NewsBites

Below is a summary of some of the school's citations in prominent national and regional media. These media placements enhance the school's national reputation and help to brand it as one of the nation's top business schools.

The UB MBA has been ranked in its highest spot ever in U.S. News & World Report’s annual ranking of MBA programs. The School of Management was ranked No. 66, up four places from last year, and a total of 15 places over the past three years. (See Startups)

A story on CBS News about the controversy that erupted after Gillette tweeted a photo of a plus-size woman posing in a bikini interviewed Arun Lakshmanan, associate professor of marketing, who said he believes the company intended to make a splash by wading into polarizing territory among a new generation of consumers who view brands as extensions of themselves. “This wasn’t the case a decade ago, but you have a new generation of consumers that actually care about things and want to see brands take positions,” he said. “They are probably calculating that they will be on the right side of the numbers in terms of people who feel positively rather than negatively about the company.”

An Associated Press article by Emily Grijalva, assistant professor of organization and human resources, looked at the negative impact that a self-important player’s big ego can have on team performance. “We found that teams with more narcissistic players tended to have fewer assists and, in turn, didn’t perform as well,” she wrote. “Since assists are passes that lead directly to baskets, they require coordination and communication. Assists capture players’ willingness to prioritize the team and sacrifice the personal glory of scoring points by sharing the ball and allowing others to score.”  (See Insights)

A story about the impact online shopping is having on small businesses quoted Charles Lindsey, associate professor of marketing, who says the internet has given consumers more power. “It has changed not only the way we shop, but also the way we think about the marketplace and businesses and how consumers interact with businesses,” he said. The article appeared in news outlets around the world, including the Associated Press, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, England’s Daily Mail, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Yahoo Singapore.

An article in Financial Times looked at research by Joost Vles, adjunct instructor in the Professional MBA program, on queue psychology and what happens when people wait in line. When customers first arrive at a line, they usually assume that if there are several short queues, this shows good planning, but if there is a very long single line, that reflects stress on the system and looks daunting, he said, adding that the assumption can be wrong if the single queue is being served by multiple employees. “Seeing a line snake back and forth across the width of a store three times can be deceiving as to how long you may actually have to wait,” he said. “In what may appear to be a very long line, the service rate can be so good that the line moves very quickly.”

The May/June 2019 issue of BizEd, AACSB’s magazine for B-school faculty and staff, featured a story on our Center for Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness’s new Global Center for Leadership and Social Innovation in Ghana, Africa. “One of our missions as a school is to make a global impact through social innovation,” said Paul Tesluk, dean of the School of Management.  “We see great potential throughout Ghana. The center will be our catalyst for positive change.”

An article on Forbes cited research in a Harvard Business Review article co-authored by Jim Lemoine, assistant professor of organization and human resources, about management in VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity).

Lemoine was also interviewed for a Buffalo News story about changing office dress codes. “More and more companies are moving to less-formal dress, whether it be to become more attractive for potential new employees or millennials, or whether it be to try to reduce the power distance or change the culture, or whether it might even be to drive creativity or emulate one of the big tech companies that’s in the news so often.”

A front-page article in the Buffalo News about the departure of three executives at Pegula Sports and Entertainment and what it means to the organization interviewed Tim Maynes, assistant professor of organization and human resources. He said that companies typically make sweeping changes of this nature for one of several reasons: There could be performance issues, it could be a matter of wanting to change the corporate culture or ownership having a different view of where the company should go in the future.

A front-page article about allegations that Donald Trump inflated his net worth to the tune of $4 billion in order to get a bank loan while bidding to buy the Buffalo Bills in 2014 interviewed Michael Dambra, assistant professor of accounting and law, who said the appearance of an extra $4 billion in “brand value” on Trump’s balance sheet raises questions. “It’s pretty unusual,” he said. “Usually, you’re going to see brand value incorporated into the value of the business,” not separated out into an additional line item that suddenly appears on a financial report.