B-School Bulletin: Gender Gap In Risk & More

How To Outsmart The Car Dealers’ Tricks

News from INSEAD

“Steve Lehto, a U.S. attorney, wrote an interesting article last year about the common lies car sellers tell potential buyers. Some may find these sales tricks infuriating, whereas others might think they’re hilarious. Either way, understanding them may be quite helpful the next time you need to negotiate a car purchase.

“Many of the examples Lehto describes are based on techniques laid down by Robert Cialdini in his book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Out of his observations and experiences working with skilled persuaders, including car salespeople, Cialdini compiled six key influence principles: reciprocity, social proof, authority, liking, scarcity and the dual principle of commitment and consistency.

“For instance, if a salesperson tells you: ‘This is our #1 best seller!’ they are playing on the principle of social proof, especially if the product happens to be among their most expensive ones. The idea is that, if the product is good for most people, it will be good for you as well. It becomes tempting to just call off the search. However, you may have different needs from those (hypothetical) buyers, making the product a bad choice for you.”

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The gender gap in risk-seeking widens when women are anxious, a new Tuck study finds

When It’s OK To Be Bold: The Gender Gap In Risk

News from Dartmouth College Tuck School of Business

“When Dean Matthew Slaughter asked Punam Anand Keller, the Charles Henry Jones third century professor of management, if she would consider taking a role as an academic dean, Keller could have thought about the offer in two general ways.

“She might have been worried that an administrative job wouldn’t allow her the time to do the scholarly research she loves — on behavior change in health and financial settings. Or, she may have considered the offer an opportunity to try something totally different, help Tuck chart its course, and learn about herself and the nature of higher education. Keller chose to be bold, and today she spends most of her work time as the associate dean for innovation and growth, while fitting in teaching and researching when she can.

“Keller reflected on that decision recently as she worked on a new paper titled Gender and Risk: Emotional Fluctuations, forthcoming in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research. Specifically, she had noticed how, in previous studies, women were more risk averse than men when it came to decisions about their health and finances. ‘It made me wonder why,’ she says, ‘and I started trying to figure it out, because I want women to take good risks.’ For Keller, taking on a new role was a good risk — the consequences weren’t dire, and the odds were in her favor — and she set out to help women identify such opportunities in their own lives.”

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Northwestern University Women’s Center celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. Colin Boyle photo

Women’s Center Remembers Past, Looks To Future In 30th Anniversary Celebration

News from Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management

“When Njoki Kamau first showed up at Northwestern as a graduate student in the Kellogg School of Management, she said there was no women’s center, and no talk of policies to address sexual harassment and sexual assault.

“This year, the Women’s Center is celebrating 30 years since its creation — an event that changed the campus climate for good, said Kamau, now the center’s associate director.

“’Just knowing that there is a Women’s Center somewhere … obviously that makes a tremendous difference in terms of women feeling like there’s a place they can go to,’ Kamau said. ‘It doesn’t mean we have all the solutions, but at least we can point in the right directions.’”

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NYU Is In The Paradise Papers

News from NYU Stern School of Business

“It was only a matter of time before NYU turned up in the Paradise Papers, a massive document dump detailing individuals and institutions stashing enormous sums of money offshore in order to avoid taxation.

“At NYU Local, we were absolutely shocked when NYU didn’t appear in a bombshell New York Times report detailing how American universities are investing their endowments in shady offshore entities to avoid paying taxes on their investments. Private universities such as NYU are nominally nonprofit institutions, but according to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, or ICIJ, endowments are required to pay taxes on investment income made in financial institutions such as hedge funds or private equity funds; basically, any investment that is not made in the school itself, to further the educational mission.”

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Huda Idrees, founder and CEO of Dot Health, was one of more than a dozen Toronto entrepreneurs who participated in Mayor John Tory’s trade mission to New York. Pam Lau photo

Mayor’s NYC Trade Mission A ‘Powerful’ Showcase Of Toronto’s Tech Boom, Says U Of T Alumna And Entrepreneur

 News from University of Toronto Rotman School of Management 

“The television show 30 Rock once joked Toronto is ‘just like New York but without all the stuff.’ But the same can’t easily be said when comparing the two cities’ startup scenes.

“At least, that was what Huda Idrees took away from her recent visit to New York City as part of Toronto Mayor John Tory’s two-day trade mission to promote the idea of a cross-border tech corridor to rival Silicon Valley.

“Idrees, a University of Toronto alumna who is the founder and CEO of health records startup Dot Health, says many seemed shocked to learn Toronto added more tech jobs between 2015 and 2016 than New York City and Silicon Valley combined.”

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