Adrienne Benson

From Peace Corps to an MBA: The Business of Doing Good

Marianne Klinker — Fri, 03 Dec 2021 19:44:55 +0000

From Peace Corps to an MBA: The Business of Doing Good Marianne Klinker Fri, 12/03/2021 - 14:44

Alizabeth Brady (MBA ’17) was a Peace Corps Rural Health and Sanitation volunteer in a small town in Paraguay. When she joined the Peace Corps, she had her graduate degree and lots of theoretical knowledge of Latin American culture, politics, language, and demographics. However, she “wanted actual experience in person—on the ground there.” Her community in Paraguay had only about 700 residents and didn’t have indoor running water or daily transportation. “There was a road, but transportation only came a couple of times a week—and when it rained a lot, the bus didn’t come.” She loved it though, and her Peace Corps experience turned into a career in international development.

Alizabeth Brady

Brady, though, took a slight turn. “I was working at an international development contracting firm, and it became clear that a lot of the issues I saw on different projects were business related.” She clarifies by pointing out that, “the issues we see are usually not related to technical area of focus. No one's saying, ‘You didn't dig in the correct type of soil for that well.’ Usually the problems are with finance or accounting or HR. I knew those were things I could learn in business school.” A business education is helpful in every industry, she notes, and to a certain extent, every industry—nonprofits, education, military—is run like businesses.

“Before my MBA, I would have focused primarily on development impact but now I see all the pieces and how they fit together. My business mindset gives me a much more holistic view.” Brady notes that her MBA from ��AV taught her that business is about being good at a lot of things. “We learned so much—operations, supply chain, finance, marketing, accounting—all extremely important.”

But, she continues, “I learned its best not to focus on being perfect at just one thing. At the end of the day, having an understanding of all the components and how they come together is critical.” And how did Brady’s Peace Corps experience play into her MBA? “Peace Corps volunteers are really good at working with people—the context doesn't matter. In the Peace Corps we figure out how to work with people and get people to work together toward whatever common goal there is. I’ve found that is a big part of my success. I'm not the best at economics. I'm not the best at finance, but I can get people to do things and come to [a] consensus.” Clearly, this is an invaluable skill in the business world. Brady adds, “Nobody works in a vacuum. Nobody. Even your accountant has to negotiate and work with others.”

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Be Sure of Your Directions: Sailing with the Special Olympics

Marianne Klinker — Fri, 03 Dec 2021 19:25:08 +0000

Be Sure of Your Directions: Sailing with the Special Olympics Marianne Klinker Fri, 12/03/2021 - 14:25

A two-time School of Business alumnus (he received his undergraduate degree from the school in 1979, and his MBA in 1985), Pete Farrell came to sailing in a special way. “When my wife and I got married, we agreed that every five years we’d do something we'd never done before. Skiing was one of those things, whitewater rafting was another, and sailing was one,” he says. Thirty years ago, they bought a boat and a book on sailing and went out on the Potomac. Farrell remembers telling his wife, “Honey, you're going to have to read faster because we’re out here and my heart is in my throat.” Since then, they’ve become expert sailors. They’ve sailed 50-footers in the Caribbean and Pete is a regular sailboat racer.

Pete Farrell sailing

Farrell’s sailing experience came from a marital promise, but his involvement in the Special Olympics began with his nephew, a Special Olympian golfer. Each year Farrell travels to Boston to watch his nephew compete. So, when a fellow sailor approached him 12 years ago about participating in the Special Olympics as a sailing coach, Farrell didn’t hesitate. “It's turned out great. I do it every summer—all the big regional races from the first of June through about the last weekend of July.”

Initially, he used a 14-foot boat with one athlete crew member. Boats that size, he explains, “usually get pretty wet.” Because some of the athletes have medical challenges that mean staying dryer is better, eventually Farrell was asked if he’d use his own, bigger and therefore dryer, boat. He agreed, and for the last six or seven years he’s had basically the same athletes as crew. His crew also includes a safety officer—usually a nurse. They practice every Monday and have dubbed their vessel “The Happy Boat.” “My usual crew, Rose and Jen, are just great.” Farrell says. “When they gave the awards out last year, they said, ‘Third place goes to the happy boat.’ Everybody knew who it was. Rose and Jen are relaxed but excellent sailors.”

Mostly in their 20s, the athletes generally don’t have sailing experience when they start. Farrell describes the evolution of the non-sailing Olympians into sailors as a “gentle process.” He notes that besides just teaching them the mechanics of sailing, “You have to teach them how a race course is set up and how races are run.” Racing courses depend on the wind at the time of the race. “They might set up two rounds to go around, but if it’s not a good breeze, it might be only once around. I divide my crew up so that one of them steers and tacks the boat upwind, and the other sails downwind.”

Farrell participates in a skippers meeting every Monday night before the Special Olympics practice. He says that most of the boats can go out in rough weather, but that the last thing the commodore says every Monday is, “Skippers, it is entirely up to you if you choose to take your athletes out on the water.” It’s good advice, Farrell says, “because it’s a reminder that it’s my responsibility to get everyone back safely.” He adds, “But you have to have a crew that knows exactly what's going to happen. And to have that kind of crew, you have to be sure of your directions.” Luckily, in the case of Farrell’s crew, he’s there to guide them and step in if something goes wrong. And, at this point, he’s good enough that nobody has to worry about reading faster.

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Data Security and Cognition: How Executives Select Measures Is in Their Personality

Marianne Klinker — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 20:55:26 +0000

Data Security and Cognition: How Executives Select Measures Is in Their Personality Marianne Klinker Tue, 11/16/2021 - 15:55

In This Story

Nirup Menon

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a person in possession of any official, medical, or financial paperwork must be worried about potential data breaches. We live in an online time. Information is stored virtually. Just as old-time bank robbers could access vaults if they had the inclination, modern criminals can—if they have the right skills—access all that data online.

Nirup Menon

Information security is a critical part of every organization. However, it’s also expensive—a problem for executives deciding on funding allocation. Nirup Menon, professor and chair of information systems and operations management, along with coauthor Mikko Siponen, delved into the role personality plays in determining how executives react to information security costs. Their paper’s premise is simple: Security managers propose system security measures, and the executive makes a decision depending on a variety of factors, including cost, risk-benefit analysis, and—it turns out—the executive’s “preferred subordinate influence approach.” That is, the X factor in whether an executive adopts a proposal is in his or her cognition—whether they are emotional or rational.

In the paper, “Executives’ Commitment to Information Security: Interaction between the Preferred Subordinate Influence Approach and Proposal Characteristics,” Menon and Siponen note, “In information security, subordinates can frame a proposal positively (e.g., action increases protection) or negatively (e.g., inaction increases risk). The framing of information security proposals affects the motivation of the message recipient to exert effort in decision making.” In short, data security proposals should be customized to the receiver. It’s not only the message but the way the message is received that safeguards information.

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When Value Is in the Service, Not the Ownership

Marianne Klinker — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 20:39:30 +0000

When Value Is in the Service, Not the Ownership Marianne Klinker Tue, 11/16/2021 - 15:39

In This Story

Ioannis Bellos

It’s a cliché, but the car has shaped American history and culture since its invention. Even the American landscape evolved around the rise of the private car—train lines were abandoned as railroad tracks were pulled up in favor of highways; gas stations and motels sprang up in otherwise desolate places; and cities scrambled to design systems for getting millions of cars in and out efficiently. We could ask which came first, the car or the cultural identity related to the freedom cars provide, but, once again, the relationship Americans have with cars is changing. We still want to get from point A to point B with the speed, efficiency, and privacy cars offer, but the urge to own them privately is waning.

Ioannis Bellos

Ioannis Bellos, associate professor of information systems and operations management, began researching service design as a PhD student at Georgia Tech. When talking about his research, he quotes advertising icon Leo McGinneva who famously said, “People don’t want quarter-inch bits, they want quarter-inch holes.” That is, the customer wants what the product can do, not necessarily the product itself. Bellos was drawn to researching businesses that don’t link customer value to product ownership. Car sharing, offered through services like Car2Go, Getaround, and Zip Car, is a perfect example. “In the context of mobility, getting from point A to point B is what matters, not owning the vehicle,” says Bellos.

American car manufacturers are scrambling to reinvent themselves in many ways, from developing electric cars to driverless ones, but Bellos points out an interesting effect of car sharing: The car manufacturers are in on it and are trying to figure out the best way of not selling cars. He notes that many car-sharing companies are actually owned by manufacturers.

“Car makers, especially high-end ones, saw an opportunity for market expansion,” Bellos says. “They can reach out to more customers by providing a way to use the cars without owning them.” Car sharing offers ease of transport with the privacy of a personal car but without the headache of upkeep—giving the customer that quarter-inch hole while bypassing owning the drill altogether.

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Bridging the Gap between Ratings and Reviews

Marianne Klinker — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 20:28:35 +0000

Bridging the Gap between Ratings and Reviews Marianne Klinker Tue, 11/16/2021 - 15:28

In This Story

Jingyuan Yang

Online shopping is exploding, with more customers double-clicking instead of wandering store aisles. The drawback to online shopping is the inability to touch items, to feel the fabric or inspect the shoes. Do they look cheap? Do they run small? Is that vacation destination nice, or are the rooms stuffy? Online businesses rely on customer reviews to offer these answers.

Jingyuan Yang

User reviews often comprise two parts, the starred rating and the review. Jingyuan Yang, assistant professor of information systems and operations management, noticed a problem in that system. In her paper, “NeuO: Exploiting the Sentimental Bias between Ratings and Reviews with Neural Networks” (with coauthors Yuanbo Xu, Yongjian Yang, Jiayu Han, En Wang, Fuzhen Zhuang, and Hui Xiong), she notes that often the review is missing or doesn’t match up with the rating. This gap is problematic because, she says, “It is really important that users’ ratings and reviews be mutually reinforced to grasp the users’ true opinions.”

Yang and her coauthors exploited two-step training neural networks, using both reviews and ratings to grasp users’ true opinions. They developed an opinion-mining model using a specialized linear mathematical operation called convolution to ensure ratings. They used a combination function designed to catch the opinion bias and proposed a recommendation method using the enhanced user-item matrix.

Virtual businesses need healthy user reviews. When customers don’t feel they can rely on reviews, their trust in the company falters. Yang and her team have helped shore up the review system, an effort that will go a long way toward building happy customer bases.

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