Business & Entrepreneurship

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.

In dating — as in business — you don’t want to be looking for a date when you’re desperate; you want to find one before you become desperate. Business professors at Washington University in St. Louis have found that how firms manage their research and development (R&D) pipelines could mean the difference between always having products in the works and searching desperately for new goods. More…

When the Conrad Black trial gets under way in March, the argument will be similar to the case against Tyco’s Dennis Kozlowski rather than the cases against Ken Lay or Bernard Ebbers, says Samuel W. Buell, J.D., associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “This is a case about whether an executive looted his own company, not whether he committed accounting fraud,” says Buell, a former Enron prosecutor. “In a looting case, the battle is often over the testimony and credibility of the members of the board of directors.” More…

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.

Linda Babcock, co-author of “Women Don’t Ask: Negotiations and the Gender Divide,” will discuss her book and research in a community forum on “societal factors that hold women back from asking for what they want” that runs from 7 – 8:30 p.m. March 5 in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom, Anheuser Busch Hall, Danforth Campus of Washington University.

Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple Computers, has issued a challenge to the music industry, saying Apple would support an open online music marketplace if the four-largest music companies would drop the use of digital-rights management software — the technology that prevents the copying of music sold online. Jobs’ challenge, which some consider shocking, is just the latest brick to fall in the inevitable collapse of a legal wall that since 1999 has been obstructing technological progress and preventing people from enjoying more and better music at a lower price, suggests Michele Boldrin, Ph.D., an economist at Washington University in St. Louis who studies the hidden costs of intellectual property rights protections.

Eric ChouShow me the money.It’s been said by everyone from Cyndi Lauper to Alex Rodriguez that “money changes everything.” Now psychologists at Washington University in St. Louis have published a paper to support that claim. Studying delayed gratification and risk, the psychologists found that people are more likely to wait on collecting full payment for a non-consumable monetary reward than they are for any of three consumable rewards — beer, candy and soda.