B-School Bulletin: Gender Wars & More

Researchers Identify Opportunities To Improve Quality, Reduce Cost Of Global Food Assistance Delivery

News from MIT Sloan School of Management

Mark Brennan (left) and Prithvi Sundar are graduate students working with MIT’s Comprehensive Initiative on Technology Evaluation to better understand and evaluate the food aid supply chain

“Food assistance delivered to the right people at the right time and in the right place can save lives. In 2016 alone, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) delivered over 1.7 million metric tons of food assistance to over 30 million people in 50 countries around the world. However, USAID estimates that over $10 million of that food never made it to the plates of people in need due to spoilage and infestation.

“Proper food assistance packaging can be a major contributing factor toward preventing spoilage and infestation. The right kind of packaging can also reduce the need for costly fumigation — which also has the potential to harm human and environmental health if misapplied — and diversify the types of commodities that can be shipped to communities in need, improving recipient satisfaction and nutrition.

“MIT researchers have just released a new report detailing an experimental study examining how different packaging approaches and technologies can reduce cost and improve quality of food assistance procured in the United States and shipped abroad.”

Accelerator Project Spotlight: Olivia Management and The Secret Sisters

News from Vanderbilt University Owen Graduate School of Management

“The client: Founded in 2012 by Erin O. Anderson (MBA ’10), Olivia Management is an artist management and music consulting company based in Nashville. Erin has worked in several capacities within the music industry: as a product manager for Amazon Music and MP3, as well as a consultant for Sony Music Entertainment, the Americana Music, Nashville Chamber of Commerce, and more. Olivia Management’s clients have been featured in NPR’s First Listen, Bonnaroo, SXSW, Austin City Limits Festival, Grey’s Anatomy, The Bluebird Café, Music City Roots, CMT’s Nashville, Mile of Music Festival, and many more.

“The project: Olivia Management currently represents five different artists, including The Secret Sisters. Originally from Alabama, The Secret Sisters comprise Laura and Lydia Rogers. Their third album, You Don’t Own Me Anymore, was released by New West Records on June 9, 2017. The band is currently on tour through October across the United States. They have almost 40,000 likes on Facebook, and their last album reached No. 18 on the U.S. Country Billboard charts.”

In The Classroom & On The Ice

News from Dartmouth College Tuck School of Business

“As a first-year student, there are many excellent reasons to partake in the joyful, graceless tradition of Women’s Tripod Hockey.

“Named for the two legs and stick that keep novice players upright, the late-night games are a unique opportunity to get to know not only your class, but second-year students and many partners, intimately. It might feel humbling asking for help tying your skates or pulling your jersey over your head, but it’s also a great way to build trust and community.

“The tight-knit, supportive culture is what draws most people to Tuck, and I can think of no better illustration of our values than what you’ll see on the ice.”

Integrated Communities Benefit More from Venture Capital

News from Yale School of Management

“Diversity has long been a goal of businesses, universities, and communities. In addition to providing basic fairness to those who might otherwise be shut out, a diversity of experiences and points of view is believed to be beneficial to organizational performance. A new study co-authored by Professor Olav Sorenson extends this idea by showing that ethnically integrated communities get greater benefit from venture capital investment than more segregated ones.

“The benefit to more integrated communities was economically meaningful. The study found that ‘a city one standard deviation more racially integrated than the average enjoyed at least 30% larger effects of venture capital in terms of promoting innovation and entrepreneurship and creating jobs and wealth.’”

Booth Professor Steven J. Davis

Looking For A Job? You May Have Only 9 Days To Apply

News from University of Chicago Booth School of Business

“Economists often treat hiring as a sequential search process. An employer receives an application, screens and perhaps interviews the candidate, and then makes an offer or waits for the next applicant.

“New research from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business finds, instead, that employers accept and process applications in batches. Employers post vacancies and accept applications for a mere nine days on average in technology-oriented sectors, even though it takes 45 days on average to fill one of these job positions.

“In their working paper, Application Flows, Chicago Booth Professor Steven J. Davis and UChicago Ph.D. scholar Brenda Samaniego de la Parra, find that the vacancy posting phase is much shorter than the screening and recruitment phase of the hiring process. They also shed light on the labor market by creating and mining a new U.S. database that provides second-by-second tracking of job postings and applications.”

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