It’s very difficult to see another country from St. Louis. Even if you stood on top of the Arch and looked around, you’d still see more United States. For Jim Little, St. Louis’ landlocked locale makes him all the more pleased with the work he has done to establish the University’s presence in Shanghai, China.
“I think it’s been one of the best things the school has ever done,” says Little, Ph.D., professor of finance and economics at the Olin School of Business. “And I don’t mean to be insulting to St. Louis, but it’s all the more impressive because we’re here in the middle of the country. Running the Executive M.B.A. program in China is something you’d expect from a West Coast school — a place a little closer to China.”
Little, who has been at the University since 1971, said it was almost accidental that he ended up developing Olin’s E.M.B.A.-Shanghai program. In 1984, he had been invited to teach a program to senior Chinese managers about strategy. After 10 weeks in the country, Little was hooked.
“It was an extraordinary time to be there because it was still fairly soon after Mao’s reign,” Little says. “Even though China was starting to open up, it went very slowly. The government was reluctant to go full-bore on any capitalist ventures. Western companies started to go to China, but they were running around with very little effect.
“There was nothing really established there yet. And I became intrigued because it was one of those things where I never expected in my life to be standing on the Great Wall of China, and there I was doing it!”
Years later, Little had the opportunity to increase his connection with China. The dean of the business school at the time, Stuart I. Greenbaum, Ph.D., had initiated an E.M.B.A. program in Shanghai at Fudan University. Greenbaum turned to Little for help in directing the program.
Little likes to joke that he was selected to help run E.M.B.A.-Shanghai because he’s a “foreigner,” if you consider a Canadian foreign. More likely, however, Little was singled out because he already had experience strengthening Olin’s presence abroad.
For 15 years, Little ran the school’s London internship program, which he had developed with Gary Hochberg, Ph.D., associate dean of undergraduate programs.
“I would spend a month-and-a-half at a time in London. So, of course I had to learn about all of Europe as well. Once I start, there’s just more I want to know,” Little says.
He ended up applying his growing understanding about foreign countries to his work as an economist. After all, he said, international economics is about economic activities between countries.
But international business is a different beast.
“If you think about international business, you really have to start digging in at the institutional level — not just formal institutions like government and universities, but also things like property rights and national culture,” Little says. “It starts taking you very far a field from what you’ve started out to do. International business is much dirtier and fuzzier than international economics.”
Little’s excursions into the global marketplace may seem a far cry from his academic interests when he joined WUSTL 35 years ago. He had just completed a doctorate at the University of Minnesota and accepted a joint appointment in economics and urban studies. Twelve years later, Little was offered a position at the business school.
While it might seem incongruous that for an urban studies scholar to wind up in the business school, Little insists it makes perfect sense. It all has to do with his interest in human behavior and his love of math.
“Economics brings together those strands. I had an interest in trying to understand why and how people behave the way they do. Ultimately, it is a social science, even though we do it by writing symbols on a blackboard,” Little says. “In the mid-’80s, business schools were actively recruiting economists. I was enthusiastic about the idea of joining a business school because you get much closer to the behavior you’re thinking about. You have to get down and get dirt under your fingernails about how consumers behave. The business school gave me a direct pipeline to observing those interactions.”
Deciding to make the jump to business was facilitated by Little’s frustration with the relative lack of impact his urban studies research had on policy. Little studied the effects of race and discrimination on the housing market. He wanted to connect the behavior he observed to public planning, but not everyone was on the same page.
“Policy makers are uninterested in the way the world works; they were much more interested in the way they wanted to perceive the world for political purposes,” Little says.
Little didn’t confine his wisdom to the halls of academia. He spent several years on the urban planning board and on the development commission in University City, the city he has called home since he moved to Missouri. The commission existed to oversee the rehabilitation of The Loop, which had been specially zoned redevelopment. Little says it is gratifying to see how far The Loop has progressed even though his role was rather limited.
“We on the commission can take no responsibility for The Loop’s progress. It was really Joe Edwards, owner of Blueberry Hill, who deserves the credit,” Little says. “All we did was say, ‘You go, Joe.’ And he did just that.”
Little’s involvement with University City reflects his abiding interest in reaching beyond the academic world and learning as much as he can about everything.
The overseas programs in London and Shanghai give him more opportunities to scratch that intellectual itch as well as indulge in his thorough enjoyment of teaching.
E.M.B.A student Steve Kidwell has firsthand knowledge of Little’s talents both as a teacher and adviser.
“My first impression of him as an academic adviser was that he had a very strong commitment to my class getting as much out of the E.M.B.A. experience as possible,” Kidwell says. “He saw opportunities to enhance interaction with Chinese E.M.B.A. students both in Shanghai and St. Louis, and worked with the faculty to adjust our class schedule to make it happen.”
On a personal level, Little is just as generous, Kidwell said.
|
James Little Birthdate: March 30, 1944 Family: Daughter, Elizabeth, 25, a literary agent in New York City. Birthplace: Trail, British Columbia — the same town that 20 years later reared his colleague, Jeroen Swinkels, Ph.D., the August A. Busch Jr. Distinguished Professor of Managerial Economics and Strategy. Both professors’ fathers worked for the same company. Cell phone ring tone: Miles Davis, “All Blues” Cell phone message tone: Beatles, “Day Tripper” |
Upon learning that Kidwell and his wife are going to Banff, Canada, to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary in 2008, Little offered the “perfect bed and breakfast and even a particular room we should stay in. He said he’d get the information together so we’ll have it when we go. I think it’s very thoughtful for him to bother to make that connection,” Kidwell says.
Little acknowledges that spending time with students brings him tremendous satisfaction. It sounds cheesy, he said, but teaching is downright fun.
“I am teaching the first undergraduate course I’ve taught in a long time. The other day I gave them their first problem set,” he says. “Some of them came to my office to ask questions. It was really fun to watch them — to watch their faces as they figured it out. I could see them thinking, ‘Oh, I can figure this out for myself now,’ and it’s that whole interactive part of teaching that is really fun.”
“Jim spends a huge amount of time with the students,” says Pam Wiese, senior administrator for strategic initiatives. “He stays in contact with them from the time they arrive on campus and long into the future when they are alumni. He really uses his knowledge of the students to do what he can to help them personally and professionally.”
In describing Little, Wiese repeatedly says he is “thoughtful,” and “amazing.” She doesn’t mean to gush, Wiese explains, but she is one of Little’s biggest fans — which is saying a lot considering his fan club is quite large.
“For someone who has so many friendships, he’s almost shy,” Wiese says. “We knew each other a long time before he began to talk about anything really personal, like his daughter, Elizabeth.
“He’s an incredibly thoughtful listener, very supportive. He really processes what you tell him and what he observes, and then he gives reasoned advice. That’s one of the many things that makes him such a valued member of this community.”