In the News
Men will take more parental leave if it comes at full salary. That finding in a Center for Work and Family white paper was the subject of a New York Times piece on the gender disparity in family leave. “It’s not that men are mercenary,” said Brad Harrington, the Center’s executive director. Most American mothers don’t receive fully paid leave, either. That means real financial hardship for many families if fathers’ incomes don’t take up the slack during maternity leave.
“Reputation matters,” Professor of Finance Edith Hotchkiss told Bloomberg in an article about the legal battle between Aurelius Capital Management and Sycamore Partners stemming from the latter’s takeover of Nine West Holdings. That takeover was rife with conflicts, Hotchkiss opined. “Why would Sycamore be so aggressive at the potential expense of their reputation going forward?”
Writing in MIT Sloan Management Review, Professor of Information Systems Gerald Kane and co-authors outlined three distinct approaches to crowdsourcing new ideas. The scholars say this “smart crowds framework” will allow managers to apply the right crowdsourcing approach to the right problem. And, in The Wall Street Journal, Kane offered advice on rolling out a new technology in the workplace: find internal champions in your organization to lead the way, and brace for ups and downs during the roll-out.
When tourists review a restaurant online, their ratings can be skewed by the popularity of the visitors’ own hometowns, relative to their destination cities. Assistant Professor of Information Systems Marios Kokkodis explained his findings on Resoundingly Human, a podcast of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.
The Wall Street Journal contemplated “The End of Retirement” (as the headline put it), tapping the expertise of Peter F. Drucker Chair in Management Sciences Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research: “Munnell says it’s smart to encourage today’s workers to stay employed until at least 70 years old in order to accumulate more savings.” (Other experts the article quoted include Associate Professor of the Practice Matthew Rutledge, of Morrissey College’s economics department.) Munnell also lent her perspective to an NPR report on the Secure Act, which aims to help small employers offer retirement benefits. And the Los Angeles Times covered, in depth, Munnell’s research on why 401(k)/IRA plans fall short of their potential.
Can a theater that uses recorded music prevent union musicians from picketing on its sidewalk? The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) said yes, if the union has alternative methods of publicizing its grievance. In the NLRB’s decision on a case involving the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts and the San Antonio Symphony, the board cited an article by Professor of Business Law Christine Neylon O’Brien that discusses some of those alternatives—namely, social media. O’Brien had written that in recent decades, Facebook, YouTube, and other online outlets have changed how workers are able to air complaints about employers.
Nailya Ordabayeva’s research on “impostor syndrome” among luxury consumers really struck a chord. The associate professor of marketing and her study on that topic were mentioned in dozens of news outlets around the globe, including Fast Company, Esquire, the Guardian, and CNBC. The gist is that many people feel inauthentic while wearing expensive accessories or even attending the opera, such that the experience backfires. The effect is apparently not found among either consumers who are celebrating a special occasion or those who simply carry a high sense of entitlement.
Forbes covered (and Starbucks disputed) a study co-authored by David J. Mastrocola Faculty Fellow David Solomon, associate professor of finance, finding that monthly visits to Starbucks dropped by almost 7 percent after the company announced that its bathrooms would be open to all.