Business & Entrepreneurship

Thursday, March 30 at 5 p.m., the finalists will be selected and announced for the Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Competition, co-sponsored by Washington University and the YouthBridge Association. The event features Theresa Wilson, founder of The Blessing Basket, as a keynote speaker. Currently there are 14 semi-finalists. The finalists will be selected based on their two-minute presentations about their projects. The event takes place in May Auditorium in Simon Hall on the Washington University Hilltop Campus

BigelowLyda Bigelow, assistant professor of organization and strategy, has little sympathy for the difficulties American car makers are experiencing. She says that American car makers had a long time to work out the pension and benefits problems they’re now facing, but the companies failed to do so, even when they had the resources to do so.

Thursday, March 30 at 5 p.m., the finalists will be announced for the Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Competition, co-sponsored by Washington University and the YouthBridge Association. The event features Theresa Wilson, founder of The Blessing Basket, as a keynote speaker. Currently there are 14 semi-finalists. The finalists will be selected based on their two-minute presenations about their projects. The event takes place in May Auditorium in Simon Hall on the Washington University Hilltop Campus.

The Bush administration’s plan to push through health savings accounts is limited in how much it can lower healthcare costs, according to a business professor in the Olin School of Business at Washington University. He says that health savings accounts could work for some things – if the relationship between most doctors and patients changes, and if there were greater acceptance of the variety of ways to keep people healthy. More…

What is a ‘fair’ price for fairness? New research from Washington University’s Olin School of Business reveals that a just system of governance may not enhance trust when returns do not meet investors’ expectations. This is sobering news for businesses that have spent countless hours and large amounts of money complying with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) in the hopes of building stronger corporate governance. More…

Biotech innovations pop up every day. From medicines developed by large companies to ingenious solutions worked out by individuals in university labs, new technologies are poised to enter the marketplace. The question is, are patents helping or hurting this process? “Patents are essential to bring biotechnology innovations from everyone — not just well-funded corporations — to the people,” says F. Scott Kieff, J.D., associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “Without patents, the biotech marketplace in basic science takes on the nature of something like an old boys’ club in which personal attributes such as fame, prestige, and even gender and race, govern what exchanges take place; and the addition of patents gives many more people a way to play in that game.”

Businesses today are turning to quantifiable analysis to map strategies. According to a professor at the Olin School of Business, companies can address specific problems in a scientific way by using basic principals of game theory.

People’s suspicions about outsourcing are sometimes right; it is just a way for firms to save a buck. But when firms outsource IT projects or share resources with a supplier, they might be creating competitors who could steal customers or profit making ideas, says a professor from the Olin School of Business. Without knowing when it is appropriate to outsource, the financial impact could be quite harmful.

Investors are reluctant to devote resources to female-run companies, according to research from two professors at the Olin School of Business. They found that potential backers are likely to invest 300 percent more in male-run firms than in firms run by a woman; and they would pay a female CEO 86 percent of the salary they’d pay a male CEO.

Randy Korotev with a sample meteorite found in Siberia.The mysterious orb you find in your backyard that wasn’t there just the day before has to be a meteorite, right? Wrong. Overwhelmingly the chances are it’s a meteorwrong, says Randy Korotev, Ph.D., research associate professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. He says that 998 out of 1,000 meteorites are from asteroids, one out of 1,000 is from the Moon, and one out of 1,000 is from Mars. Of the hundreds of meteorites that have been found in the United States, none has been a lunar meteorite, and only one has been a Mars meteorite.