Business & Entrepreneurship

The Public Interest Law and Policy Speakers Series continues Thursday, Feb. 7, with Arlie Hochschild, professor emerita of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley, on “The Outsourced Self: Intimate Life in Market Times ” at noon in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom (Anheuser-Busch Hall, Room 310).​

As the financial crisis in America persists, government positions are being cut, causing motivation to spiral downward. How can worker motivation in government positions not hit bottom? Jackson Nickerson, PhD, the Frahm Family Professor of Organization and Strategy at Washington University’s Olin Business School, suggests employee motivation comes from three different sources: economic, social and emotional and ideological.

The widespread flu reports are a harsh reminder of the importance of influenza vaccines. This is particularly true for healthcare workers, says Elizabeth Sepper, JD, health law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “One-third of healthcare providers fail to protect themselves, their patients, and the public from influenza.” Sepper says that it is time for a national flu vaccine mandate for healthcare workers.

Panera Bread Co. has rolled out a new “hidden menu” featuring protein-rich power foods. While this kind of marketing may make big fans of the chain feel special, it also increases the likelihood that the hidden items fail to take off, says a marketing expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

Kathleen Clark, JD, government ethics expert and John S. Lehmann Research Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, recently provided testimony to the District of Columbia’s Board of Ethics and Government Accountability on government ethics best practices. Clark identified three key next steps for the District.

Many gun rights advocates have asserted that the Second Amendment – which protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms – serves a collective interest in deterring and, if necessary, violently deposing a tyrannical federal government. “The strength of this assertion is significantly weakened by the power of the First Amendment,” says Gregory P. Magarian, JD, constitutional law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “We have spent almost a century developing the First Amendment as the main vehicle for dynamic political change. Debate and political expression is preferable to insurrection as a means of political change and our legal culture’s attention to the First and Second Amendments reflects a long-settled choice of debate over violent uprising.”

Washington University’s business, engineering, and law schools are collaborating on a new course in 2013 that will embed students in the center of the thriving entrepreneur community in downtown St. Louis. Students will trade their campus classroom for working space at T-REx, a new St. Louis tech incubator that offers startup companies affordable offices in the historic Railway Exchange Building.

Corporations’ religious freedom claims against the Affordable Care Act’s contraception coverage mandate miss a “basic fact of health economics: health insurance, like wages, is compensation that belongs to the employee,” says Elizabeth Sepper, JD, health law expert and associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. Sepper’s scholarship explores the interaction of morality, professional ethics, and law in medicine.

The Hon. Randall R. Rader, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, will present “A View From the Federal Circuit: A Conversation With Chief Judge Randall R. Rader,” including a panel discussion with members of local bar associations, from 3-4:15 p.m. Friday, Jan.18. The event will be in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom (Anheuser-Busch Hall, Room 310); a reception will follow in the Janite Lee Reading Room. To RSVP for the event, visit http://law.wustl.edu/faculty/forms/rsvpform.asp?BookingID=234714.

Steven J. Malter, PhD, has been named associate dean and director of the undergraduate program at Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School.