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Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities Honored as One of Best Military Programs

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Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for VeteransThe School of Business’ Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities was recognized as one of the nation’s best and most innovative programs for improving the quality of life for U.S. military personnel.

General Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, provided remarks at the 15th Annual Newman’s Own Award Ceremony at the Pentagon on Sept. 24. In addition to the honor, the UConn program will receive a $37,500 award.

“I was really surprised and extremely flattered,” said Program Director Michael Zacchea, a retired U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant colonel and a Purple Heart and Bronze Star recipient. “There are 400,000 organizations in this country that work with veterans. To be one of five selected for this incredibly prestigious award was truly an honor.”

The UConn Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV) is offered at no cost to participants, who typically come from across the Northeast. The program taps the talent of the UConn School of Business faculty to provide veterans, disabled due to their service, with cutting-edge training in entrepreneurship and small business management.

Zacchea hopes the award will bring greater recognition to the EBV program and further develop the network of services available to returning veterans. Despite its U.S. Navy sub base and the Coast Guard Academy, Connecticut isn’t known for embracing the military culture in the way that other states have, he noted.

“Historically the veteran population hasn’t had the attention here that it has in other states like Florida, Texas, California and the South,” he said. “We feel some of our award was due to our unsung work in an underserved area.”

Yet Connecticut offers many advantages to returning veterans, including educational and business opportunities, he said.

Unlike other entrepreneurship programs, the EBV addresses reintegration issues beyond just business. For instance, the veterans are offered a free business suit, courtesy of Brooks Brothers, to help ensure their business success. In addition, the program graduates have access to intense mentorship services for a year, so whether they want to start an IT business or a company that specializes in personal training, they have assistance identifying and overcoming business barriers.

UConn alumni Mitchell Strauss ’79 MBA, Ray Gustini ’65, ’65 JD, General Joseph Went ’53, Barbara Went and John Welch ’80 MBA, also attended the ceremony.

Newman’s Own, Fisher House Foundation, and Military Times sponsor the competition, which seeks to reward ingenuity for programs that benefit service men and women and their families.

“Improving lives for the military is the cornerstone of this program. Newman’s Own is proud to be part of an initiative that helps serve a crucial segment of Americans, those who serve our country,” according to Tom Indoe, president and chief operating officer of Newman’s Own.

Over 250 entries were submitted for the 2014 program. Seven judges evaluated each entry based on the organization’s impact to the respective communities, creativity and innovation.

View photos from the 2014 Newman’s Own Awards here.

 

Pictured: General Martin Dempsey, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; Michael Zacchea, Lt. Col. U.S.M.C. Ret, Program Director, Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities; Tom Indoe, President & Chief Operating Officer, Newman’s Own, Inc.; Suzie Schwartz, Trustee, Fisher House Foundation; Peter Lundquist, Vice President & General Manager, Military Times. Photos by Ashley Estill.

Business Week Recognizes UConn Business Law Program as “Top Ten”

Posted on by Melissa Ferrigno

Business Week named the UConn Business Law program among the top ten undergraduate programs in the U.S. This ranking is based on survey responses from graduating seniors regarding their learning experiences in Business Law classes. Members of the Business Law faculty have repeatedly earned national recognition from their peers for their teaching methods and classroom mastery. Continue Reading

Frank Guardi: 2014 Graduate Accepts Digital Marketing Job

Posted on by Melissa Ferrigno
Frank Guardi '14 Photo
Frank Guardi ’14

Frank Guardi is a ’14 UConn graduate with a communication major and a business fundamentals minor. Guardi has accepted a position in IBM’s Marketing and Communication Department as a social business and social media specialist. His job responsibilities include monitoring social conversations, managing user communities, and social media platforms such as corporate blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, and designing and implementing social media campaigns.

With a focus on digital marketing and social media, Frank enrolled in Professor Jane Gu’s Digital Marketing class, and found the class very helpful in preparing for his planned career. As part of the class, Guardi learned how to conduct social monitoring and search engine optimization (SEO) as well as important social media frameworks such as the “engagement pyramid.” Taking the class got him up to date with the digital marketing activities of major companies, such as Google and Amazon. For his class project, Frank worked with five other students to develop an integrated digital marketing plan to market Cape Cod potato chips to the west coast.

As a student, Guardi worked to build his digital marketing credentials and interned with an MLB baseball team to manage its social media campaigns and with IBM’s external relations department. Guardi’s advice to students is to “start an internship early in their junior year or before entering senior year in the area or company they are interested in, and to start planning to job-hunt once they begin their senior year. The market is becoming more and more competitive. You have to get ready early.”

Guardi, a student athlete, is a member of the UConn football team. He admits, “Spending forty hours in training and maintaining a good GPA at the same time is not easy.” Nonetheless, this experience has sharpened his capabilities in time management, teamwork, social skills, and commitment, qualities that employers highly desire.

Guardi relocated to Austin, Texas for his new job in late May. “It is a fun city with a lot going on,” Guardi smiled. “I expect to stay active.”

Networking Reception Draws Students and Alumni

Posted on by Melissa Ferrigno

by Rachel Miller ’14

Rachel Miller '14 and Shan Lin, marketing Ph.D. student
Rachel Miller ’14 and Shan Lin, marketing Ph.D. student

NETWORKING. As a senior marketing major, this is a word I have become very familiar with over the past four years. Like other business majors, we are told that networking is one of the most valuable skills for business success. However, many times it is difficult to practice and become a “skilled networker” as a student. On February 10th, at the Alumni and Student Networking Reception, the Marketing Department provided students the opportunity to improve their networking skills.

Despite relentless winter weather, the event was a success, and the Wilbur Cross library was filled with marketing students and faculty members. Keynote speaker John Fodor, a UConn alum and the Executive Vice President of Sales & Distribution for the Capital Group/American Fund, related how he used his business skills to quickly come up with a new family vacation after his family’s Caribbean flights were cancelled by an erupting volcano. Many of us are familiar with the stress of planning family vacations, and he used this relatable topic as a platform to highlight the importance of being prepared with a “plan B,” whether it is for a family vacation or a business deal.

At a large university like UConn, it can sometimes be difficult and intimidating for students to talk to alumni and faculty one-to-one. However, these networking events are one of the best ways to transfer what we learn in the classroom to the “real world.” These networking events transform “networking” from a familiar term to a practiced skill.

Click here to see more photos from the event.

 

How to Navigate the Five Pathways of Corporate Legal Strategy

Posted on by Melissa Ferrigno

MIT Sloan Management Review (forthcoming)

Robert Bird. Co-author: David Orozco

CEOs, board members and executives are forced to navigate increased regulation, lawsuits, varying international legal regimes, and the greater prospect of liability due to stiffer legal penalties.  Top executives recognize that legal capabilities are a necessary element of long-term corporate success. A Financial Times study found that 24 percent of U.S. companies had lawyer-directors in 2000, and in 2009 that amount notably increased to 43 percent. Corporations generate tangible returns, such as higher stock market valuations, when they employ attorneys who serve as board members, and when top corporate officers have legal knowledge.

Paradoxically, the processes through which corporate legal departments provide competitive advantage remain poorly understood. The law is all too often viewed as a constraint on managerial decisions and is often perceived by executives as a source of costs. This prevailing cost perspective towards the law, while valuable, does not explain how leading companies employ their legal departments to secure long-term competitive advantage for the firm.

Robert Bird and his co-authors explain how viewing the law narrowly as a cost or compliance issue inevitably leads to foregone strategic opportunities, and introduce an actionable framework, the Five Pathways of Corporate Legal Strategy: avoidance, compliance, prevention, value, and transformation. These pathways should enable managers to think about the law strategically and identify value-creating opportunities, thereby creating long-term and sustainable value. Legal rules are not just a checklists to complete, but an opportunity to advance firm goals in a competitive business environment.

“I’m Moral But I Won’t Help You” – The Distinct Roles of Empathy and Justice in Donations

Posted on by Melissa Ferrigno

Journal of Consumer Research, (forthcoming)

William T. Ross, Jr. Co-Authors: Saerom Lee, Karen Page Winterich

Americans tend to think of donating to charitable causes as a moral, prosocial behavior, but understanding what makes people donate is not well understood. Professor Bill Ross and his colleagues examine how moral identity, defined as “how important being a moral person is” affects prosocial behaviors. Usually having a strong moral identity increases how much prosocial behavior the person engages in. However, sometimes individuals with a strong moral identity make lower donations to charitable causes. Four studies demonstrate that someone high in moral identity gives less when those whom they would be helping, the recipients, are seen by the potential donor as personally responsible for their plight, for example if they have AIDS because they shared hypodermic needles while taking illegal drugs.

Further analyses reveal that empathy and justice underlie these effects. Specifically, people high in moral identity increase donations to recipients who they view as not responsible for their plight out of empathy and decrease donations to recipients who they see as responsible for their plight because of justice concerns. Additionally and interestingly, people who are high in moral identity will donate to recipients who are responsible for their plight if donors are made aware of their own immorality, as it causes them have greater fellow-feeling, or empathy, for these recipients. Study results indicate that moral identity, empathy, and justice in communication programs are likely to affect donations.

The Relationship between Consumer Characteristics and Willingness to Pay for General Online Content: Implications for Content Providers Considering Subscription-based Business Models

Posted on by Nancy White

Marketing Letters (forthcoming)

Girish N. Punj.

“People hate, hate, hate to subscribe to things on the Internet” (Bill Gates, 2005)

Over the past decade, there has been a substantial increase in the demand for online content, but there has been little change in consumers’ willingness to pay for it.Continue Reading

The Impact of Local Knowledge on Banking

Posted on by Melissa Ferrigno

Journal of Financial Services Research (forthcoming)

Robert Bird. Co-author: John Knopf

Do geographic factors influence the performance and behavior of modern banks? Advances in technology and global information sharing have seemingly made geographic characteristics irrelevant, but a bank with geographic advantages can have a positive impact on bank performance. A key factor influencing the geographic literature is the concept of local knowledge, i.e., information that influences bank decision making but is not readily transmittable beyond a limited geographic boundary. Banks possessing local knowledge can offer products and services to qualified local borrowers that other less informed banks might overlook, including for example a more diverse portfolio of products and services to start-ups and small businesses.

Using a combination of bank performance data, and differences in state laws allowing employers to require and enforce non-compete agreements, Professor Bird and his co-author find that strong not-to-compete laws restricting employee mobility in a state negatively impact the incidence of new bank charters while benefiting incumbent employers. Restrictions on the mobility of local knowledge decrease labor expenses because workers lack the bargaining power of being able to take a job with a local rival. Results indicate that increases in labor restrictions are positively correlated with profitability for established banks.  Thus, geographically-specific human capital remains an important differentiating factor that influences bank behavior and competition counter to standard theoretical accounts that might imply otherwise.

Targeted Social Transparency as Global Corporate Strategy

Posted on by Melissa Ferrigno

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business (forthcoming)

Stephen Park.

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) are subject to a variety of U.S. laws that require public disclosure of their global activities, including adverse social and environmental impacts. In this article, Professor Stephen Park examines the recent emergence of mandatory disclosure requirements under U.S. federal securities law that require MNEs to disclose certain social impacts in order to address geographically-defined and/or issue-specific public policy objectives, collectively referred to as “targeted social transparency” (or “TST”). Compared to other social transparency laws, TST regimes target a set of intertwined social risks specific to an individual country, region, or industry.Continue Reading