High-Caliber Students, Dedicated Faculty Credited for MSBAPM Program’s Rising National Recognition

Posted on by Claire Hall

2015-02-13-msbapm-financialengineer

Students, faculty and alumni of the School of Business’ Master of Science in Business Analytics and Project Management (MSBAPM) program are celebrating its double recognition as a top program in its discipline.

The Financial Engineer.net ranked the UConn program No. 11 in the nation in 2015, putting it in the company of other prestigious colleges, including New York University, University
of Southern California, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Fordham and Villanova universities.Continue Reading

Ciao! Greetings from Italy…

Posted on by Seanice DeShields

Thalia Mangan ’17 is a junior in the School of Business, majoring in Management who is currently on study abroad in Paderno, Italy.

She recently shared this email with the Office of Diversity Initiatives about her first weeks in Italy.

“Italy is absolutely wonderful. The CIMBA program [Paderno, Italy] is a bit intense, but I am enjoying it none the less. I just came back from Florence yesterday. The town was beautiful! I went to all of the famous sites like the Duomo Dome and Giotto’s Bell Tower, and went to see David!Continue Reading

Invitation to Apply for the UConn McNair Fellows Program

Posted on by

The McNair Fellows Program for Rising Sophomores and Rising Juniors

The McNair Scholars Program prepares talented, highly motivated UConn undergraduate students for doctoral studies in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines. As part of UConn’s TRIO programs, McNair is open to low-income, first-generation college students or those from populations underrepresented in STEM graduate fields who are seeking to pursue a Ph.D.

Students who are currently freshmen (rising sophomores) or sophomores (rising juniors) can apply for this two week residency program, which will begin immediately after the end of the spring semester. Students will gain research experience while learning about:

  • STEM Ph.D. career avenues
  • Undergraduate research opportunities
  • The more research-intensive McNair Scholars Program

McNair Fellows reside on the Storrs campus, shadow STEM researchers, and engage in academic writing and presentation exercises.

For more information, please contact Dr. Renée Gilberti at renee.gilberti@uconn.edu. Application materials are available now.  Students at the Storrs campus and regional campuses are encouraged to apply.

To learn more please visit the McNair Fellows Program and the McNair Scholars Program.

>>Application and requirements

Be Bold Be Blue: Integrated Marketing Communication Campaign by UConn students

Posted on by Nancy White

Thirty students in theGUESS Project ‘Integrated Marketing Communication in the Digital Age’ class taught by Joseph Pancras in Fall 2014 participated in a semester-long IMC campaign with Sequel, the brand licensee for GUESS Watches. GUESS Watches is a mid-level luxury brand that defines itself as bold, adventurous, and sexy. An iconic brand, it has launched the modeling careers of celebrities such as Brooke Shields, and is looking to expand its presence and relevance in campuses across the United States.

Students worked in four major functional groups: Strategy, Advertising/Creative, Public Relations and Budgeting, and Marketing Research. Teams consisted of members from each functional group to coordinate responsibilities for the UConn GUESS Watches campaign, which would serve as a pilot launch for related GUESS Watches events on other campuses.

The Advertising group created a strong logo and slogan, encompassing GUESS’ message and values and relating to UConn students with the slogan, “Be Bold, Be Blue”. They used bus advertisements, flyers, social media platforms, and useful promotional to attract students and raise awareness and online buzz.

The Strategy team organized and planned the campus event. Four of the event’s 500 student participants received GUESS watches, while others received branded items for participating in activities like spinning a wheel, “guessing the candy in the jar,” and surveys.

The PR/Budget team delivered the message the Advertising Team created to UConn students by targeting popular social media websites, placing advertisements in areas of high student use, and having Her Campus write about the event.

The Market Research Team focused on creating a pre-survey and post-survey to uncover how people perceived the GUESS brand and watches. Their findings revealed that most students perceived the brand as cool and high-end. Additionally, the post survey revealed that positive impressions improved by 17.7% after the event.

After the event, the students submitted a final report to Sequel and presented before senior Sequel executives, who attested to the project’s value.

IMC Class F2014 (2)Sequel executives and Dr. Joseph Pancras’ Integrated
Marketing Communication class students at the Final Presentation

New Marketing and Digital Analytics Graduate Course

Posted on by Nancy White

The Marketing Department has launched a new course entitled Marketing and Digital Analytics (MKTG 5251). Offered for the first time during the Fall 2014 semester, MKTG 5251 introduces students to the application of advanced analytics that support data-driven management. Students work with Microsoft Excel and JMP Pro 11 software to address marketing decisions related to various topics including demand estimation, market segmentation, price optimization, customer choice, and customer lifetime value. The digital component of the course examines analytical techniques to evaluate and strengthen website performance and the effectiveness of an organization’s social media platforms.

“Big data and analytics are taking center stage within many organizations,” commented Dr. Gregory M. Sottile, developer of the course and its instructor. “While MKTG 5251 is a hands-on course, its primary objective is develop students’ ability to critically recognize opportunities to apply marketing and digital analytics for better decision-making.” Marketing and Digital Analytics will be offered again during the Fall 2015 semester.

HELP WANTED: Only Those With Social Conscience Need Apply

Posted on by Claire Hall

A challenging job with great rewards is probably on the wish-list of most soon-to-be college graduates.

But for UConn seniors Greg Doyle and Kelly McLaughlin, and other members of UConn’s Net Impact organization, the perfect job would have another twist. These students are hoping to merge their career goals with their passion for social change. Continue Reading

Faculty Research: Study Shows that Decision Aids Can Hurt Consumer Decision Making

Posted on by Nancy White

Journal of Retailing (2014)

Nicholas Lurie. Co-Author: Na Wen.

To help consumers deal with increasing amounts of information, many online retailers offer simple decision aids, such as the ability to sort products on a particular product attribute. Intuitively, such aids should help consumers but, in a recent article, Nicholas Lurie and a colleague at City University of Hong Kong show that simple decision aids can hurt consumers’ ability to make good decisions.

Whether decision aids help or hurt depends on the extent to which choices involve tradeoffs among attributes. For example, a consumer buying a laptop might want a large screen and lots of memory. If large screen laptops usually come with lots of memory then using a decision aid to sort on screen size will help the consumer choose the best laptop for her. However if, instead, the consumer wants a large screen and light weight laptop, and large screen laptops tend to be heavy, sorting on screen size will not enhance choice. The authors suggest that consumers use simple decision aids as substitutes for cognitive effort and find that the more consumers use such aids, the lower the quality of their decisions. Providing consumers with multiple decision aids, such as the ability to eliminate as well as sort products, is one way to overcome the negative aspects of such aids.

Assistant Professor Gerlinde Berger-Walliser and MBA Student Group visit EM Lyon for International Business Study

Posted on by Nancy White

In January 2015, a contingent of part-time MBA and MSBAPM students led by Business Law Professor Gerlinde Berger-Walliser spent two weeks studying international business at EMLYON, one of the top business schools in France. The group attended lectures taught by renowned EM Lyon faculty about the European business, social, and regulatory environment. As part of the inter-cultural program the UConn students worked on projects with EM Lyon’s International MBA students and traveled to Geneva, Switzerland to visit the World Trade Organization and the United Nations. In the evenings and on the free weekend, the group sampled the great food that Lyon is known for and toured different parts of Europe. Professor Berger-Walliser is looking forward to taking another group of MBA students to Lyon in January 2016.

Faculty Research: When Harry Bet with Sally: An Empirical Analysis of Multiple Peer Effects in Casino Gambling Behavior

Posted on by Nancy White

Journal: Marketing Science (2015)

Hee Mok Park. Co-author: Puneet Manchanda.

In many consumption settings (e.g., restaurants, casinos, theme parks), individuals consume products either alone or with their peers (e.g., friends and/or family members). In such settings, it is likely that through social influence, a consumer’s decision on what to purchase or how much to consume is influenced by the purchase or consumption decisions of their peers.

Marketing researchers have had much interest in measuring such social influence and were primarily focused in estimating how one’s behavior (e.g., how much to spend) is influenced by the behavior of the peer. However, a consumer could not only be affected by the peer’s behavior, but also by other events that influence the peer to change his/her behavior. For example, if the peer gets a promotion, but the focal consumer does not, the focal consumer might judge the differential treatment to be unfair and react negatively. Another mechanism by which social influence could operate could be when the peer is physically present, but does not engage in the behavior under question. In other words, the peer’s presence could directly affect the focal consumer’s consumption behavior as the lack of consumption by the peer may signal a subtle or transient change in preferences. In response to this, the focal consumer may modify her behavior.

The authors develop an empirical model that allows them to identify all three effects simultaneously and apply it to behavioral data from a casino setting. The data comprise detailed gambling activity for a panel of individuals at a single casino over a two-year period. The results show that all three types of peer effects exist. The results also indicate that accounting for these peer effects simultaneously and identifying them at an individual level could help marketing managers draw up better guidelines for promotion policies as well as policy makers implement a more informed regulatory regime for the casino industry.