UCL’s Malcolm Grant on Cost and Collaboration Challenges for Higher Education

As the U.K. government curtails funding to schools and colleges, University College London president and provost Malcolm Grant finds himself very popular with student protestors. But Grant acknowledges the burden put on students, who just over a decade ago enjoyed free higher education.

Grant says there are ways for schools to manage costs and still conduct worthwhile research and provide intellectual innovation. One critical step, he says, is greater collaboration between universities in researching key contemporary issues.

“Our view is in this globalized world it can’t be the universities alone that sit at home, we have to I think engage with globalization; and it’s not sufficient to do what we’ve done for decades, which is to have the world come to us,” he tells Arabic Knowledge@Wharton.

“Like most of the really research-intensive universities around the world, we are turning down huge numbers of proposals to establish ourselves elsewhere. We have to be able to do it at a pace that we can manage, because there’s a huge drawdown on senior management time to do any of these ventures. And we have to be satisfied that it fits with our mission and what we want to do.”

Read the full story here: http://t.co/1I8MsUIG

Single CEOs: How their risk-taking lifestyle affects the companies they run

If there’s one thing single guys are good at, it’s making fools of themselves. That’s why having an unattached CEO could mean more risk for a company’s investments, according to a recent study by two Wharton professors.

Nikolai Roussanov and Pavel Savor, assistant professors of finance at the Wharton school, recently conducted a study analyzing the correlation between company investment policy and the social positions of higher-ups. Their results suggest, among other findings, that the competitive nature of single men may even influence decisions in business management.

They even delved into matters of biology: position in social ranking directly affects one’s search for a mate. “If relative success determines ability to find a desirable mate, it may explain some of the drive to outdo the competition… [s]uch competition creates a kind of tournament, raising your tolerance for taking large financial risks.”
 
The question was whether such financial risk-taking would be seen in conditions with greater consequences- like managing  the future of an entire company.
 
One study of 1,500 publicly traded companies concluded that the “CEOs [that] are single invest substantially more… in particular when it comes to investments subject to the greatest uncertainty” thus increasing the company’s exposure to risk.  
 
Read the story here: http://bloom.bg/on1kMB

Wharton professor’s study: Shy people can be leaders, too

Whether it’s in a group or a national political campaign, a strong leader is said to have a dynamic, take-charge personality. However, Wharton associate professor of management Adam Grant proves magnetism isn’t always a trait in successful leadership.

Grant’s study found that although extraverted superiors work well with acquiescent subordinates, their lack of reception to ideas of the ambitious proves detrimental to group cohesion.

The study explains that “although extraversion is a consistent predictor of supervisor and subordinate perceptions of leadership effectiveness, extraverted leadership may not always contribute positively to group performance.”

In other words, if a unit was staffed with both extravert leaders and extravert workers, it is likely that productivity would not be lucrative. The reason being leader extraversion would clash with worker extraversion, resulting in failure of efficiency.

In such cases, directors with introverted disposition work successfully with affable employees. The ability of an introvert leader to be amenable, partners with the proactivity of an extravert.

Read the story here: http://bit.ly/nm4ARP

The best-prepared companies? Those with multiple workforce plans

With economic austerity and increased demands upon reduced resources, a company should do better to analyze the needs of its workforce to ensure they remain satisfied, according to a recent Wharton study. The research, done by Wharton management professor Peter Cappelli, suggests even a company with the best workforce plan focuses on a single goal to accomplish in a planning cycle, without taking into account the multiple factors that could occur in the future. The study recommends managers improve their communication with employees to help the effort to develop multiple workforce plans.

Read the story here: http://bit.ly/kuki3Z

Previously: ‘Talent on Demand’: Applying Supply Chain Management to People