UConn Today – The School of Business’ Marketing Department has created a 30-credit Master of Science in Social Responsibility & Impact in Business, addressing an escalating demand for professionals in the field and significant student interest in pursuing careers that impact economic, environmental, and social sustainability.
The new degree program was approved by the University’s Board of Trustees on Wednesday, April 17, and launches this fall. The degree will prepare graduates to drive innovative and impactful business decisions for positive social change.
UConn Today – More than one billion people worldwide live with a disability, and yet a vast majority of those with ‘invisible’ disabilities try not to disclose them at work for fear of stigma and discrimination.
Lawrence Deju-Wiseman, Executive Director & Global Head of Strategic Initiatives at Morgan Stanley in London and an employee with an ‘invisible disability,’ will be the guest speaker at the final Equity Now Speaker Series event at 5 p.m. April 15.
UConn Today – No light show preceded his entrance, no pyrotechnics exploded, and no theatrical smoke poured into the air, but to the group of UConn Stamford students who met U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell, he still was a rock star.
UConn Today – Whether you’re passionate about rescuing puppies, feeding hungry people, or helping victims of a natural disaster, you’re considerably less likely to respond to a charity’s appeal for help if you receive it on your smartphone.
Three UConn Business-affiliated researchers verified that there is a substantial “mobile giving gap’’ between smartphone users and users of traditional computers; but they also discovered an easy and cost-effective solution.
UConn Today – When a team of technicians travels by boat from New London, Conn. to South Fork Wind, the Orsted-company’s expansive offshore wind farm, their vessel travels at a very slow speed to prevent disruption to whales and other marine life.
And while that is the best thing to do for the environment, the slow-moving boat gets rocked hard by the waves, making many members of the crew seasick before they get to the job site.
In addition, because of the speed limits, it takes up to 3.5 hours to get to the destination, a longer time than the technicians spend doing their work. It is just one of many stories shared at the annual Global Business Leadership in Sustainability Summit in Storrs on Friday, illustrating the challenges of implementing new technology and the complexity of creating a greener Earth.
UConn Today – Astrong, collaborative team, impressive strategic insights, and an amazing presentation all contributed to a multidisciplinary UConn student team taking first place in a recent case competition at American University.
“One judge told us it was the best presentation she had seen in her 20 years of judging,’’ said Tyler Martin ’25, an economics and political science major, and part of the Husky Case Competition Club.
UConn Today – Five UConn School of Business alumni, who have excelled in fields as diverse as college basketball, power-tool manufacturing, and complex financial services, will be inducted into the School of Business Hall of Fame this spring.
UConn Today – If you graduated from the School of Business a decade or more ago, you probably wouldn’t recognize some of the curriculum today.
“Our students are exploring newer areas of study, including entrepreneurship, data analytics, and financial technology, as they prepare to enter a rapidly changing workforce,’’ said Dean John A. Elliott. “This is a remarkable and exciting time at the School of Business and I’m eager to talk about what has changed and why.’’
The Marketing Department at the UConn School of Business hosted its 11th annual Voya Financial Colloquium on the topic of “Consumer Financial Decision Making.” The event, held on Oct 13th, 2023, brought together researchers from across the country to discuss how consumers respond to a changing financial landscape, the challenges they face in navigating financial systems and how their interactions within a broader social context influence their financial decisions.
“The study of consumer financial decision making explores how consumers accumulate and use financial resources over time and is a fast-growing area of research within the field of marketing,” said UConn Marketing professor Christina Kan in opening remarks.
Professor Kan, who organized the event, went on to discuss how financial decision making is also of interest to many other disciplines, noting “Our goal for this colloquium was to look at the topic of consumer financial decision making from a variety of different perspectives, and we’re delighted to have a panel of speakers from diverse backgrounds.”
The colloquium featured four distinguished speakers – Professors John Lynch, Rafael Becerril Arreola, Rebecca Hamilton, and Robert Lawless – each of whom approached the topic from different perspectives – including marketing and law – as well as different methodologies – including experimental, econometric, and ethnographic approaches.
The colloquium fostered an energetic discourse between speakers and participants, including marketing and law faculty and doctoral students from UConn, UMass and URI.
Below are profiles of the guest speakers and an abstract of their presentations:
John Lynch, Distinguished Professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder, delved into the complex relationship between financial knowledge, financial behavior, and financial well-being. Lynch highlighted two prevalent approaches to improving consumer financial well-being: financial education and behavioral interventions, often referred to as “nudging.” He introduced the concept of “just in time” financial education, positioning it between these two approaches.
Lynch used these concepts as a springboard for discussion on his recent research into a pressing issue – employees cashing out their 401(k) retirement savings when changing jobs. In a comprehensive study covering 162,360 terminating employees, Lynch and his coauthors found that over 40% of individuals leaked their 401(k) savings, cashing out at job separation, with employer contribution proportions influencing the likelihood of leakage. The findings underscored the unintended consequences of well-intentioned employer matches, revealing the delicate balance between supporting employees and inadvertently encouraging financial decisions that undermine long-term well-being.
Rafael Becerril Arreola, Associate Professor at the University of South Carolina, focused on the impact of product price rankings on consumer choice. His research addressed Veblen effects and counter-effects, investigating how product prices signal consumer wealth. Using a quasi-experimental approach, Becerril Arreola’s approach addresses potential identification threats. His analysis capitalized on a rich dataset on automobile rentals to demonstrate that consumer sensitivity to local rankings of selling-prices is highly heterogeneous, often negative, and comparable in magnitude to consumer sensitivity to rental fees. The study highlights the role that prices play in wealth signaling effects and suggests that conspicuous consumption may be more significant than previously estimated.
Rebecca Hamilton, the Michael G. and Robin Psaros Chair in Business Administration at Georgetown University, explored the challenges families face in responding to resource scarcity. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 30 diverse families, Hamilton developed a framework illustrating how multi-dimensional, concurrent and/or consecutive life events (such as job changes, house moves or child birth) create mismatches between available and required resources, triggering situational resource scarcity. The study identified various patterns of adjustments in consumption and resource investment over time, and how they are influenced by families’ chronic resource constraints and availability of support networks. Hamilton notes that that the flexibility afforded by multiple family members is constrained by collective goals, domains of control, tensions, and negotiations within families.
Robert Lawless, the Max L. Rowe Professor of Law at the University of Illinois, provided a thought-provoking presentation on the bankruptcy system and the experiences of individuals navigating financial distress. Using data from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, a long-running study of persons who file bankruptcy, Lawless highlighted the prevalence of personal bankruptcy in the U.S., noting that roughly one in ten Americans have filed bankruptcy at some point during their lives. His presentation focused on two themes. The first centered around the legal and economic consequences of filing bankruptcy and how legal services are marketed just like everything else. The second theme illustrated life in the “sweatbox,” shedding light on the financial precarity and distress that individuals endure in the years leading up to bankruptcy filing.
UConn Today – Capt. Justin Gilbert believed the new LiveSafe app offered by the UConn Police Department could be a potential lifesaver for students—if only they knew about it.
But after a semester of availability, the app had only 400 active users.
“We weren’t getting much traction,’’ Gilbert says. “And that was really frustrating because this app has really great safety features.’’