B-School Profs on Pay Cuts, Social Responsibility and…Basketball?
This week, we take a look at blogs written by business school professors.
Your mind is playing tricks on you again — Dan Ariely, the James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University, celebrated the first anniversary of his book, “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions”, with an unforgettable meal at downtown Durham’s Rue Cler restaurant. For a closer look into Ariely’s world, check out this video of his presentation at the recent EG conference.
Social responsibility leads to economic upswing? Not exactly — London Business School professor of strategic and international management Freek Vermeulen says that, unfortunately, the latest studies have had a hard time proving a relationship between making money and behaving responsibly. In his view, “It seems it is a bit of a luxury product that we only indulge in if we feel we can afford it.”
To cut or not to cut the bottom 10% — Stanford professor and management guru Bob Sutton comes out strongly against across-the-board pay cuts and gives his reasons why they are unfair, based on a Harvard Business Review case study The Layoff, in which he was an invited commentator.
The relevance of basketball and business — Tom Davenport, who holds the President’s Chair in Information Technology and Management at Babson College, recently laid out what HR analysts can learn from basketball. Even if you don’t care about professional basketball, Davenport says you should care about the use of analytics, because analytics in sports catches on and spreads in a similar fashion to business.
Successful entrepreneurs have a different approach — Inspired by the recent discussion with four entrepreneurs in the Wall Street Journal, Columbia Business School professor Rita McGrath contrasts the ways successful entrepreneurs approach the subject of business planning, compared to many people in the corporate world.
(image courtesy of Flickr)
*
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.
