Business & Entrepreneurship

James T. Little, Ph.D., became the first recipient of the Donald Danforth, Jr. Distinguished Professorship in Business in a ceremony at the Charles F. Knight Executive Education Center.

This year’s conference, “International Business in Action”, will showcase several Olin School of Business M.B.A. students who have provided leadership in finding international business solutions for global organizations. The goal of the conference is to provide cutting-edge information to St. Louis-area business professionals on how to address challenges in the international arena.

WHO: M.B.A. students at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis. WHAT: The second annual A.G. Edwards M&A Competition. Students with the best M&A proposal will win $2,000 for first prize and $1,000 for second place. WHERE: The Knight Center for Executive Education (room 200) located on the Danforth Campus of Washington University. WHEN: Thursday, April 19 at 6:15 p.m.

Shirley Dyke (left) and Pengcheng Wang adjust wireless sensors onto a model laboratory building in Dyke’s laboratory. An earthquake engineer at Washington University in St. Louis has successfully performed the first test of wireless sensors in the simulated structural control of a model laboratory building. Shirley J. Dyke, Ph.D., the Edward C. Dicke Professor of Civil Engineering and director of the Washington University Structural Control and Earthquake Engineering Laboratory, combined the wireless sensors with special controls called magnetorheological dampers to limit damage from a simulated earthquake load. More…

The fifth annual International Business Outlook Conference will take place Friday, April 20 from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. This year’s conference, “International Business in Action”, will showcase several Olin School of Business M.B.A. students who have provided leadership in finding international business solutions for global organizations.

The first round of Washington University’s Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Competition is complete and six semi-finalists are now in the running for $120,000 in funding. Also, three additional teams remain to compete for the $5,000 prize awarded to a student who has founded or supported a team. Winners will be announced at the Awards Ceremony on May 3, 2007.

Entrepreneurs with good business instincts and a sense of social responsibility will take their plans to the people this week at the second annual Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Competition (SEIC). On Thursday, March 22nd at 6 p.m. sixteen semi-finalists will present their ideas for new social ventures in an “elevator pitch” first to a panel of judges and then to an audience of community members and students. Audience members will then vote on which pitch should win. The event takes place in the Lab Sciences auditorium on Washington University’s Danforth Campus, and is free and open to the public.

Political developments affecting American business and new challenges and directions in political risk analysis will be the focus of a public forum from 8 a.m.-noon March 23 in the May Auditorium of Simon Hall on the Danforth Campus of Washington University.

Companies maintain a delicate balance when it comes to selling product lines that contain varying degrees of quality. Premium products need to be positioned beyond the claim of “higher quality” alone. A high-end product needs to compare favorably with its direct competitors, but it can’t appear too similar to other items in the firm’s product line. Part of the solution, according to a marketing professor at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis is for firms to use an advertising strategy that contains image-oriented appeals to differentiate its premium products from the rest. More…

Corporate governance has been in the forefront of public debate lately, thanks to such high-profile events as options backdating, the awarding of inflated CEO compensation packages and efforts to augment shareholder empowerment. These larger scandals have implications that reach beyond the boardroom into every aspect of an enterprise. Ultimately, the transgressions take their toll on all of society, according to Stuart Greenbaum, former dean of the business school at Washington University in St. Louis.