Since our charter class graduated more than 25 years ago, alumni
from the UC Davis Graduate School of Management have been making
their presence known around the world.
Our graduates are CEOs, vice presidents, chief financial
officers, chief operating officers and entrepreneurs. Around the
globe, they have taken prominent roles as international business
leaders in a wide range of industries and organizations.
Graduate School of Management alumni are actively involved in
their communities, and they make time for mentoring, advising and
assisting current students and networking with fellow graduates.
Hiring for Experience?
Skills are not the Whole Answer
When firms decide to branch out into a new area of business, they might feel the need to hire new employees from outside the organization as most hiring managers assume that the best candidates are those who have performed the exact role before. The reasons for that are perfectly sensible—they want an identical skill set so the new hire will hit the ground running.
Guiding Cleantech:
UC Davis Energy Efficiency Center Leads the Way
Established in 2006, the Energy Efficiency Center (EEC) was created to accelerate the development and commercialization of energy efficiency technologies and to train future leaders in energy efficiency.
Visiting the New China: Opportunities and Challenges
Last month, I accompanied Steven Currall, Dean of the UC Davis Graduate School of Management on a trip to China. Our purpose was to visit business schools and discuss collaboration opportunities for students and faculty, as well as Executive Education opportunities. We had the pleasure of meeting several industry executives in technology, agribusiness, real estate and financial services who provided a real “feet-on-the-street” experience about doing business in China today.
The Experience is the Message: Online Marketing for the Wine Industry
In 2012, there’s no need to make a case for social media—it’s ubiquitous, and the necessity of participating in those channels is recognized by many wineries. However, the wine industry is very different from other marketplaces, so social media needs to be approached in a unique way. From a business standpoint, we have a challenge because there are 130,000 domestic and imported wines introduced every year, and there are very few companies with significant market share. We’re faced with a market that is incredibly fragmented, making it difficult to develop any kind of brand loyalty.
Mind be Nimble, Mind be Quick!
Agile Learning for Business Leaders
What do you do when you’re faced with a situation where you don’t know the answer? Think carefully . . . how did you just react to that question? Did you feel curious and empowered, or stressed and overwhelmed? If you felt curious rather than stressed, then you may be a breed of leader who has the skills of an “agile learner”. Researchers Michael Lombardo and Robert Eichinger explored this trait in their book The Leadership Machine.
Gender Differences in Investing:
Shifting the Financial Services Industry
Why are men more willing to take risks when it comes to investing? Empirical observations conclude that men have a greater appetite for risk. Studies on investor behavior indicate that men are more tolerant of risk than women. For example, studies indicate men allocate a greater proportion of their investment portfolio to stocks rather than bonds. What-is-more, the stocks men choose tend to be riskier (more volatile with greater market risk). All of this suggests that men are more comfortable taking on higher risk. We do not yet understand whether these differences in risk appetite between the genders can be traced to nature or nurture. Are women innately more cautious than men or do environmental factors govern these differences. This question remains an area of ongoing research, and, though the jury is still out, I suspect both nature and nurture are important factors.
Wine Executive Program 2012
Growing Skills from The Ground Up
How will you manage your business during the tight supply of grapes in the coming years? How do you create an effective social media plan? Is there a real wine market in China? Participants discussed these questions (and many more) during the 12th Annual UC Davis Wine Executive Program, presented by the UC Davis Graduate School of Management and Department of Viticulture.
America’s Corporate Distrust Problem
Let’s be honest: the term “Corporate America” doesn’t illicit warm and fuzzy feelings. Scandals like Enron and Bernie Madoff—not to mention the Wall Street crisis—have led many to lose their trust in corporations. To be more specific, there is a general distrust in the leaders who run those corporations. In the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer, trust is now an essential line of business to be developed and delivered.
Mentorship Networks: Pay Innovation Forward
By Wendy Beecham
Over the last few weeks, I’ve continued to think about Professor Andrew Hargadon’s work on the power of building networks to foster innovation – idea networks and action networks. Andy is an engineer and social scientist, as well as the author of How Breakthroughs Happen: The Surprising Truth About How Companies Innovate. His position is that to become more innovative, you need to tap into what others are doing in order to learn from them. You’ll be able to adapt their ideas into something that will make a difference for you, your customer, and your organization.
Measuring the Impact of Executive Education
When developing custom programs with a client, the question at the forefront of my mind is always: How do we measure the ROI for the client? When will we know if the education we present has made a true impact on the teams we work with?
To answer those questions, I turned to Dan Burton, Senior Manager of Training & Development at the Genentech Vacaville Plant, who has partnered with Executive Education at UC Davis Graduate School of Management to plan and deliver custom executive education programs for his company. Burton explained that Executive Education at UC Davis allowed his company to “spend less and receive four times the value for the investment made.” His perspective is based on the active partnership and continuing collaboration after the program ended between Genentech and UC Davis.
Innovation Networks: Connect Your Way to a Better Idea
In Executive Education at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, we’ve noticed a heightened interest in custom programs on the topic of “innovation.” I use quotations for a reason: the deeper I delve into what our clients seek to resolve, the more I find that they are grappling with issues around risk taking, collaboration, or faster decision making–not the stereotypical Eureka!/light bulb image conjured by the term.
It Pays to Be Green: The Market Talks Back
Professor Paul Griffin is a leading international authority in accounting and financial information and disclosures. In this blog, he discusses the practical applications of his recent study on environmental disclosures, advising executives how to leverage the data for maximum impactRecently, I worked with Yuan Sun of UC Berkeley to release a study showing that companies that released information about their greenhouse gas emissions and carbon reduction strategies saw their stock values rise. We tracked stock prices of firms around the time these companies voluntarily issued press releases disclosing carbon emission information. In the days following the press releases, these companies experienced a significant increase in their stock price.
Moneyball: Business Lessons on Value Creation
Professor Shannon W. Anderson is an expert on the design and implementation of performance measurement and cost control systems. Her research spans the fields of management accounting and operations research. She has been using the “Moneyball” case in her MBA classes for several years. In this post, she offers an overview of how she applies it to business today.Moneyball has become a metaphor for everything in business today: it touches heavily on concepts related to budgeting, data analytics and productivity. The movie is about how Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane revolutionized the process of scouting new baseball players on a budget by employing computer-generated analysis to sign new players and when best to put them in the line up. Brad Pitt was recently interviewed by NPR about making Moneyball and his role as Billy Beane. The interview provides snapshots of critical moments in the film that help put my points below in perspective.
China, the Next Gold Rush
Crossing the Cultural Bridge to Strike it Rich
When it comes to doing business in China, I’m frequently reminded of a Rudyard Kipling poem that begins: “East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.” The poem speaks to the vast cultural differences between East and West, differences that in Kipling’s time seemed irreconcilable. Well, it’s 2012 and Americans have been doing business with China for almost 30 years! There’s immeasurable opportunity for American businesses in the China market, and many different ways to tap its potential.
A Rare Commodity: Women at the Top
Women at the top executive level are a rare commodity. Why and how do we move forward and change the numbers?
This week, I attended Unlocking a Source of Growth: Women in the Boardroom, hosted by Watermark, an event that sought to answer these very questions. The event was held at the Rancho Cordova headquarters of VSP Global, an international vision care company with several senior women leaders including Chief Marketing Officer Kate Renwick Espinosa and Chief Operating Officer of Vision Care Laurie Costa.
Toasting Success: Responding to Critical Issues in the Wine Industry
UC Davis Wine Executive Program Celebrates 12th Year
Responding to Industry Challenges
The wine industry is experiencing major change in response to both market conditions and consumer demand. Recently, the industry has become more professional, in the sense that senior managers are better trained–they realize what they don’t know. Companies bring in people from other industries to run different parts of the firm. It’s a dynamic, booming industry, but it faces specific challenges. We recently had a bad crop year; going forward we’ll see shortages of grapes simply because we’re not planting as much as we should. We’ll go from a surplus situation in the last five years to a shortage situation in the next five years.
The question is: will consumers stay with California wines if they can’t find them at a certain price or on discount, or will they turn to European or out of state wines?
Articulating Value: The New UC Davis Executive Education Program
Product rollouts, marketing plans, quarterly reports- at the end of the day, who’s got time for executive education? Many leaders feel that spending time on professional development is a chore, yet a necessary part of managing their teams and staying cutting-edge. We recognize that it’s important to stay at the top of the game in a competitive marketplace, and when companies decide to enroll their teams in an executive education program, they want to learn tactics that are immediately relevant and useful. Our goal is to help leaders be better at what they do by fitting the learning experience seamlessly into their environment.