Olin Business School

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.

The Financial Times has ranked the professors at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis tenth in the world in terms of research productivity. The tenth-place designation was announced as part of the Financial Times‘ Executive-MBA rankings in October of 2005.

The Olin School of Business’ non-degree executive education programs ranked tops globally in a survey conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, a branch of The Economist Group which also publishes the Economist magazine. Olin’s open programs tied for second place internationally (first-place tie nationally) and its customized programs tied for first place among similar programs worldwide.

Tales of corporate scandal and political misdeeds have made spectacular headlines in recent years — just the mention of Enron or Bill Clinton conjure up memories of those offenses. But on a day-to-day basis most people don’t deal with such large-scale scandals. Instead, they are confronted with relatively innocuous mistakes — the kinds of mistakes that eventually break down trust and possibly even derail a career. There’s a reason that a simple apology doesn’t always re-establish the trust that colleagues once enjoyed, according to new work by Kurt Dirks, associate professor of organizational behavior at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis. People’s reactions to apologies vary widely depending on the nature of the transgression.

Joe Angeles/WUSTL PhotoCorporations enjoy cross-curricular classes at the Olin School of Business’ Knight Center for Executive Education.The debate over the relevance and future prospects of business schools is not new. The same issues have existed since the beginning of formal business education in the late 1800s. The current state of the debate, fueled by declining MBA applications and high profile legal cases involving MBA-trained executives, has proceeded in ignorance of this history, according to Bill Bottom, the Joyce and Howard Wood Distinguished Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis.

Six entrepreneurial projects have made it to the final round of the Olin Cup Competition. The finalists were selected from a group of 11 semi-finalists Thursday evening at a networking event at Washington University. Teams are competing for a total of $70,000 in seed investments — awarded to those who create viable business ventures with a high probability of success. In addition to the $70k, a $5k grant will be awarded to the best student-owned venture — bringing the total prize money to $75,000.

In vitro fertilization can cost anywhere from $10,000 – $15,000 for each round of treatments. This means access to assisted reproductive technologies (ART) is generally limited to a relatively small portion of couples that seek it. Several state governments have turned to public policy in an attempt to make access to ART more widely available. But two professors from the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis find that market competition can be as effective at expanding access as requiring insurance companies to cover infertility treatments. At the same time, competition appears to lower the rate of high-risk births and encourages the use of new technologies.

Photo by Mary Butkus / WUSTL PhotoSteve Malter (right) teaching students to plan their academic life for their business career.The Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis has created a class that addresses the students’ need for academic advice and career guidance at the same time. Managing Your Business Career Strategy (MYBCS) was designed to address this need. Students learn how their classes could help with future career choices; they learn job search skills; and they learn the particulars about the characteristics of various career options. It’s the first of its kind at Washington University in St. Louis, and it may very well be the first of its kind in the nation.