Olin Business School

In recognition of the role that William H. (Bill) Danforth, life trustee and chancellor emeritus, his family and the Danforth Foundation have played in the evolution of Washington University in St. Louis, the Hilltop Campus will be renamed the Danforth Campus, according to Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton. An official recognition ceremony will be held Sept. 17, when the new name takes effect.

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.

No ad goes unnoticed: MBA students at the Olin School of Business evaluate Super Bowl XL commercials starting at 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 5, with pre-game lectures by local advertising professionals.

Courtesy photoWashington University’s team: Shlomo Goltz, Nathan Heigert and Hubert CheungIn the world of advertising, the hardest thing to do is get people’s attention — a job that becomes exponentially harder as audiences diversify and traditional broadcasters compete with YouTube.com, MySpace.com and other online communities. So, rather than compete, companies are beginning to enlist those communities through what’s becoming known as “consumer-generated advertising.” This fall, a group of students from Washington University in St. Louis was one of five teams to make the finals of the “Chevy Super Bowl College Ad Challenge.” The winning team will be unveiled when its ad runs Feb. 4, during Super Bowl XLI. More…

When managers realize that their corporate earnings per share are in jeopardy of falling short of analysts’ quarterly forecasts, they usually look for a way to avoid that fate. While there has been plenty of research that looks at how companies beat analysts forecast by manipulating their earnings, the effects of stock repurchases has remained unexamined. A new study by a business professor at Washington University in St. Louis, finds that under the right circumstances, repurchasing stock in an attempt to increase earnings per share does not completely fool the market, although it is an effective way to avoid being throttled when earnings per share falls short of market expectations.

You hear about them often in the news — longtime managers who survive corporate mergers with a golden parachute and a backpack full of fabulous perks. They must have done a great job in helping the company grow, right? Not necessarily, according to research done by a professor at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis. In a series of studies Litov conducted, he found that, longtime, or entrenched, managers tend to avoid risky investments and projects, which results in saddling their firms with higher debt levels and slowing the firm’s growth.

Two teams of entrepreneurs have won Washington University’s 2005 Olin Cup. Somark Innovations, Inc. and iMobile Access Technologies, or iMAT, will receive a total of $70,000 in seed funding for their enterprises. An additional $5,000 grant for student projects will be split between two winners: HomeWUrk and Suzanne Shenkman Designs. The awards were announced Dec. 1 at a ceremony featuring Robert J. Skandalaris, founder and chairman of Noble International.

The winners of the 2005 Olin Cup Competition will be announced Thursday, December 1. Six finalists are in the running to receive a total of $70,000 in seed investments. Additionally, a $5,000 grant will be awarded to the best student-owned venture. The Olin Cup Competition is an annual business formation contest organized by The Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Washington University in St. Louis.