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Management Scholars Develop “Innovation Index”
Innovative economic activity in Michigan increased 2.8 percent from the middle of 2006 to the middle of 2007, according to a new “Innovation Index” developed by researchers at the University of Michigan-Dearborn School of Management. The index—a product of iLabs, the school’s Center for Innovation research—tracks ups and downs in Michigan’s economic innovation based on such measures as the employment of “innovation workers,” venture capital trends, trademark registrations, incorporation activity, and small business loans. Researchers plan to release the index quarterly as a tool for economic policy makers.
Researchers Correlate Stock Prices to Likeability of Super Bowl Ads
When TV viewers like a company's Super Bowl commercial, the company's stock price goes up, according to a study by researchers at both the University at Buffalo (UB) School of Management and Cornell University. The study examined 529 commercials that aired during 17 Super Bowls from 1989-2005, and found that investors favored stocks offered by firms that aired likeable Super Bowl commercials. The researchers used ratings gathered by the USA Today Ad Meter, a real-time consumer likeability ranking of Super Bowl commercials. They found that firms with the most likeable commercials had higher than normal stock purchases on the days following the Super Bowl, which increased the firms' stock price. The stock price at firms with the least-liked commercials also increased, but not as much as it did at firms having the most-liked commercials.
"This reaction is irrational because the stock returns were based solely on likeability of the commercials," says researcher Kenneth A. Kim, associate professor of finance in the UB School of Management. "If the likeability of the commercials caused a subsequent increase in company sales, a stock increase would make sense, but we did not find this to be the case."
Harvard Course Uses Literature to Teach Moral Leadership
You don’t usually hear Albert Camus’s name in business school. It comes up with some frequency at Harvard Business School (HBS), however, where the French philosopher’s works—along with those of writer Barbara Kingsolver and playwright David Mamet, among others—provide insights that help second-year MBA students learn both decision making and what it means to be a moral leader. The curriculum is part of the elective course, The Moral Leader, taught by senior lecturer Sandra Sucher. The course was first introduced to HBS in the late 1980s by Harvard psychiatrist and educator Robert Coles.
Sucher recently published The Moral Leader: Challenges, Tools, and Insights, a textbook designed to make the course accessible to executives, students, teachers, and even book club participants. The book encourages students and managers to confront fundamental moral challenges, develop skills in moral analysis and judgment, and come to terms with their own definition of moral leadership and how it can be translated into action.
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