Business & Entrepreneurship

Design is a problem solver. Design is a provoker, a test lab for change. Design is a tool for breaking old patterns and discovering new ways of thinking. So argues Alan Webber, cofounder of Fast Company, the pioneering magazine written for and about progressive business leaders. At 6:30 p.m. Monday, April 4, Webber will deliver the annual Eugene J. Mackey Jr. Lecture for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. The talk is co-sponsored by the Olin Business School. 

The New York Times will begin charging users for online content March 28. No American news outlet as big as the paper has put its content behind a paywall after offering it for free. Will it be successful? Two marketing professors at Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis debate the merits of a paywall.

What makes a great leader on a global scale? A coalition of eight student groups has been working for nearly a year to organize a conference to answer that question. The Global Leadership Conference is set for Friday, March 25 and Saturday, March 26 at Siegle Hall. It is free and open to the public. […]

Charles L. Leven, 82, PhD, emeritus professor of economics in Arts & Sciences, died Tuesday, March 15, 2011 in Chicago. Leven spent nearly 30 years in the department until his retirement in 1991. He was an expert in urban economics.

When the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 was repealed 11 years ago, financial institutions were allowed to engage in commercial and investment activities under the same roof. But a new study by a professor in Olin Business School finds it’s difficult to maintain an information firewall between those activities when they are housed in the same financial institution.

Last November, Missouri voters approved Proposition B, which amended state law to more strictly regulate large-scale dog breeders. Now, just four months later, Prop B is set to be repealed if the Missouri House of Representatives and Gov. Jay Nixon follow the state senate’s lead. Can this happen in every state? Only if the voters allow it, says Gregory Magarian, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis and an expert on constitutional law.

The federal financial bailouts of the last few years received tremendous publicity, but multiple sources of “hidden bailouts” eluded notice, says Cheryl D. Block, JD, law professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Some hidden sources of federal financial rescue include new, expanded tax credits, the more liberal IRS interpretation of regulations, and “off-off budget” bailouts by quasi-governmental agencies such as the Federal Reserve Bank, according to research by Block.  

Workers who have limited rights and are exposed to significant hazards and injuries might sound like something out of a Victorian novel, but it’s a reality for paid domestic service employees who perform tasks such as cleaning, cooking, childcare and care of the elderly. “Domestic employees face a variety of workplace hazards when working in clients’ homes, including exposure to harmful cleaning chemicals, verbal and physical abuse and injuries caused by lifting and moving clients with limited mobility,” says Peggie Smith, JD, employment law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

Planning to fill out a tournament bracket during this year’s NCAA March Madness tournament? Be careful. The games might not be as enjoyable if there’s a wager on the line, says a researcher at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis.

The Supreme Court’s decision March 2 that a military funeral protest by Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church is protected by the First Amendment is a free speech victory, but “there is one note of concern for free speech advocates, which is the opinion’s toleration of ‘free speech zone’ theory,” says Neil Richards, JD, constitutional law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “The opinion notes with approval that the funeral protest took place from a free speech zone from behind a protective fence, and notes at the end that even though Phelps’ speech was protected, it would certainly be amenable to possibly aggressive time, place, and manner restriction,” says Richards, a former law clerk for former Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.