Media Coverage

Denis Hamilton, an assistant professor of professional practice in management and global business at Rutgers Business School, said the goal of any business is to survive. When organizations are losing money because of a crisis, they are forced to reduce the work force or cut salaries.

Hamilton said franchises can be hurt if they are forced to keep up payments negotiated through collective bargaining. It's a problem that might force labor and management to return to the table.

“I would think a lot of sports teams don't furlough administrative people or mangers or coaches,” Hamilton said. “I might be wrong about it. My guess is they can probably carry those people for a long time. I think it's those people who are indirectly dependent on events occurring are those who are adversely affected.”

While the ultimate human and economic cost of the coronavirus pandemic is still unknown, business owners are already seeing significant supply chain impacts. Many of these issues are new to even the most veteran business people. However, supply chain experts say there are steps businesses can explore to manage supply chain disruptions.

The best move a business owner can make right now is to communicate with supply chain partners, says David Dreyfus, assistant professor of supply chain management at Rutgers Business School in Newark, New Jersey.

“I recommend people start calling key suppliers right away and asking them if they need help and what that help looks like,” Dreyfus says. “Get an idea of whether your supply is actually going to be arriving as expected. If you have unusual point-of-sale orders or customer demands, call your key supplies and let them know about this.”

For New Jerseyans taking blood pressure medications, antibiotics and treatments for rheumatoid arthritis, the breakdown in supply chain management for medical ingredients produced in China is a scary thing to ponder.

Fortunately, it’s not as bad as some think.

At least that’s the view of Bill McLaury, a former pharma executive who is now an associate professor of professional practice at the Rutgers Business School.

McLaury, who specializes in supply chain management studies, particularly as it relates to pharmaceuticals, was executive director of pharma supply chain for 30 years at East Hanover-based Novartis before retiring in 2014 to become a professor. He said relying on third-party manufacturers of active ingredients in medicine is nothing new.

Rutgers Business School’s Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development is used to nurturing small business owners. Now, with hundreds of enterprises they helped to grow – and many more across New Jersey and the region – facing huge losses as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the center will hold a workshop-styled webinar on Friday, March 27, to share ideas for how small business owners can navigate and try to survive the crisis.

In a short interview, Lyneir Richardson, the executive director of The Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development, explains what the webinar will offer and what’s in store for small business owners.

This is a weekend roundup of Bloomberg Tax Insights, which are written by practitioners featuring expert analysis on current issues in tax practice and policy.

The government’s wins and losses in recent transfer pricing litigation highlight what arguments are working for taxpayers. Harvey Poniachek of Rutgers Business School sees the generally unfavorable results for the government as motivating regulatory changes that are designed to provide greater clarity in intercompany pricing practices and reduce controversy between taxpayers and the IRS.

For an industry in which the numbers truly do matter, the leaders of the Rutgers Center for Real Estate can point with pride to the program’s growth over the past five years.

“Does the growth come from the latent interest in real estate? Absolutely. Kids are getting real estate jobs and they want training for it,” said Morris A. Davis, the center’s academic director and the Paul V. Profeta chair of Real Estate at Rutgers Business School. “Does the demand come from our approach to teaching real estate? Yes, the students understand that they’re being taught by some of the top practitioners in the state.

“And then does the demand come from the way that we invest in students? And the answer is absolutely yes. The students know we’re unlike most places in Rutgers.”

The government’s wins and losses in recent transfer pricing litigation highlight what arguments are working for taxpayers. Harvey Poniachek of Rutgers Business School sees the generally unfavorable results for the government as motivating regulatory changes that are designed to provide greater clarity in the intercompany pricing practices and reduce controversy between taxpayers and the IRS.

Around the world, governments are reacting to the spread of the coronavirus by recommending, or forcing, the closure of schools, restaurants, and travel. By having the population remain at home, the much-reduced human-to-human contact will slow down the spread of the virus.

The underlying idea as seen in the figure below is that a nation has only so many hospital beds, doctors, and medical facilities, and can – at one time – handle only so many cases.

The excruciating dilemma for governments is that by “flattening the curve,” they may be prolonging the number of months the pandemic lasts. We really do not know, but the longer it lasts, the longer the duration of the global recession – with an increase in the horrendous financial (and health) consequences that a longer recession would entail.

The novel coronavirus pandemic has nearly emptied Harvard’s campus, sending students and faculty home for the remainder of the semester. It has also plunged the world into what Rutgers Business School professor John Longo called “the most serious financial crisis since the Great Recession and perhaps the Great Depression.”

“Huge swaths of the economy have been shut down with no clear sign that the bottom is near,” Longo wrote in an email to The Crimson. “Financial markets are in a state of panic, despite attempts by the Federal Reserve and the federal government to stem the decline.”

Experts like Longo say that the impact of coronavirus on the global financial sector presents risks to the University — namely, through its endowment.

Owners of new restaurants should have enough money to cover three to six months of losses as they build their customers, according to Lyneir Richardson, who heads Rutgers University’s Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development in Newark.

But Richardson said many have a thinner cushion.

Every week matters, both for new businesses and those already established in their communities.

“My sense is that 50% of small business owners do not have two months of working capital,” Richardson said. “Most small businesses and restaurant owners are living the proverbial paycheck to paycheck or payable to receivable.”

In an effort to bring digital convenience to the school (and not a response to the coronavirus), Rutgers Business School said on Monday students in its master’s taxation program have the option to attending class remotely, according to program director Jay Soled.

Students will be able to connect to class using WebEx, a video conferencing tool, if they cannot attend physically. Videos will also be made available of the entire class on Blackboard, a web-based learning tool.

I’ve found that some students perform better if they have a chance to re-listen to classes,” Soled said. “From a pedagogical point of view, it makes a lot of sense.”

This column, recently posted in the Pennsylvania CPA Journal, focuses on a particular area of automation that those entering the profession or looking to learn more to keep pace in their current line of work need to be aware of: robotic process automation.

What Is RPA? Gartner Inc. defines RPA software as tools “designed to mimic the same ‘manual’ paths taken by humans by using a combination of user interface interaction or descriptor technologies.” Rutgers University professors Kevin Moffitt, Andrea Rozario, and Miklos Vasarhelyi note that RPA robots (bots) can be used to open emails and attachments, identify relevant information, enter data into ERP systems, and compose and send emails to specified parties.

Since last June, America has been hearing Democratic presidential candidates agree on the need to increase taxes on the ultra-wealthy and corporations. And it's not only Democrats: Recent polling shows the idea is popular for a vast majority of Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike.

Actions at the federal level are not enough. States need to take action, especially New York. It is one of the wealthiest and most progressive states, yet leads the nation in income inequality: New York's inequality index is on par with Honduras and Colombia. If New York were a country, it would be among the 10 most unequal countries in the world.

Kevin Lyons, an associate professor of professional practice at Rutgers Business School, takes trash very seriously. What else would you expect from a dedicated researcher whose interests include supply-chain management, environmental economics, and alternative product and packaging composite development? Lyons invented the discipline known as supply-chain archaeology, which involves rifling through our collective garbage to determine what our disposable economy most frequently disposes of. Given that much of our throwaways end up either decomposing into methane—the most potent of greenhouse gases—or migrating into our waterways and polluting our oceans, Lyons is particularly interested in coming up with ways to minimize the detritus of modern life.

Mahmud Hassan, PhD, MBA, a healthcare economist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, acknowledged the growing fears in the U.S. about the quality of prescription drugs and said Valisure's approach could be a timely strategy to allay those concerns.

"People are scared, nowadays, of drugs coming from China, India. There's a bad record there," Hassan told MedPage Today. "This country needs a much safer method of getting drug supplies. I think safety is a good strategy, and [hospital systems] may give this a shot, if this will increase trust in the market."

Sometimes, we forget how far we have come, and the level of impact women are now able to have on everything from social norms to commerce, to politics and beyond. This Sunday, March 8, is International Women's Day, and holidays like these are wonderful opportunities to reflect on all the amazing work being done by women all over the world.

For me, there have been a number of women who have positively influenced my life, career, and personal growth. I am a big believer in mentorship, yes, but more important, just surrounding yourself with people who can pass along valuable life lessons just by being who they are. I have learned a lot from women in my community, in our company, and in my extended network.

When I was an investment banking analyst (long before I co-founded ThirdLove), I had this manager at Bank of America, which was where I worked. Her name was Lisa. There I was, fresh out of college and very uncertain about where I wanted to take my career, and Lisa was helpful in a way I didn't know I needed at the time.

Business Report
Stock market plunge triggers a trading halt.
Business Correspondent Rhonda Schaffler brings you today's New Jersey business news.

"Today you have manifestations that the global economy is slowing down. I mean that's the biggest proxy is when oil collapses it means that the global economy is not going anywhere. And it's just like a multiple hit, so to speak. You know, a perfect storm, and the baby went down and I'm not convinced it's over," said Professor & Executive MBA Program Director Farrokh Langdana.

Coronavirus fears and plummeting oil prices spooked investors Monday morning, triggering a 7% drop — which triggered a previously unused financial instrument that brought trading to a standstill for 15 minutes. The pause, known as a circuit breaker or trading curb, is a Securities and Exchange Commission mechanism based on percentage drops in the value of the S&P 500 Index.

The curb, which is designed to prevent panic-selling, was set off Monday for the first time. The S&P closed at 2,745.90 on Monday, down 7.62%, as the market flirted with bear-market territory.

“Circuit breakers are designed for the market to pause and think about what it’s doing,” said Dan Weaver, a finance professor at Rutgers Business School. “We’ve never had it before.”

The Rutgers Business School Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) program was ranked the number one EMBA program offered among all public business schools in the Northeast by Ivy Exec's 2020 Best Executive MBA Programs.

This is not the first time Rutgers Business School’s EMBA program, also referred to as “The Powerhouse,” has ranked highly, said Farrokh Langdana, professor and director of the Rutgers EMBA program.

Your resume is a critical component of the MBA admissions process.

But what do admissions officers look for in applicant’s resumes?

Your resume should provide succinct points and examples.

Experts recommend applicants to keep their resume to a single page and not exceed two pages.

“Sometimes we get a resume that’s five to six pages long, and that’s way too much information,” Stephan Kolodiy, a senior admissions officer for the business school at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey—Newark and New Brunswick, tells US News.

New Jersey is losing about 20,000 college graduates to other states per year, causing leaders in education, government and commerce to try to stem the out-migration known as the brain drain.

This theme took center stage Friday at Rutgers University-New Brunswick at a conference hosted by the Rutgers Business School’s Institute for Corporate Social Innovation.

Rutgers Business School hosted a cohort of 35 Brazilian graduate students in an immersion program that taught business, trade as well as public and private sector relations in the United States. These students are enrolled in a Master of Business Administration (MBA) or Master of Public Administration program at their home university.

The program was put together by Doug Miller, an associate dean and professor for MBA programs. He said it was modeled off a similar program run in 2017, though some aspects were changed. Monica Giron and Dietrich Tschanz of Rutgers Business School International Programs implemented the program, accompanying the students throughout the week on the New Brunswick and Newark campuses.

New research from Michigan State University and Rutgers University reveals the amount of money washed away in hospital operating rooms, offering solutions to save hospitals - and the country - millions of dollars each year.

Anand Nair, professor of operations and supply chain management lead author of the study, along with co-authors David Dreyfus, assistant professor at Rutgers Business School and alumnus of MSU's doctoral program, and Claudia Rosales, assistant professor of supply chain management at MSU found that not only do unplanned costs affect a hospital's bottom line, but they can also endanger patients under anesthesia with potentially harmful complications.

Rutgers Business School announced on Feb. 18 the launch of its Center for Women in Business (CWIB).

The center will work to improve gender equity in the business world by empowering working women and developing women business leaders through a robust network and academic research, said Lisa Kaplowitz, assistant professor of professional practice in finance and the center’s founding director.

”We are leveraging (more than) half a million alumni, one of the nation’s most diverse campuses and key industry partnerships to remove barriers for women and empower them with the confidence and expertise necessary to enter and succeed in a continuously evolving workforce,” she said.

Are the easiest credit cards to get necessarily the worst credit cards on the market?

A statement like this tends to be too general for my absolute evaluation of credit card offerings. The term worst most likely reflects the interest charged but that is really just one criteria upon which to judge. Some cards are connected to organizations or other worthy causes and these may be easy for members of those organizations for example. Finally, different cards have different credit requirements and repay requirements, and the choices often incorporate a variety of options to appeal to a wider potential audience whose members bring different requirements as well.

Marc Kalan
Assistant Professor of Professional Practice at Rutgers Business School

Selin A. Malkoc is a professor at Ohio State University and a big believer in the power of time management. And research shows that scheduling your free time can undermine your enjoyment of it -- if it’s not done right.

In a research article published last year in the journal Current Opinion in Psychology, she and co-author Gabriela Tonietto, a professor at Rutgers Business School, offer their tips for “scheduling leisure." Take these into account next time you're trying to figure out what to do with an unexpected extra day. Hopefully, it comes before Thursday, February 29, 2024 (the next leap day).

“China is the world’s plant; most everything, at some point, is either made in China or has parts that go into that are made in China,” says Rudolf Leuschner, an associate professor of supply chain management at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. “The world’s supply chain is so interconnected, it doesn’t need to be the actual item you are buying that’s affected” for the impact to be felt.

And, he continues, it’s already becoming an issue, as some suppliers aren’t able to get the merchandise they need. “Pharmaceuticals is one of those areas I’m most concerned about,” he says because some raw ingredients needed for specific medicines are produced in China, and “we don’t have the capacity to build them.”

While COVID-19 has yet to spread widely across the U.S., Las Vegas Valley businesses have said they’re starting to experience a supply chain disruption caused by the disease.

But businesses that don’t rely on direct imports from China aren’t safe from the effects of COVID-19, according to Rudolf Leuschner, an associate professor of supply chain management at Rutgers University.

“If their direct materials don’t come from China but the parts do,” they will be affected, he said. “That effect is going to get worse for a while until everything sorts itself out.”

Stocks tumbled this week on fears over what’s next with the coronavirus outbreak. On Friday, some analysts said the market was overreacting, but investors remain on edge.

Rutgers University [Rutgers Business School] Associate Professor Mark Castelino says given the world population, the number of people diagnosed with the virus is not an overwhelming number. “So when you put this in perspective, I don’t know why the stock market is reacting the way it is, because the numbers are so small,” said Castelino.

Our findings show that the identity of the political party making these judicial appointments does matter. In corporate prosecutions, the average fine imposed on companies can vary considerably depending on the political affiliation of the assigned judge and the underlying crime. In particular, cases randomly assigned to Democrat-appointed judges have fines that are, on average, 184 percent larger if the underlying crime involves violating labor or environmental regulations and 91 percent smaller if related to violating immigration laws. The difference in fines imposed across these different types of crime conforms to the typical priorities associated with each political party. These differences in fines across Republican and Democratic judges are even more significant during time periods of greater partisan polarization and are not driven by other judge-level characteristics—such as race, age, and experience—that might be correlated with a judge’s political affiliation.

Rutgers Business School announced on Tuesday it has launched a new Center for Women in Business to empower more women in the workplace.

The center will focus on academic research and provide resources to impact gender equity in the business world through mentoring, workshops, scholarships and conferences. It will also aim to influence change on problems such as the wage gap, provide opportunities for working women and develop women business leaders at both the undergraduate and graduate level.

Now that we’ve turned the page on another exciting year in the world of marketing and business, we should look ahead at what we can expect in marketing for this year.

Question 1: In your opinion, what are the biggest trends we’ll see in the world of marketing in 2020?

The big shift towards digital marketing and marketing analytics continues; the list of new skills necessary to succeed continues to get longer. While branding and product innovation management remain important marketing processes, omni channels and direct-to-consumer marketing continue to reshape the marketing landscape.

Sengun (Shen) Yeniyurt, Ph.D.
Rutgers Business School
Vice Chair and Dean’s Research Professor, Marketing Department

The Logistics Manager's Index, now midway through its fourth year, provides a leading indicator on the state of the U.S. economy.

While it's good to know where you've been, it's just as important to know where you are now and where you're going. It was this belief that led us to develop the Logistics Managers Index (LMI) four years ago. We believed that the logistics industry can provide an indicator of where the economy as a whole is heading.

By Zac Rogers, Dale Rogers, Ronald S. Lembke, Steven Carnovale and Sengun Yeniyurt.

If Milton Friedman’s concern was the deleterious effect on the corporation of imposing social agendas on it, Mr. Ramaswamy’s concern is precisely the opposite: the effect on the state of corporations embracing social agendas. Businesses and governments operate in separate spheres, something akin to church and state. It’s when one side tries to operate on the other’s turf that we run into trouble.

Prof. Mark Castelino
Rutgers Business School

Consumer research and ratings firm J.D. Power has released its December 2019 auto sales forecast, and the trends aren’t looking the best for the industry.
At the moment, the market appears to be tilting in favor of the consumer. But there are more questions than just whether or not to buy.

Professor Farrokh Langdana, Rutgers Business School, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

WH: Do you expect auto financing deals to improve/get worse/stay the same over the next 12 months?

FL: They will improve for sure.

WH: What steps can buyers and dealers take to make the car buying process more transparent and hassle-free?

FL: Take the negotiations out of the dealing.

WH: What tips do you have for individuals with fair or poor credit who are looking for an auto loan?

FL: Show evidence of responsibility in one's current job. Lenders need to know that you are on a stable path.

Black marketing professors can foster a legacy of change.

Jerome Williams, a research center director and distinguished professor and prudential chair at Rutgers University, was an early pioneer in multicultural marketing and marketplace discrimination studies. He recently examined banking (and living) while black.

Lance McCarthy, the CEO of Global 1000, inspired the crowd at the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey gala with his keynote address, providing historical details of successful black business leaders while detailing how his firm is using what he calls the “6 C’s of Success” to build a platform for success in the community.

Attendees at the gala included Yla Eason of Rutgers University, Rutgers Business School, Education Award honoree.

“The Doctorate of Business Administration Program aims to equip graduates with tools, techniques and critical-thinking skills that can be used to solve the increasingly complex problems encountered now and in the future,” said Professor Suresh Govindaraj, the program director.

Unlike a traditional Ph.D., which focuses heavily on academic and theoretical research and prepares students almost exclusively for roles in academia, the Doctorate of Business Administration is designed as a practitioner’s doctoral for professionals with extensive managerial or technical experience who are interested in learning and applying relevant theoretical concepts to business problems and economic issues.

The Rutgers Business School is launching a Doctorate of Business Administration Program, a 60-credit program that will be offered primarily on weekends with some classes on weekday evenings.

Rutgers will offer courses in the classroom and online as the program progresses. Students are intended to earn a doctorate degree within two years.

According to Rutgers, the Doctorate of Business Administration is designed as a practitioner’s doctoral for professionals with extensive managerial or technical experience who are interested in learning and applying relevant theoretical concepts to business problems and economic issues. The program will also emphasize communications and advanced research skills so students are able to communicate abstract research concepts.

Sometimes, an MBA just isn’t enough … if that’s the situation you find yourself in, Rutgers University has a program you might want to look into, as Rutgers Business School announced Tuesday it is launching a doctorate in business administration.

The Newark-based program is aimed at providing a credential for both executives looking to move into the C-suite and ones who are hoping to move out of it and into academia.

“The Doctorate of Business Administration Program aims to equip graduates with tools, techniques and critical-thinking skills that can be used to solve the increasingly complex problems encountered now and in the future,” professor Suresh Govindaraj, program director, said in a prepared statement.

Rutgers Business School professor John M. Longo — the Chief Investment Officer and Portfolio Manager for wealth-management firm Beacon Trust — cautioned against using endowment returns alone to judge recent changes at HMC.

“It is true that, given the data, the performance has lagged,” Longo said. “Someone might just look at the numbers and say the performance is lagging, but then you have to say, what kind of risk did they take?”

The Logistics Managers' Index (LMI) is an insightful measure that reveals underlying trends impacting the transportation sector. As mentioned in the Why you should care article, the LMI is a survey of North American logistics executives that combines eight components to gauge the health of the industry from various perspectives. The LMI is compiled by Arizona State University, Colorado State University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rutgers University and the University of Nevada, Reno, in conjunction with the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP).

Rutgers School of Business Professor Jay Soled says the tax basis for all of a dead person’s assets become equal to the fair market value of those assets.

Business schools increasingly acknowledge that a wider range of perspectives enriches learning through group discussion, and helps prepare students to lead diverse teams. Corporate recruiters have also raised pressure on schools to enrol people from a broader array of socio-economic backgrounds, recognising the benefits of a diverse workforce.

Thirty-eight per cent of online MBA students who enrolled in the 2019 calendar year are first-generation college students, compared with approximately 10 per cent of the full-time MBA class. They are less likely to have family members who work in professions such as banking or consulting, which recruit heavily from MBA intakes, says Prof Lei Lei, dean of Rutgers Business School. Family ties can help students land jobs, so in 2018 Rutgers launched a mentoring programme to replicate them. Executives help MBA students improve their confidence, résumés and interview skills.

“First-generation college students from relatively low-income backgrounds really need this kind of help. It makes a big difference,” says Prof Lei. For example, almost all the MBA students secure summer internships.

In the task force pre-planning report, Kopp and co-chair Kevin Lyons, associate professor of professional practice at Rutgers Business School-Newark and New Brunswick and associate director of the Rutgers Energy Institute, along with 10 other science, health, engineering and public policy experts from across the university, lay out a comprehensive plan with an expanded task force, including students and staff, that will seek broad community engagement.

If you have bad credit it can be improved over time by paying off your bills by the due date. The most important step is to develop a mindset to live within your means. This step involves paying off credit cards, in full, each month. Credit cards for people with a poor credit history typically charge very high rates of interest (i.e., 20% plus).

John Longo
Professor of Professional Practice in the Finance & Economics Department at Rutgers Business School.

The Civil Rights Movement was made up of a broad coalition of civic groups, student activists, labor and religious organizations. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who advocated non-violent protest was the symbolic leader — its primary spokesperson – the face of the movement. The Movement advocated for the end to racial discrimination in state and federal laws. Its efforts resulted in, among other things, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1963, the most comprehensive civil rights measure ever passed and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Dr. King and the movement’s impact on the nation ’s conscience is without parallel. It is little wonder that a federal holiday honoring Dr. King was first proposed four days after his assassination in 1968.

The establishment of Martin Luther King’s birthday as a national holiday did not happen immediately or easily; it required sustained herculean efforts.

The demand is there to build more houses. Baby boomers are not leaving their homes and millennials are increasingly starting families, said Morris Davis, real estate professor and academic director of the Rutgers Center for Real Estate in Newark.

But demand for new housing is most pronounced in and around the gateway cities, where there is ample employment, Davis said.

Lyneir Richardson, Rutgers-Newark CUEED Executive Director expressed, “Our intention in collaborating with ArtUp is to elevate creative people who operate in media, art and entertainment industries in Memphis. We aim to help creatives, (especially people of color) to become stronger entrepreneurs and property owners.”

The Memphis Business Hub for Creatives Program is modeled on the success of the Newark Business Hub, established by Rutgers Business School CUEED in 2016.

Says Richardson, “In Newark, creatives are participating in noteworthy business ventures. They are at the forefront of inclusive equitable economic growth initiatives and are working to own property. We expect the participants in the Memphis Hub program to do the same.”

Online disinformation is a complex problem that requires complex solutions to address it. However, a large portion of the current tools meant to combat disinformation are relatively simple and feature basic elements like “dislikes” or “likes”.

Our new tool, Proof, addresses this problem. Proof incorporates complex economic and financial methodologies to provide a platform where anyone can vote on the accuracy of online content. I founded Proof with Christopher Young, an assistant professor at Rutgers Business School. Proof uses a proprietary algorithm based on the principals of the ‘wisdom of crowds’ theory, contract theory, and the sharing economy to create an engaging, fair and scalable solution to fight disinformation.