From Gauguin to Hemingway to Handel, artists of all types have used travel as a way to stimulate the imagination and get their creative juices flowing. But the question is, does living abroad actually make people more creative?  Two business school professors wanted to answer that question with empirical evidence.

William Maddux, the study’s lead author, is an assistant professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD and a former visiting assistant professor and post-doctoral fellow at the Kellogg School. He and Adam Galinsky, the Morris and Alice Kaplan Professor of Ethics and Decision in Management at Kellogg, conducted five studies to test the idea that living abroad and creativity are linked.

In one study, MBA students at the Kellogg School were asked to solve the Duncker candle problem, a classic test of creative insight. In this problem, individuals are presented with three objects on a table placed next to a cardboard wall: a candle, a pack of matches and a box of tacks. The task is to attach the candle to the wall so that the candle burns properly and does not drip wax on the table or the floor. The correct solution involves using the box of tacks as a candleholder — one should empty the box of tacks and then tack it to the wall placing the candle inside.

According to the article, having the ability to see objects performing beyond their most obvious functions is a measure of creative insight, and the results showed that the longer students had spent living abroad, the more likely they were to come up with the creative solution.

In another study, also involving Kellogg School students, the researchers used a mock negotiation test involving the sale of a gas station. Here again, negotiators with experience living abroad were more likely to reach a deal that demanded creative insight. In both studies, time spent traveling abroad did not matter; researchers determined that only living abroad was related to creativity.

“This shows us that there is some sort of psychological transformation that needs to occur when people are living in a foreign country in order to enhance creativity. This may happen when people work to adapt themselves to a new culture,” says Galinsky.

Why is this news so important for anyone applying to business school now?

“This research may have something to say about the increasing impact of globalization on the world, a fact that has been hammered home by the recent financial crisis,” says Maddux. “Knowing that experiences abroad are critical for creative output makes study abroad programs and job assignments in other countries that much more important, especially for people and companies that put a premium on creativity and innovation to stay competitive.”

(image of Adam Galinsky by Nathan Mandell, courtesy of Kellogg School)

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Recessions always hit the nonprofit sector particularly hard, and that, Columbia Business School professor Raymond Horton says, gives MBAs and today’s nonprofits more to offer each other than ever. In the latest installment of Columbia’s Ideas at Work, Horton argues that “We shouldn’t be trapped into thinking about nonprofits as so fundamentally different that they are somehow beyond the purview of MBAs.”

Nonprofits and private-sector organizations have more in common than is often acknowledged, and Horton says the role of an MBA in a nonprofit is basically the same of an MBA in a leadership role at any firm:  to lead, to manage and to use available resources to deliver results.

“With proper attention to the nuances of the nonprofit world, most of what MBAs learn in business school can quite readily be applied in a nonprofit or public-service career. MBAs can bring hard skills in financial management and analysis at a time when nonprofits and their funders are increasingly using assessment tools — both quantitative and qualitative — to measure their success. MBAs may also smooth the path between nonprofits and their corporate supporters, bridging gaps in communication and culture,” Horton explains.

At Columbia, MBAs and the public and nonprofit sectors intersect in the Nonprofit Board Leadership Program, a place where MBAs can put their expertise to use in service to a nonprofit. “Board leadership can give a big bang without requiring a wholesale career switch,” says Horton. In the strategic-philanthropy course, students learn how a thoughtful, effective philanthropy program can be shaped and managed even if they’re not ready to run a nonprofit or public agency right out of the gate, he adds.

“The emergence of social enterprise as an umbrella under which a range of private, nonprofit and public enterprises prosper has helped MBAs — hundreds of Columbia MBAs included — see through artificial divisions that once precluded nonprofits from revenue-generating endeavors, and public companies from adding social value to their financial bottom line,” Horton says. “Market and nonmarket and nonprofit situations are reconcilable.”

Nonprofits are almost always forced to use remarkable ingenuity to stretch their dollars–something their counterparts in the private sector infrequently face. These limitations, Horton says, require a high degree of creativity and problem-solving skills that entrepreneurial MBAs should relish.

Empty pocket image courtesy of Flickr user Stuart Pilbrow, CC 2.0

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We are now on Facebook – please join the Stacy Blackman Consulting group, or become a friend of Stacy Blackman. I am posting news about MBA related events, job listings, and of course MBA news.

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For a concise, thoughtful guide that will help you navigate the MBA admissions process with greater success, order our NEW book, The MBA Application Roadmap.

We bring you more news and views from the front lines this week with business school applicants, students and professors sounding off on life in the trenches.

Summer internship secured — Harvard Bound has just five weeks left of RC year and checks in after a month-long hiatus with the exciting news that she’s secured a summer internship at the D.C. organization, The Global Fund for Children. In other news, she’s looking at course options for her EC year and lamenting the lack of funds needed for the international trips some of her HBS classmates will embark on this summer.

Is Fuqua right for me? — Sunnyside Up! wonders whether now is the right time for business school, given the drastic changes to the economic landscape since last fall. After her experiences at Blue Devil Weekend, and weighing the timing against her growing responsibilities at work, Sunnyside has declined Duke’s offer of admission and awaits word from Haas.

Laying claim to the “thoughtlet”– The.Grey.One offers multiple thoughtlets on many topics in this post; he bids a sad farewell to fellow blogger MaybeMBA, offers some book recommendations, discusses social networking and gears up for a visit to Evanston for Kellogg’s DAK II function. He also finds it amusing that he’s the only blogger of Kellogg’s 2011 class admitted in R2!

The quarter-million gamble — “What really gets to me about funding my MBA is the thought that I could surely be doing something more worthwhile with my savings than going bankrupt and then taking on debt, ” D.G. ponders in a recent post. After envisioning ways to make that money work for him, he comes back to the non-financial opportunities b-school offers.

Red Carpet Weekend recap — Wake Forest’s admitted students weekend proved wonderful for Omne, who enjoyed team-building activities such as the human knots game, a mini bike making challenge, wine tasting and more. All in all a great weekend, he says, adding that some people paid their deposit then and there, “a testament to how much fun the weekend was!”

It’s all about the people — Mechanigal shares a great adage for business school and life in general: your network is a measure of your net worth. After a great session with second-years who gave advice on electives, she says the most useful thing she heard was to make time for recruiting because when you graduate, you’ll value having a job more than having an A in the most difficult course at Darden.

The mercilessness of 2nd quarter — Metal doesn’t understand what second years mean when they call second semester at McCombs a cake walk; he says “It has been an uphill climb with a sack of bricks to carry.” Nevertheless, he thoroughly enjoys it and has spent the past week juggling apartment hunting, class assignments, the search for summer projects, and personal issues involving his far-flung family and girlfriend.

We are now on Facebook – please join the Stacy Blackman Consulting group, or become a friend of Stacy Blackman. I am posting news about MBA related events, job listings, and of course MBA news.

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For a concise, thoughtful guide that will help you navigate the MBA admissions process with greater success, order our NEW book, The MBA Application Roadmap.

Stacy Blackman’s Weekly Roundup of B-School Intelligence

MBA can help women in any business — Kellogg School of Management‘s Women’s Leadership Workshop, held April 24-25, encourages women from ‘nontraditional’ backgrounds to consider business school. “You may not want to go into finance, but understanding how decisions impact your bottom line is going to help you be successful in any business,” says Jennifer Stoltz, senior associate director of admissions at Kellogg and one of the event organizers.

Courting women and minority candidates — Business schools, traditionally a bastion for white males, are working hard to make their classrooms reflect the real world—the world employers recognize, too, U.S. News reports. Women and underrepresented minorities do not apply to business programs as often as their counterparts do, so as a result, diversity and parity efforts rely heavily on outreach.

Building leadership skills for a good cause – Twelve UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School students raised more than $33,500 in less than two days as part of a new Leadership Immersion course that tests and builds leadership skills. In this unique course, students spend an entire quarter of their second year as MBAs, working solely on their leadership skills. The money will fund a trip to Walt Disney World for six children with life-threatening medical conditions through the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Stern opens new Volatility Institute — NYU Stern School of Business recently announced the launch of a new research center, the Volatility Institute. Particularly unique is the innovation of the Institute’s Volatility Lab, called Vlab for short, which measures and forecasts financial volatility and correlations in real time for a wide spectrum of assets including equities, exchange rates, commodities and bonds.

Confidence finally on the rise — According to the latest Leadership Pulse study conducted by Theresa Welbourne, Ph.D., a research professor at the USC Marshall School of Business, the confidence of global business leaders is on the rise. Says Welbourne, “The economic downturn has created a strong sense of urgency among leaders, similar to what one sees in the military when combat units exhibit greater closeness and a stronger focus when facing a formidable enemy. External threats ignite an inner drive to win.”

Babson opts for federal loan program — Babson College, ranked by U.S. News & World Report magazine this week as the number-one MBA program for entrepreneurship for the 16th year in a row, will offer its students federal loans through “Direct Lending” starting with the 2009-10 academic year. Loans will be made directly through the federal government rather than through commercial lenders. in order to assure that federal education loans will be available to every qualified student.

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We are now on Facebook – please join the Stacy Blackman Consulting group, or become a friend of Stacy Blackman. I am posting news about MBA related events, job listings, and of course MBA news.

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For a concise, thoughtful guide that will help you navigate the MBA admissions process with greater success, order our NEW book, The MBA Application Roadmap.

It’s that time again, folks. U.S. News & World Report revealed its latest business school rankings yesterday, with little movement among the top spots. Harvard now has the number-one spot all to itself, with Stanford GSB sliding in at second place. Kellogg, Wharton and MIT Sloan round out the top five programs.

U.S. News surveyed 426 MBA programs accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International in fall 2008 and early 2009. Schools provided data on a range of indicators including program quality as assessed by the deans and directors of peer schools as well as recruiters, placement success and student selectivity.

For the complete rankings and related articles, visit U.S. News here.

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We are now on Facebook – please join the Stacy Blackman Consulting group, or become a friend of Stacy Blackman. I am posting news about MBA related events, job listings, and of course MBA news.

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For a concise, thoughtful guide that will help you navigate the MBA admissions process with greater success, order our NEW book, The MBA Application Roadmap.

Columbia Business School‘s Public Offering post celebrates Earth Day today by explaining why business schools need to be green. Christopher Baker (’09), co-founder of the Green Business Club at CBS, says sustainability and environmental issues are here to stay and touch upon so many policy issues, regardless of one’s political persuasion.

Here are some highlights from Baker’s post:

Today, some of the world’s largest and best-run companies, including DuPont, GE, Sony, 3M and Coca-Cola, have already recognized the reality that their industry landscapes will be profoundly impacted by a greater focus on the environment….Given the direction in which these industry bellwethers are moving, business schools must start paying attention. The limited supply of managers educated in both business and the environment creates enormous opportunities for those students coming out of school with knowledge of both these areas.

Columbia Business School has been quick to recognize this, responding with a number of theoretical and practical learning opportunities for its students. Course offerings such as Finance & Sustainability, Green Marketing and New Developments in Energy Markets focus specifically on how students can maximize organizational performance in light of environmental opportunities. Practical experience in the form of cutting-edge programming and activities has been supplied by the recently formed Green Business Club, which had a membership of almost 200 students in its first year on campus.

Columbia Business School is creating leaders who truly understand the importance of environmental impacts on business performance. While more apprehensive managers may think it unwise to divert their attention to environmental issues until absolutely necessary, savvy executives will see the advantages of being first-movers. For institutions with the mandate of preparing forward-thinking, strategic leaders, now is the time to start focusing on environmentally sustainable business. And that starts here, at business school.

For more thoughts on the green MBA movement, check out yesterday’s post, “Five Good Reasons for Going Green,” on my BNET blog. I interviewed Clifford Schorer, a professor at Columbia’s Eugene Lang Entrepreneurship Center, to find out what benefits he thinks green business practices have to offer.

(photo credit: Carmen Baez-Molina, Earth Day Network)

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We are now on Facebook – please join the Stacy Blackman Consulting group, or become a friend of Stacy Blackman. I am posting news about MBA related events, job listings, and of course MBA news.

I am on Twitter too…click to follow me on Twitter! www.twitter.com/stacyblackman

For a concise, thoughtful guide that will help you navigate the MBA admissions process with greater success, order our NEW book, The MBA Application Roadmap.