The Practitioner Scholar

On April 9^th and 10^th the Weatherhead Doctor of Management program hosted an Alumni Weekend and videos of the presentations from that event are now available on the following YouTube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=E833EB249DF928D9

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In a recent paper published by Venture Capital,  Dr. Schwarzkopf and his co-authors study draw upon the notion of "transaction costs" from economic theory and describe how entrepreneurs in residence reduce transaction costs associated with seed investment for VC organizations.  They do this in a number of ways, including by attracting high quality opportunities, reducing deal selection costs, and reducing contracting costs.

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Zara Larsen (DM 2007) is all about change... Her research, consulting practice, and Tucson radio program all focus on issues around leading change... The radio program, ""Circles of Change: Where Your Path Is Created by Walking on It," is in its third season.

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Rob Hilton (DM 2005) was one of thirty thought leaders invited to Washington D.C. in May in an effort to tackle the tough problem of how to best care for low-income seniors over the long term... he was invited to this exclusive summit primarily because of some pioneering research his organization originated and supported on the topic.  According to Dr. Hilton, it was the DM program that opened his eyes to the power of such research as a guide to practice, and inspired him to invest in the research project. 

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Academics have long extolled the virtues of value-based pricing, but practitioners continue to focus primarily on cost or competition based practices... Liozu indicates that the adoption of value-based pricing is not as straightforward in practice as one might think...  Value-related issues are "difficult to define, conceptualize and measure" and the adoption of value-based pricing requires more than just a simple decision on the part of a manger, but often "requires an organizational transformation." 

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Dr. Mandato was asked to deliver the prestigious Case-Coulter Distinguished Lecture ... and in this lecture he spelled out his thought process for determining whether a startup represents a good investment opportunity for his firm.  In this lecture he described how he analyzes key elements of a potential investment, including the business opportunity, management team,  market, intellectual property, regulatory factors, ROI, and the deal itself. 

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According to Dr. Sloane, the Weatherhead DM program helped sharpen the analytical skills that help him deal with complex problems.  He indicated that the program "made a fundamental change on my way of thinking - the applied research; the way you look at data; the way you analyze data is different..."

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Todd Creasy (DM 2007) and Mike Stull (DM 2005) ... in an article that was recently published in the Journal of General Management... "Management should make certain that decisions are fair and equitable to all parties, communicated overtly and honestly and are open to questions." According to their findings, procedural justice directly encourages corporate citizenship, and also encourages employees to identify with the newly merged organization.

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In simple terms,  even with a bachelors and two masters degrees under my belt, the availability of scholarly knowledge and theory that was made available to me was several orders of magnitude beyond anything I had previously experienced... not only have I developed the basic skills to create scholarly work, but more importantly, the ability to discern good scholarly work from bad and to confidently challenge works deemed inferior.

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The DM program is a source of important research. As most scholars know, research in a field builds when a series of studies develop new insights about a theme.... Supporting, encouraging, and at times provoking each other, the DMs are building a literature that makes scholarly contributions AND has practical significance to leadership and organizational effectiveness.  We do it by getting folks to help each other and participate in study groups.

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