Business Commons^™

New Hire Training For Development Employees, Frances Pickles

Instructional Design Capstones Collection

Children’s Cancer Charity employs development staff members in field offices across the country. These new hires require a specialized training for their role within the organization. The existing new hire training consists of a sales training and a week-long training held quarterly at the Executive Office. The current training lacks a foundational understanding of the various fundraising programs that exist at CCC and the training on the soft skills required to be successful in a development role. Two training series were designed to meet the needs of development new hires: Fundraising Program Training and Business Skills Training. The program training …

A Closed Mouth Gonna Get You Nothin’: How Conflict Is Handled After Diversity And Inclusion Training, Enrico E. Manalo

Graduate Masters Theses

Diversity and Inclusion training is often used in organizations to engage with the increasing demographic diversity in the United States. However, many organizations continue to base their trainings and initiatives on a paradigm which was primarily motivated to prevent litigation, rather than to ensure economic opportunity for all. Over time, such Diversity efforts failed in many documented instances to ensure such opportunities and in fact, created a host of unwanted side-effects, such as employee turnover, job dissatisfaction, and misconceptions regarding the soundness of Diversity and Inclusion efforts.

However, a number of organizations have undertaken Diversity and Inclusion efforts in earnest. …

Managing Social Business Hybrids In Global Contexts: The Case Of Impact Sourcing Service Providers, Chacko George Kannothra

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three related essays that seek to understand the core contingencies and strategies of managing social-business hybrids (SBHs) in global contexts. SBHs are also known as hybrid organizations that run commercial operations with the goal of addressing a social (or environmental) problem. I focus on the empirical case of Impact Sourcing Service Providers (ISSPs) which are SBHs that operate in the global business services industry. These organizations hire and train staff from disadvantaged communities to provide services to regional and international business clients. The first essay contributes to the growing interest in how hybrid organizations manage paradoxical …

A Critical Perspective To Managing Generational Diversity In The Workspace In East Asia, Debra Moh Yunni

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

The paper takes a look at the cultural themes that influence behavior and decision-making processes in East Asia, highlighting dimensions of hierarchy, collectivism and saving face. The social constructs that are shaped by these dimensions cultivate an organizational culture that is top-down and group-oriented. To delve into a more meaningful understanding of the generational conflict in East Asia, an analysis of generational theory and the changing work environment provides an insight into the widening generational gap and the domains of tension experienced by those sharing a multi-generational workspace. The author suggests that managing generational diversity has its roots in fostering …

Collaborative Leadership In Action, Maureen Scully, Catherine R. Bates

Center for Collaborative Leadership Publications

The 46 fellows in the 2018 cohort of the UMass Boston Emerging Leaders Program worked with seven community partners on projects of strategic importance to these nonprofit and government organizations. The fellows contribute their professional skills and discover collaborative leadership through practice. The theme of our public symposium is “Collaborative Leadership in Action.” The fellows shared their insights about what collaborative leadership involves – its challenges and benefits – and what they take back to their workplaces.

Money And Morality: Pathways Toward A Civic Stewardship Ethic (2012), Marcy Murninghan

New England Journal of Public Policy

Based on a plenary presentation made at the Ninth Harvard University Forum on Islamic Finance, held at Harvard Law School in 2010, less than two years after the 2008 financial crisis, this article argues for the restoration of ethical values and civic commitments in capitalism and economic enterprise, drawing on traditional religious, theological, and philosophical principles regarding the civic moral obligations associated with building and managing wealth. The article is divided into three main parts. It begins with an overview of reform measures emanating from the financial debacle, including the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and an …

Corporate Civic Responsibility And The Ownership Agenda: Investing In The Public Good (1994), Marcy Murninghan

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article seeks to provoke broader public discussion about ways in which human and ecologic dignity, prosperity, and the civic ideal can be advanced through a revitalized and principled ownership agenda that features greater levels of corporate accountability and civic virtue. It draws from portions of what then was called an “Occasional Paper,” part of a series emanating from the early days of the University of Massachusetts Boston’s McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies. Written in 1994, it introduces a new paradigm for corporate governance called the “corporate covenant,” which casts ownership within the framework of citizenship. These …

The Accountability Web: Weaving Corporate Accountability And Interactive Technology (2010), Marcy Murninghan, Bill Baue

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article is a synopsis of and set of recommendations emerging from a research project commissioned in 2009 and culminating in a working paper published in May 2010 by the Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative of the Mossavar–Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. The project was undertaken in the early days of social media and online interaction. Authors Bill Baue and Marcy Murninghan were designated as research fellows to take an in-depth look at implications produced by the interface between newly emerging interactive technology—at that time called “Web 2.0”—and corporate accountability. The …

Equity Culture And Decent Work: The Case Of Amazon (2017), Marcy Murninghan

New England Journal of Public Policy

Every year, publicly traded companies hold annual meetings at which management presents a summary of the year’s accomplishments and shareholders vote on a slate of ballot issues, referred to as “proxy resolutions,” that are placed there by either management or shareholders. As in public life, in theory this form of corporate governance relies on a division of authority and checks and balances among shareholders, the board of directors, and company management. In theory, shareholders function much like registered voters, boards serve as their elected representatives, and management operates much like the executive branch to carry out the mandates accorded to …

Trusting Harvard: The Cost Of Unprincipled Investing (2014), Marcy Murninghan, Robert A.G. Monks

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article provides a framework for answering two questions: How can Harvard fulfill its fiduciary obligation as an investor in ways that advance its beliefs, values, and commitments? How can Harvard take the lead in creating a curriculum for students, professionals, and the general public about the civic moral obligations of wealth? While aimed at Harvard, the issues covered are relevant to other universities and tax-exempt institutional investors, because they have a special duty to advance the public interest. Commissioned and co-authored by the noted corporate governance and responsible ownership guru Robert A. G. Monks, it calls on Harvard to …

Introduction, Marcy Murninghan

New England Journal of Public Policy

America faces a reckoning, a crucible of what Reinhold Niebuhr observed more than eighty years ago. Our democratic principles and traditions are imperiled by the power of financial oligarchs and unfettered money flows, which have contributed to massive inequality that, in turn, has given rise to political unrest and a sense of cultural unmooring.

The articles presented here are both descriptive and normative, setting forth a complex social problem with seemingly bottomless proportions and then offering a design or set of remedial actions to alleviate them. Drawing on my professional experience going back to the mid-1970s, I wrote these pieces …

Improving Impact: Collaborative Multi-Party, Multi-Sector Engagement (2011), Marcy Murninghan

New England Journal of Public Policy

Most people do not realize the full implications of the fact that we live now in an era marked more by networks than hierarchies. Nowadays, power is distributed across boundaries and borders, rather than concentrated in one place—be it a physical setting, demographic group, industrial sector, or professional discipline. Thanks to systems thinking and the ubiquity of digital tools and platforms, there are many more opportunities for lawmakers, policymakers, and economic institutions to collaborate with concerned citizens on critical public issues, thereby breaking the grip of lobbyists, third-party intermediaries, and the power elite. On top of that are recent breakthroughs …

A Framework For Good Ownership And Good Governance (1999), Marcy Murninghan

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article encapsulates a more extensive analysis that was commissioned by The Boston Foundation’s board of trustees in December 1998 to investigate its investment practices and identify ways in which its asset management decisions might be brought into fuller alignment with its charitable purpose—without conceding earnings or undermining its philanthropic fiduciary responsibility. The undertaking was spurred by the leadership of Robert A. Glassman, co-founder and co-chair of Wainwright Bank and a trustee of The Boston Foundation (TBF) since 1985, who took the reins from David Rockefeller Jr. in 1995 as chair of TBF’s investment committee. The research project built on …

The Ambivalent Effect Of Complexity On Firm Performance: A Study In The Global Service Provider Industry, Marcus M. Larsen, Stephan Manning, Torben Pedersen

Management and Marketing Faculty Publication Series

Prior literature is ambivalent about whether organizational complexity has positive or negative effects on firm performance. Using rich data on global service providers, we explore this ambivalence by disentangling performance consequences of different types of organizational complexity. We show that complexity arising from the coordination of different services and operations negatively influences profit margins through increased coordination costs, whereas complexity coming from the sophistication of particular services may positively influence margins through informational advantages. We also investigate the moderating effects of process commoditization and client-specific investments. Our findings point to critical performance dilemmas facing global service providers in a highly …