Business & Entrepreneurship

For many firms, losing significant revenue and profit to employee theft has been a cost of doing business. But a new study from Washington University in St. Louis finds that information technology monitoring is strikingly effective in reducing theft and fraud, especially in the restaurant industry.

Faculty and graduate students from St. Louis-area universities with an interest in labor, households, health care, law and social welfare are invited to take part in the continuing series of Monday brown-bag luncheon seminars held biweekly on the Danforth Campus beginning Monday, Sept. 9, and running through Dec. 2. All lectures take place at noon in Seigle Hall, Room 348. The series begins with a lecture by Derek Neal, PhD, professor in economics at the University of Chicago titled “Designing Accountability Systems and Incentives Schemes for Educators.”

Donald B. Verrilli Jr., the 46th solicitor general of the United States, will deliver the 2013–14 Tyrrell Williams Lecture at 4 p.m. Sept. 9 in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom (AB Hall, No. 310). He will speak on “The Solicitor General and Civil Rights Law: Historical Perspectives. Read more about Solicitor General Verrilli and RSVP for the event here.

​Created 60 years ago, the Assembly Series is Washington University’s premiere lecture series. Its chief mission is to present interesting and important voices, and it is designed to spark meaningful discussion and lead to greater understanding of our world today. Assembly Series programs are free and open to the public. The fall 2013 schedule, below, opens with First Year Reading Program author Eula Biss on September 9.​​​

As encrypted email services like Lavabit shut their doors, the importance of email privacy becomes even more clear writes Neil Richards, JD, privacy law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, in a recent CNN opinion piece.

A recent report from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor indicates that there are significantly fewer female entrepreneurs than male entrepreneurs around the world. This is not the case, however, at Washington University in St. Louis, where more than 40 percent of successful companies started by recent graduates through the university’s business entrepreneurship courses have been founded by women.

Washington University School of Law and Husch Blackwell announce the launch of an intensive professional development program designed to enhance Husch Blackwell attorneys’ client relations and financial and legal business skills. Husch Blackwell University at Wash U will begin in fall 2013, when 25 to 30 of the firm’s attorneys will converge upon the Washington University in St. Louis campus for a series of three, three-day sessions. ​

Incoming veterans enrolled in the MBA program at Olin Business School met recently to get to know one another and to meet other military alumni of the program. Olin is a full partner in the Yellow Ribbon Program, which allows eligible students to attend school tuition-free.

The American public looks to the federal government to successfully respond to and solve our “wicked” problems. A new book co-edited by Jackson Nickerson, PhD, professor of strategy at Olin Business School, suggests government leaders must be better collaborators. The book is Tackling Wicked Government Problems: A Practical Guide for Developing Enterprise Leaders.

Missouri has been held out as a model for juvenile corrections programs, but the court system that puts young people into these programs is in crisis, finds a recent report by the National Juvenile Defender Center (NJDC). “Many young people in Missouri wind up having to defend themselves in our juvenile courts – and sometimes from behind bars,” says Mae C. Quinn, JD, professor of law and co-director of the Civil Justice Clinic at Washington University in St. Louis.