Business & Entrepreneurship

The Olin School of Business will honor the achievements of four alumni May 3 at the school’s annual dinner at the Ritz-Carlton St. Louis in Clayton. Business school Dean Mahendra Gupta also will present the Dean’s Medal to Stuart Greenbaum and his wife, Elaine, A.B. ’60. This year’s recipients of the Distinguished Alumni Awards are E. William Gillula, M.B.A. ’73, Lynn E. Gorguze, M.B.A. ’86, Lewis A. Levey, M.B.A. ’67 and Lin-Kuei Jackson Ling, M.B.A. ’04.

WHAT: International Business Outlook Conference An annual conference organized by Washington University Olin School of Business MBA students. Event includes breakout sessions and keynote speakers from experts in doing business globally. WHEN: Friday, April 7, 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. WHERE: The Charles F. Knight Center, Washington University Hilltop Campus WHO: Keynote speakers include David N. Farr, Chairman, CEO & President of Emerson, Sir Tom McKillop, Former CEO of AstraZeneca and current Chairman (Designate) of The Royal Bank of Scotland, Jai Nagarkatti, President & CEO of Sigma-Aldrich Corporation. For a rundown fo the day’s events go to: http://www.olin.wustl.edu/IBOC/events.cfm

The television show “The Office”  portrays more truth than fiction. But the consequences of bad management can be more serious than the awkward moments portrayed on the program. Employees get cynical when they endure multiple changes in company strategy and when they are overworked, according to experts at Washington University’s Olin School of Business. As a result, people produce work, but they don’t care how they produce it. The drive to get things done in today’s business environment is so strong that workers start thinking only of short-term gains and ignoring long-term consequences. More…

Successful strategies are innovative. They combine resources or businesses in unique or complex ways that other firms may fail to recognize. Yet research from the Olin School of Business at Washington University finds that the market tends to undervalue companies with complex or unique strategies. The reason: they receive less analyst coverage. More…

David Kilper / WUSTL PhotoThreat of injunctions can be beneficial in cases like eBay and BlackBerry, says WUSTL expert F. Scott Kieff.The threat of an injunction to protect patented technology, as seen in eBay v. MercExchange, is what drives infringers and patentees to strike deals — sometimes on the steps of the courthouse — because shutting down the business would lose money for both sides, says F. Scott Kieff, J.D., an associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. These deals, he points out, are what drive innovation. More…

Finalists for the inaugural Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Competition have been selected after a half-year of preparation. The eight finalists include entirely new business proposals and existing non-profit organizations. The winners will be announced at a special presentation May 11.

In its fourth annual International Business Outlook Conference (IBOC), the Olin School of Business will once again provide the St. Louis business community with a chance to explore the most pressing challenges to conducting international business. The MBA student-organizers chose to highlight intellectual property rights and international finance for this year’s conference. IBOC takes place Friday, April 7, from 7:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. in the Knight Center on Washington University’s Hilltop Campus

African-American entrepreneur Earl G. “Butch” Graves, Jr. will deliver the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Lecture at 11 a.m. Wednesday, April 5th in Graham Chapel. The lecture, titled “The Media History and Portrayal of Black America,” is free and open to the public. Graves is the chief operating officer and president of the Earl G. Graves Publishing Company, publisher of Black Enterprise magazine.

Below is a link to the Washington University news release about the U.S. News & World Report undergraduate rankings for 2004-05: http://news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/3627.html To view a full listing of U.S. News magazine, book and Web-only rankings for 2004-05, please visit the U.S. News & World Report site: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/rankindex_brief.php

He joined the magazine in 1988 as the vice president of advertising and marketing and has worked to transform the company into a multimedia conglomerate.