by J.L.H.D | ATLANTA
Venture-capital funds to help alumni start businesses, common at American and European business schools, are rarer among their Chinese counterparts. But the Shanghai-based China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) has been expanding its venture-capital arms of late. In March CEIBS helped launch a fund with HGI Capital Group, the HGI FINAVES fund, aimed at Chinese startups; at the end of June CEIBS launched the CEIBS-Chengwei Venture Capital Fund, whose $100m is mainly for CEIBS alumni starting businesses. That fund is co-hosted by Chengwei Capital, a Chinese venture-capital fund.
by J.L.H.D | ATLANTA
“A SOLDIER will fight long and hard for a bit of coloured ribbon,” Napoleon once said. According to a new working paper by Linus Siming of Bocconi University in Italy, chief executives may be similarly inspired by government honours—or at least disappointed when said honours are no longer available.
Mr Siming had a natural experiment available to him in Sweden, whose parliament voted to forbid the awarding of orders of merit in 1974 after two centuries of doling them out. He contrasted a group of Swedish chief executives who had already received the Order of Vasa, given for excellence in business, with a group of executives who had not. Compensation, he found, increased by 7% for the non-winners relative to their winning counterparts. There was no jump in firm performance to explain the difference; it seemed that, having lost the chance to wear the Order of Vasa, the Swedish CEOs needed extra pay to make up for the loss.
by M.S. | PARIS
IT IS often said that the most valuable benefit of a business-school education is not what is learned in the classroom, or the ability to work all night fuelled only caffeine, but an address book. Pick the right school and a few years down the line you might find yourself connected to some of the most powerful and influential people, not just in the world of business, but also the world of government and politics.
Alumni of HEC Paris, for example, account for over 15% of French board members in the CAC40, the top 40 companies in France. They head up organisations such as Axa, BNP Paribas, EDF and L'Oréal. And now an HEC graduate, François Hollande, even runs the country itself. Monsieur Hollande will doubtless be drawing on the expertise of his former classmates as he faces up to the ongoing problems of the euro zone, and they will of course be keen to volunteer their advice.
But not everyone views their network with such enthusiasm. Many business-school graduates who have built and sold companies tell wearily of how the phone started ringing as soon as the ink was dry on a deal. If wasn't a former fellow student looking for investment in the next big thing, it was the school itself. Harvard Business School “has a very slick machine when it comes to raising funds from alumni,” says Alain de Mendonca, an alumnus. He found fortune when he sold the online travel business he started during his MBA to a consortium of European airlines. “The person who makes the first approach always comes from your original class. I guess the thinking is that you are less likely to say no to someone you actually went through the MBA with.”
The alumni network can be immensely useful—for opening doors, making introductions, trading knowledge and even for generating investment. But are many MBAs who don't know how to use it properly. So what are the key points when it comes to using the address book effectively?
Roslyn Layton is a US-based management consultant who took the OneMBA programme—which rotates students around five schools from different regions—to help her expand her internationall client base. Although based in California, since graduating she has worked for companies in Europe, Latin America, India and Japan. “The first myth is that networking is about helping yourself,” she says. “It is not. The most effective networkers think of the other person first. When you meet a prospective member of your network, ask the following questions to yourself: ‘How can I help this person? What does this person need? What in my repertoire of skills, experience, insight, and connections can help this person be successful?' Consider these questions on both the personal and professional level. Remember, when you need a friend, it's too late to get one.” Especially if that friend is now a multi-millionaire or the president of France.
by B.R.
New York University's Stern School of Business has announced an assistance scheme for its MBA graduates, to provide relief to help pay off business school-school loans. It is aimed at those who pursue a social enterprise career. The school says that because careers in this field are less lucrative than traditonal MBA tracks, such as financial services, consulting and marketing, the initiative is needed to "support the school's mission to develop leaders who create value for business and society".
Loans relief is available to graduates from Stern's full-time, part-time and executive MBA programmes, who earn less than $100,000 a year. Alumni can apply up to ten years after graduation, with a maximum of $15,000 per year awarded. Graduates are eligible “if they work in a US or international organisation with a socially oriented mission, including not only tax-exempt organizations, government agencies and nonprofits, but also L3c [low-profit limited liability companies: commercial firms that invest in social ventures] and certified B companies”.
Correction: New York University is providing loan assistance to its students, not issuing the loans itself, as originally reported. This was changed on May 22nd.
by B.R.
And the hunt for a full-time job begins
THE sudden appearance of interns around the office is as sure a sign that summer has arrived as the sighting of the first cornflower. June marks the beginning of the season, when workplaces become briefly filled with new blooms eager to make an impression. For those hired from business schools, the typical placement will last around 10 weeks, before the call of lectures and a second year of study draws them back to college.
Tough economic times had led to a dip in the number of interns that companies hired from MBA programmes. But appetite is on the rise again. Around half of business schools have reported an increase in the number of companies visiting campuses to recruit students for the summer holidays, according to the MBA Career Services Council, an industry body. Just 9% saw a decrease.
Before the crisis, it was the big financial-services firms that were the most voracious users of MBA students. Many had large formal programmes, sometimes taking in hundreds of students at a time. This is now less common. The crisis acted as a wild fire, says Michael Malone of the Kellogg School of Management near Chicago. Many prestigious firms were felled. But that has left the way clear for others who previously found it tough to compete for the best students. Consultancies, consumer product and tech companies, as well as boutique financial firms, have been particularly keen to fill the gap.
by J.L.H.D | ATLANTA
MICHELLE DUGUID, an assistant professor of organisational behaviour at Washington University in St Louis, recently published a paper on the behaviour of women in high-profile corporate roles. It is often assumed that such high-fliers can act as mentors, bringing other women into similar positions. But Ms Duguid has a theory of “value threat”: that certain women, high-achieving but isolated, see others of their sex as a threat to their own special status, and therefore may not want to promote their female peers. One thinks of Becky Sharp in William Thackeray's novel “Vanity Fair” (pictured, as played by Reese Witherspoon in a film adaptation), who regarded all other women, even her best friend and her husband's sisters, as potential romantic or financial rivals. (This is something also observed by Israeli professors, albeit at a more junior level, when they found female human resources staff were denying pretty job applicants an interview.)
Value threat can play out in three ways, Ms Duguid suggests. First, the higher-ranking woman (let's call her Becky) might see the lower-ranking woman (Amelia) as potentially performing worse and thus reinforcing negative views of women, thereby hurting Becky's own standing. Second, Becky might fear that there is only one slot available for a woman, and Amelia will take it. Third, Becky might fear being accused of favouring Amelia over her male colleagues.
April 4th 2012, 15:58 by J.L.H.D | ATLANTA
ONE argument which is often trotted out in favour of a liberal-arts curriculum, at least for undergraduates, is that being exposed to a variety of subjects leaves the mind supple and agile. Knowledge of accounting, say, is all well and good for standard problems, but to embark on fundamental change it is better to think as a biologist or philosopher would. If this is true, then the fifth of American college students majoring in business would seem to have put themselves at a disadvantage.
Your correspondent was reminded of this while browsing the winter issue of the MIT Sloan Management Review. In one piece, Leonard Berry of Texas A&M University, Ann Mirabito of Baylor University and Gale Adcock of SAS Institute, a software firm, describe how SAS takes care of its employees' health-care needs on-site:
The SAS Health Care Center, which started modestly in 1984 and now has a staff of 55, including four physicians and 10 nurse practitioners, does not charge for services and collects no copays. Same-day appointments are common, and care is unhurried; clinicians may spend 30 minutes or more with a patient... As its own health insurer, SAS avoids the cost of paying staff to negotiate claims payments with insurance companies, as most private medical practices have to do. And SAS estimates that each on-site patient visit saves two hours of employee work time because the individual remains on campus, resulting in productivity savings of $3.6 million in 2010.
A story from The Economist this week has news of a study by two Israeli professors looking at what happens when job candidates include a photo with their curricula vitae, as is the norm in much of the world. The pair came up with some inteteresting findings. Anyone who has fought against sexism may wish to look the other way now.
For men, the results were as expected. Hunks were more likely to be called for an interview if they included a photo. Ugly men were better off not including one. However, for women this was reversed. Attractive females were less likely to be offered an interview if they included a mugshot. When applying directly to a company (rather than through an agency) an attractive woman would need to send out 11 CVs on average before getting an interview; an equally qualified plain one just seven.
...Human resources departments tend to be staffed mostly by women. Indeed, in the Israeli study, 93% of those tasked with selecting whom to invite for an interview were female. The researchers' unavoidable—and unpalatable—conclusion is that old-fashioned jealousy led the women to discriminate against pretty candidates.
Read the full article here.
Mar 7th 2012, 14:56 by J.L.H.D | ATLANTA
As the debate over whether to impose quotas of female board members on European companies continues, a group of business schools have weighed in by offering a list of 3,500 potential candidates. The schools include St Gallen and IMD in Switzerland; London Business School and Cambridge Judge Business School; IESE in Spain; Rotterdam School of Management; and INSEAD in France. Although the announcement is paired with profiles of 160 or so representative candidates (not all 3,500 names are revealed; instead the member schools have promised to reveal their individual lists, if asked. IMD, for example, has a slate of 348 alumnae, each with more than 25 years' worth of experience, and 12 senior faculty members who might suit. Groups such as the Global Telecom Women's Network and Women on Board, a Belgian organisation, have put together their own slates.
A perusal of the sample profiled candidates reveals a few Americans. Boston University's Brussels arm was one of the nominators, but the thinking also seems to have been that companies might be more attracted to the candidates if they could add geographic and gender diversity at the same time. The sample profiles are made up largely of British and French high-ranking women, with a few Belgians and Italians as well; it's not clear whether this is simply representative of the nominating schools, or meant as a message to Britain, France and Italy in particular (the latter two having already passed board quotas).
Jan 31st 2012, 12:14 by M.S. | PARIS
THE findings of the latest Global Snapshot, a survey carried out by Antal, a recruitment agency, will come as a surprise to some. No sooner had the UK announced a 0.9% drop in manufacturing output for the last three months of 2011 than Antal's (global) survey concluded that the best hiring prospects for professionals and managers in the first quarter of 2012 will be in manufacturing. The firm studied hiring trends at nearly 20,000 companies across the world, finding that almost 70% of organisations in the manufacturing sector intend to take on new staff at professional or managerial level during this period. To compare, the figure is just 52% in banking and financial services.
If one of the consequences of the downturn is a return to making things people want to buy, rather than shunting money around in ever more complex and unfathomable ways, then all well and good. (Anyone with doubts would do well to wonder why Germany has remained Europe's strongest economy despite being at the heart of the troubled euro zone.) But have the world's MBA students understood this message? Or are they, like so many of their predecessors, still focused on getting a highly paid job in banking on graduation?
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