Olin Business School

Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis is rated the third best medical school in the nation, according to this year’s U.S. News & World Report rankings of graduate and professional programs released April 1.

Photo by Mary ButkusDean Stuart I. Greenbaum visits with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez after the latter spoke at the Olin School of Business.

With the latest news that Hewlett Packard has dubbed Mark Hurd as its new CEO, I wanted to make you aware of the expertise Professor Todd Zenger, the Robert and Barbara Frick Professor of Business Strategy at Washington University in St. Louis, has on Hewlett Packard’s success and failures over the years. Zenger has had […]

The Monsanto Fund has awarded Washington University $3.7 million to develop, build and operate two custom mobile classrooms. Washington University will lead a partnership, including the St. Louis Science Center, the Missouri Botanical Garden, the Saint Louis Zoo, and the University of Missouri-St. Louis, to create and provide programming on the vehicles. The program will help young elementary school students develop enthusiasm for learning and doing science, through interactive experiences and exhibits.

Photo by Mary ButkusWilliam P. Bottom was installed March 9 as the first Joyce and Howard Wood Distinguished Professor in Business.

There are times when bending over backwards to make customers happy won’t result in better profits; in fact, it could cause a drop in profits. Unprofitable customers show up in every industry, causing companies to reconsider the value of customer service and to even consider “firing” those customers that cause the most loss.

When a company decides to turn to a call center to handle its customer service, company heads assume that signing a contract is the best way to get the best service. Not necessarily, says Tava Olsen, associate professor of operations and manufacturing management in the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis. Olsen and a colleague at the University of Toronto, found that some contracts allow call centers to meet their obligations half-way, leaving their clients — and their client’s clients — on hold.

When both husband and wife hold college degrees, it is the husband’s degree — and the husband’s degree alone — that typically determines whether a “power couple” will move to another city for career purposes, suggests a new study by economists at Washington University in St. Louis. The study is bad news for young women seeking gender equity in salary and career opportunities.

Over a handful of classes, M.B.A. students developed programs for selling merchandise featuring National Park System logos.

A gift of $1.2 million was augmented with $300,000 from the University’s Sesquicentennial Endowed Professorship Challenge.