From the Dean's Desk

Guest Column: Kristen Collett-Schmitt

Kristen Collett-Schmitt

Kristen Collett-Schmitt

Monday, 1 November 2021
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DE&I Case Competition

In his message to the College earlier this year, Dean Martijn Cremers reasserted the University’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, noting that these principles are foundational to our imperative to Grow the Good in Business.
For me, his message was a call to action. Each of us, in our various roles across the College, were being called to use our work of educating future business leaders to guarantee that diverse voices, experiences and backgrounds are valued, respected and nurtured.
It is in this spirit that I am excited to announce the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Grow the Good in Business™ Case Competition for the spring 2022 semester. This competition joins the forces of Mendoza graduate students and business leaders who are committed to equity and inclusion in the workplace. The competition, open to residential Specialized Master’s students in this inaugural year, will challenge students to solve a business case focused on a current DE&I issue while engaging with companies willing to share their real-world challenges and expectations in striving for a more equitable society.
We expect the chosen case to intersect all business disciplines and thus be applicable to all Specialized Master's students, regardless of whether they study business analytics, finance, accounting, management or nonprofit administration.
Because diversity, equity and inclusion are a business imperative for successful organizations, this case competition will serve as a form of experiential learning for our Specialized Master’s students.  As such, my key partner in this initiative is Joan McClendon, associate director for Specialized Master’s Experiential Learning. Our goals for the case competition include:
  • Send a signal, both internally and externally, that our Specialized Master’s programs strive to be diverse and inclusive.
  • Provide an educational experience that reflects the broader society, as well as the challenges and expectations of real businesses.
  • Equip students to enter the real world as leaders after graduation.
  • Create mutually beneficial relationships between Specialized Master’s students and corporate sponsors.
The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Case Competition will kick off on Friday, February 4, and the final awards ceremony will be Friday, April 1. Between the launch and close of the competition, a series of educational and networking events will be held with corporate sponsors for students who opt-in to the competition. Prize money will be awarded to the top three finalists. A summary of key dates is below:
  • February 4: Competition begins 
  • February 4 - March 4: Educational and networking events
  • March 4: Round 1 deadline
  • March 18: Top 10 finalists announced
  • March 25: Round 2 deadline
  • April 1: Finals / top 3 winners announced
Corporate sponsors will play a key role in the case competition. Meijer, 1st Source, Gibson Insurance and the State of Indiana will mentor students and gain innovative ideas for advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in their organizations. We hope that you will play an important role, too! We encourage faculty and staff members who are interested in serving the College through planning and execution of this event to sign up using this Google form.
We are excited to add to the growing list of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the College, all which support the dignity of the human person and work towards a culture where we succeed together.
In Notre Dame,
Kristen
Kristen Collett-Schmitt, Ph.D.
Associate Dean for Specialized Master's
Associate Teaching Professor of Finance

OKRAs

Dean Martijn Cremers

Dean Martijn Cremers

Monday, 25 October 2021
“Objectives and Key Results for the Academy” (OKRAs) refers to a collaborative goal-setting framework for defining objectives and their outcomes in a measurable way. OKRAs provide a practical way for us to set objectives, track progress toward specific outcomes, and align and connect to the OKRAs of the University. 
Provost Marie Lynn Miranda’s OKRAs for the University contain the strategic priorities that the provost plans to focus on for the 2021-2022 academic year:
  1. Improve the experience of faculty and students of color on campus.
  2. Actively manage the University during the ongoing global pandemic in ways that strengthen Notre Dame over the long term.
  3. Maintain excellence in delivering on Notre Dame's vision for undergraduate education.
  4. Enhance graduate and professional programs.
  5. Enhance research at Notre Dame and its impact externally.
  6. Determine the key academic priorities that will animate the University Strategic Framework and the upcoming Comprehensive Campaign.
The College’s OKRAs align with the provost’s and reflect our main priorities. The OKRAs for 2021-2022 listed below are the outcome of many conversations with faculty and staff leaders in the College.
#1: Emphasize Research Excellence. The first objective is to continue to advance our scholarly contributions. Key results for this academic year are:
(i) Launching of the Ph.D. Program in Management and the Ph.D. Program in Analytics, under the leadership of professors Jason Colquitt and Ahmed Abbasi, respectively.
ii) Starting the Business Ethics and Society Program, which was recently endorsed by our College Council and which will facilitate the hiring of tenure-stream and teaching faculty in the area of business ethics and how business contributes to society, under the leadership of professors Jim Otteson, Ann Tenbrunsel and Fr. Ollie Williams.
iii) Expanding resources for faculty and research, where we hope that both benefaction and net tuition revenue from graduate programs can help to hire additional faculty.
#2: Engender a Diverse, Equitable & Inclusive Culture. The second objective is in regards to our efforts to promote diversity, equity and an inclusive, welcoming environment. Key results are:
(i) Proactively recruiting faculty and staff members who will help us become a more diverse community.
(ii) Focusing on engagement and retention, and introducing more programming that promotes equity and inclusion for faculty, staff and students.
(iii) Creating a “culture of encounter” by finding ways to meet others whom you might not encounter during the course of your usual day; i.e., being intentional about getting to know each other, caring for each other and creating this culture of encounter within and across faculty, staff and student groups.
#3: Enhance Undergraduate Curriculum. The third objective is to enhance our undergraduate curriculum, where we are aiming for the following key results:
(i) Continuing the launch of our Business Honors program, which started this fall semester and consists of 53 sophomores, and is led by faculty director Jim Otteson and program director Craig Iffland.
(ii) Reviewing our undergraduate curriculum under the leadership of associate dean Jim Leady, who is working with the department chairs and me. Some of the goals include increased flexibility for our students while enabling more specialization.
(iii) Integrating analytics across the curriculum, facilitated by requiring all business majors to take the new Coding Fundamentals with Python course by the end of their sophomore year.
#4: Elevate the Notre Dame MBA and Specialized Master’s Programs. The fourth objective is to elevate our graduate programs academically, especially in terms of how the students experience the programs, with a focus on:
(i) Growing applications and enriching the class profile, plus improving the student experience across their entire student journey — from marketing and admissions to student services and operations, academic learning, leadership development, career services and alumni relations.
(ii) Completing the move of the MBA program into the Stayer Center as the MBA’s new “home,” adding team rooms, renovating the third floor lounge and adding other amenities. 
(iii) Expanding experiential learning opportunities, including through the Meyer Frontlines Program and the new Mods Away initiative starting Mod 2 of this year with MBA students going to ND California.
#5: Engage in Strategic Planning & Continuous Improvement. The fifth objective is to create a new strategic plan and continue improving our organization, processes and systems, including:
(i) Renewing our strategic plan using the University’s planning process in order to translate our ambitious vision for the College into a strategic plan that will guide all of our departments and programs, ensuring that our efforts will contribute to our common goals, including specific strategic plans for DE&I, research growth, the MBA program and so on. This includes developing a comprehensive DE&I strategic plan for the College that aligns with the University’s objectives and provides guidance for efforts to advance inclusiveness and a culture of engagement for our students, faculty and staff.
(ii) Completing the matrix organizational restructuring and staffing of functions to support the entire College. We have made significant progress on this objective, including the realignment of our graduate programs into the MBA and Specialized Master’s Programs portfolios, restructuring Graduate Career Development and reorganizing Marketing and Graduate Enrollment’s functional groups to bring paid advertising strategy in house. Our focus going forward is to ensure organizational efficiency and that our teams have a good understanding of individual roles and how they contribute to the larger mission of the College.
(iii) Continuously improving our technology and processes to make our matrix organization as effective and efficient as possible in serving our students and helping our staff members carry out their roles and responsibilities. These last two goals involve collaborations between Rob Kelly, Kara Palmer, Tim Bohling, the associate deans and the academic directors, so it’s a big effort and a very important step in accomplishing our fourth objective of elevating our graduate programs.
I hope the list of OKRAs gives you some idea of the College’s priorities for this academic year. The associate deans, staff directors and myself would be glad to receive your feedback and ideas.
In Notre Dame,
Martijn

October Research Roundup

Martijn Cremers

Martijn Cremers

Monday, 18 October 2021
I’m pleased to highlight several recent research papers published in top academic journals, and congratulate the authors on their achievement:
John Busenbark, Assistant Professor of Management & Organization 
Retaining problems or solutions? The post-acquisition performance implications of director retention (Strategic Management Journal)
Acquiring firms often onboard directors from the target during an acquisition, but academic treatments of the topic provide equally compelling logic for whether this would benefit or undermine performance for the ongoing acquiring firm. In our research, we find that retaining a director from the target reduces long-term investor value for the acquirer, and we postulate this is because such directors disrupt the delicate dynamics of the acquiring firm's board.
Peter Easton, Notre Dame Alumni Professor of Accountancy
Zhi Da, Howard J. and Geraldine F. Korth Professor of Finance
"Who Pays Attention to SEC Form 8-K?" (The Accounting Review)
The SEC requires public companies to disclose material information on Form 8-K within four days of a triggering event. We show that, on 8-K event dates, there is already significant abnormal institutional attention and price discovery, suggesting that the subsequent 8-K filing may have little direct informational benefit, particularly to retail investors.
Benjamin Golez, Associate Professor of Finance
"Disagreement in the equity options and stock returns" (Review of Financial Studies)
What is the effect of investor disagreement on stock returns? We shed light on this question by studying disagreement among equity options investors. We show that the effect of disagreement depends on whether the news about companies is positive or negative. On average high disagreement predicts low stock returns.
Daewon Sun, Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations
"Impact of Organizational Structure on Development Strategy under Equity‐Based Incentives" (Production and Operations Management)
This study considers the product development process for a start-up that relies on equity-based incentives to motivate effort by vendors who are hired to contribute to the development process. We study how the organizational structure of the start-up affects the choice between sequential and concurrent development using a two-task model, in which both tasks must be completed for the start-up to earn revenue.
Katie Wowak, Associate Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations
Nick Berente, Viola D. Hank Associate Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations
"A Behavioral Perspective on Service Center Routing: The Role of Inertia" (Journal of Operations Management)
We explore the presence of behavioral inertia, which is the propensity for routing agents in service centers to route issues more frequently to other agents with whom they have experience, rather than optimally routing those issues. Leveraging a unique dataset of more than 70,000 routing decisions, we find that, overall, inertia hurts performance, but in certain situations can be beneficial.
My thanks to all for advancing Mendoza’s research contributions.
In Notre Dame,
Martijn

Kara Palmer

Kara Palmer

Monday, 11 October 2021
DE&I Pulse Survey Results
In his August 16 letter to campus, Father John Jenkins charged each of us to “… live up to our highest ideals, making this community, rich in diversity, ever more one characterized by mutual respect, care for one another, and solidarity.” His letter recognized the many efforts across campus to advance diversity, equity and inclusion, but also affirmed there is much more to be done.
The importance placed on diversity by the University is true of Mendoza as well. My purpose in this column is to give you an idea of the current sentiments of College staff on DE&I-related matters by sharing the findings from the Mendoza Staff DE&I Pulse Survey conducted in May. I also want to provide an update on the work that has been done and/or is planned for the future in response to the feedback we received, as well as areas where we have great opportunities for continued advancement.
First, thank you to all who responded to the inaugural DE&I Pulse Survey. We had almost a 50% response rate to the anonymous survey which included over individual 125 comments. This information provided additional context to the quantitative responses. Your candor, transparency and suggestions were greatly appreciated
What did we learn?
  • The most favorable responses related directly to immediate managers’ effectiveness to work with others. In addition, results suggested a strong sense of belonging within the College.
  • The least favorable responses pertained to the areas of making a complaint of harassment/discrimination without fear of retaliation, a feeling of fair opportunities to succeed, feeling safe to speak up and satisfaction with procedures for resolving employee complaints.
  • Collectively, the highest ratings were from exempt male staff members with 10-20 years of service; the lowest ratings were from non-exempt female staff members with less than 10 years of service.
  • Comments covered a variety of topics, including leadership, faculty and staff differences; hiring, advancement and job opportunities; trust and respect; and general concerns and challenges. There was general appreciation for the work we’re doing, and at the same time, the sense that we have a lot of work to do.
Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT)
The Staff DE&I Council analyzed the results and conducted a SWOT analysis that was later shared with the dean, associate deans and directors in the College. Following are key points in each category.
Strengths
  • University and College commitment to advancing diversity, equity and inclusion aligned with Catholic Social Teaching.
  • Existence of active DE&I councils, clubs and activities for staff, faculty and students.
  • Proactive efforts to build DE&I awareness across Mendoza (e.g., calendar, intranet, student-facing page).
Weaknesses
  • Limited diversity among staff, faculty and students across the College
  • Limited coordination between faculty, staff and student groups working on DE&I initiatives
  • Limited awareness of the full scope of diversity issues within the Mendoza community due to hesitancy to speak up.
Opportunities
  • Creating a data-driven, actionable strategy with clearly defined, measurable, reported results.
  • Tapping into experts in the College, on campus and in the local community
  • Enhancing leadership engagement and presence.
Threats
  • “Checking boxes” by focusing on short-term actions that don’t lead to meaningful change
  • Fear of having conversations about race and culture
  • Trust and accountability across College, individually and as a whole.
Next Steps
With approval and support from the dean and in partnership with associate deans and directors, the Council identified several key objectives to advance toward a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment for all.
These include:
  • Launching, sustaining and driving traffic to our new College DE&I intranet site.
  • Establishing metrics and dashboards for accountability and success across the College.
  • Establishing College, team and individual OKRs/goals supporting the University’s strategic goals.
  • Offering ongoing education opportunities such as workshops, speaker series and discussions.
  • Continuing to offer the Compassionate Listening Circles.
  • Creating and implementing a new hire survey to assess new staff members’ sense of belonging and inclusion in their first 30, 60 and 90 days.
  • Launching and sustaining a DE&I Calendar of Awareness to highlight important national recognition days.
  • Benchmarking efforts to identify and implement best practices and resources across the University as well as peer and aspirant business schools.
  • Creating a College DE&I Report template for use by faculty, staff and student groups.
Continuing the Mendoza Staff Pulse Survey throughout the year with analysis and action plans to follow in conjunction with feedback and results from the 2022 ND Voice Survey (scheduled to launch in early 2022.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact me, or any member of our staff DE&I Council or reach out to our College and University DE&I contacts.
In closing, I’ll quote again from Father John’s letter: “Our commitment must be for the long term, so that the change we seek will last.” As a community, it’s essential we all come together to be advocates, allies and leaders in this space.
In Notre Dame,
Kara
Kara J. Palmer
Director of Administration 

Guest column: Ryan Retartha

Ryan Retartha

Ryan Retartha

Monday, 4 October 2021
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This exciting and unpredictable fall has given our alumni an opportunity to renew their relationship with our beloved campus, as well as reimagine their opportunities to connect, learn and grow.
I’ve previously written about the "Culture of Service" we are building with our Mendoza alumni, and there's no better opportunity than football season to connect alumni with our current students, faculty, and staff. For example, I welcomed 18 members of the Mendoza Graduate Alumni Board back to campus for the first time in two years during the home game weekend against Purdue. The alums had opportunities to hear College updates and especially to learn more about our Specialized Masters programs from students and faculty.
I'm proud to announce that we've already surpassed our alumni volunteer metrics from all of last fiscal year, and we're only getting started! My challenge to our alumni this fall is to make this season about more than just football through a renewed commitment to Notre Dame's mission of service by actively engaging with the Mendoza community. Even taking just an hour out of their weekend to network with another alumnus or a student could be transformational.
Following are several of the alumni initiatives designed to make those connections happen:
Mendoza Game Day ConnectThe goal of the Mendoza Game Day Connect website is to make the weekend memorable by providing a comprehensive listing of the Mendoza events, receptions and learning opportunities that make up our beloved home football weekends. Whether they want to reconnect with classmates, network with industry peers, or meet our current students and faculty, alums can utilize the site as a valuable resource to enrich their time on campus.
Mendoza Alumni Volunteer GroupThe Mendoza Alumni Volunteer Group is a coalition of Notre Dame friends, family and alumni who are seeking to create opportunities and advantages for Mendoza students, faculty and staff. At this volunteer hub, alumni will find opportunities to give of their time, expertise, experience and connections.
Mornings at Mendoza
Mornings at Mendoza is our new game-day lecture series where we bring some of Mendoza's most beloved faculty to campus to share their stories, ideas and research in a casual breakfast setting. More information can be found on Mendoza Game Day Connect or at Gameday.nd.edu.
Mendoza Mixers
We've already had two successful Friday afternoon mixers out on the Stayer Center patio. The mixers provide John Cardinal O'Hara Society members with the opportunity to network directly with students from specific graduate programs. We'll be moving these mixers to an online format to comply with University COVID-19 policies as the weather gets colder and look forward to expanding the mixers with food and beverages next season. 
Finally, congratulations to our 2021 Alumni Award winners:
  • Recent Graduate Alumni Service Award: Nicole Jones Senftleben (MNA ’20), Executive Director, InterVol
  • Commitment to Michiana Award: Matthew Logsdon (MBA ’20), President, The Indiana Whiskey Company
  • Distinguished Alumni Award: Charles Florance (MBA ’13), Founder NFINET Inc
  • Grow the Good in Business Award: John Kurtz (EMBA ’08 ), Owner, Kurtz Bros
  • Service to Students Award: Kevin Connors (BSEE ’83), Co-Founder, Spray Venture Partner
My thanks to all of you who have been engaging with our alumni this year. Keep me in the loop and let me know how I can help.
Yours in Notre Dame,
Ryan Retartha ND '07
Director of Alumni Relations

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