essentially my class is taught from the perspective of senior management,” he says. “I strive to impart the importance of thought, of curiosity, of not accepting conventional wisdom at face value. The decisions we make are all we can control. So how do we give ourselves a chance to make better-than-average decisions?”

Further, Banks says real estate has a lot of grays, and knowing how to navigate those areas is a big differentiator. Students also gain practical experience through working with a unique, student-run real estate private equity fund. Using money from the Emory University endowment fund, they make investments in publicly traded REITs (Real Estate Investment Trust).

The fund enables students to gain a better understanding of how private equity aligns with real estate development. By analyzing projects in depth and conducting market research, they gain an understanding of the value of a particular investment before making a decision.

“The students gain experience managing part of the Emory endowment,” explains Black. “[The student fund has] grown tenfold since we started four years ago. That’s a great talking point for the students when they go out to interview.”

For an alum like Meredith Farahmand 14BBA, a senior real estate investment analyst with PGIM Real Estate Finance in New York, the depth of programming continues to benefit her.

“I received an exceptionally strong foundation of key terms and valuation methods in my real estate classes at Goizueta,” says Farahmand. “This foundation was not only established through traditional lectures, homework, and exams, but also with hands-on projects that allowed me to apply my new skills and know-how in a real-world setting. I credit these simulations for giving me the confidence needed to be ‘day-one ready’ in my first position out of college.”

This type of career enhancement and preparedness is the backbone of the program. Just as Atlanta is attracting new workers and business by embracing a new landscape, the real estate program and Goizueta are equally poised to benefit from such a thriving and growing city and the industry professionals, alumni, and friends who invest in the future.

The post All the Right Pieces: Assembling Atlanta’s real estate success appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.