The Management Brief
The Newsletter of the Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
June 2011
News
Prof. Shmuel Hauser – Chair of the Israel
Securities Authority
Prof. Shmuel Hauser was nominated by Dr. Yuval
Steinitz – Minister of Finance - as the next Chair of
the Israel Securities Authority.
Prof. Hauser is a full Professor at the Guilford
Glazer Faculty of Business and Management (the
Department of Business Administration) and is also
the Dean of Business Administration Faculty at the
Ono Academic College.
Dr. Ilanit Gavious - winner of the Toronto Prize
for Research Excellence of Young Researchers
Dr. Ilanit Gavious from the Department of
Business Administration won the Toronto Prize for
Research Excellence of Young Researchers.
Management of International Brands - workshop
Prof. Sanjay Ghose from the University of
Wisconsin will be giving a workshop in English on
Management of International Brands to MBA
students from the Department of Business
Administration. The dates of the workshop —
22-26/05/2011 .
A team from the Honors MBA (HMBA)
program, the Guilford Glazer Faculty of
Business and Management wins 1st place in the
2011 Sofaer International Case Competition at
Tel-Aviv University
Right to left: Eyal Shani, Jeremy
Seltzer, Itay Gil, Matt Rides
A team from the Honors MBA program, the
Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and
Management won the Sofaer International Case
Competition, which took place on May 19th at
Tel-Aviv University. The competition was
conducted this year for the first time in an
international format. 13 teams (four Israeli and nine
teams from excellent universities such as Columbia,
Cambridge, and UCLA) participated in the
competition.
The team, made up of four students from the Honors
MBA program – Matt Rides, Itay Gil, Jeremy
Seltzer, and Eyal Shani, presented a strategic
analysis and suggestions for action for the software
company Incredimail, whose main product enables
receiving and sending e-mails with advanced
graphic effects. Incredimail’s CEO was present at
the competition and showed great interest in the
ideas presented by the BGU team and other teams.
1st place award was divided between two teams: that
of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the
team representing Tel-Aviv University.
Mr. Arnie Bengis addressing Participants in Innovation 2011
Events
Innovation 2011 May 30th
The unique event that took place under the auspice
of the Bengis Center for Entrepreneurship and
High-Tech Management at the Guilford Glazer
Faculty of Business and Management, proved that
the Ben Gurion University of the Negev can
encourage entrepreneurship and innovation and
play an important role on the local and national
level.
The event was part of the University’s Board of
Governors 2011 events, with members of the
board, BGU president Prof. Rivka Carmi and
donor Mr. Arnie Bengis taking an active part in
it. The 1000 participants included some 200
entrepreneurs, 600 students, tens of faculty
members and researchers from BGU and other
academic institutes, representatives from local
municipalities in the area, representatives from
organizations supporting entrepreneurship and the
high-tech industry, representatives from large
leading companies (IBM, Intel, IAI, and others),
guests from abroad (Ms. Shelly K. Porges, Senior
Advisor/Franklin Fellow, Global Women's
Business Initiative, Office of Commercial and
Business Affairs, Bureau of Economic, Energy and
Business Affairs, USA; Mr. Paul Bloom – CTO
Telcom Research at IBM and others), teenagers
who are taking part in projects aimed at advancing
technology here at BGU and in the southern region
of Israel, and many others.
The event was organized and carried out according
to the unique concept of an ―un-conference‖ brought to Israel by Dr. Yossi Vardi (who was
also present at the event). In such events, the topics
are decided upon by the participants, who take an
active part in the preparing and the running of the
event. According to this concept, 100 of the 1000
participants took an active role in the event
(lectured, presented, or were in-charge of an issue
throughout the event). 44 lectures and short workshops given by researchers, entrepreneurs, CEO’s,
and others were held on innovation related topics.
Every 30 min. a new set of lectures (both in
English and in Hebrew) would begin and
participants could choose which to attend. In the
entrance to the Diane and Guilford Glazer
Building (15) tens of technological developments
were displayed, including robots, SUV’s,
choppers, water-recycling systems, applications,
security
systems,
sophisticated
cameras,
rehabilitation devices, and more. Some of the
exhibits were displayed for the first time and
participants were able to experience operating
them.
A special ―Facebook‖ page
was established for the event.
700 members were invited to
send tips to the entrepreneurs,
and on the basis of these tips a
booklet called ―Tips from the
social network to the entrepreneurs‖ was printed and
distributed between event
participants.
New Books
New book edited by Dr. Guy Ben-Porat From the Department of Public Policy and
Administration
This book provides an integrated analysis of the complex nature of citizenship in Israel. Contributions
from leading social and political theorists explore different aspects of citizenship through the demands
and struggles of minority groups to provide a comprehensive picture of the dynamics of Israeli
citizenship and the dilemmas that emerge at the collective and individual levels.
New book edited by Emeritus Professor David A. Frenkel from the Department of
Business Administration
This book offers a collection of essays which seek to shed light on several topical issues from the fields
of legal education, legal practice, and legal theory. In analysing the issues, the essays draw on a variety
of sources and schools of thought. They make use of insights stemming from jurisprudence, history,
sociology, and the ―law and literature‖ movement to develop innovative answers and offer new
interpretations of pending problems.
Research
A new research concludes - Despite warnings issued by the Israeli Counter-terrorism Bureau and
advertised in the media – the risk of terrorism is considered only 3rd as far as risk perception of
Israelis traveling to the Sinai.
First and foremost Israelis were found to be worried about their relations with their hosts. Concerns were
stated regarding hostile attitudes from local hosts – Egyptians or Bedouins. The second risk factor was
found to be regarding the standard and quality of hospitality in the Sinai – mainly as far as food quality,
sanitation and hygiene standards. Only as a 3rd concern was risk of terrorism listed, including the
concern for the ineffectiveness of the local security forces in dealing with such a threat. In addition,
research subjects expressed concerns about visiting popular destinations and sites, and the effects of the
use of drugs on physical and mental well-being as well as legal aspects.
The researchers – Prof. Natan Uriely, Prof. Arie Reichel, and Dr. Galia Fuchs from the Department
of Hotel and Tourism management at the Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management together
with Dr. Daria Maoz from the Center for Academic Studies studied Israeli tourists crossing the border
into the Sinai despite warnings issued by the Israeli Counter-terrorism Bureau and advertised in the
media. Researchers were Interested to know how tourists were willing to spend a vacation in an area
declared as dangerous. Research was focused on the perception of destination risk by the tourists and in
the manner in which they deal with the fear from terrorism.
“Justice is what the judge had for breakfast” (based on an article from “The Economist”)
Prof. Shai Danziger of the Department of Management, together with Prof. Jonathan Levav of
Columbia University lately concluded a research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences that describes how Israeli judges over ten months ruled on over 1,000 applications made by
prisoners to parole boards. The plaintiffs were asking either to be allowed out on parole or to have the
conditions of their incarceration changed. The team found that at the start of the day, the judges granted
around two-thirds of the applications before them. As the hours passed, that number fell sharply,
eventually reaching zero. But clemency returned after each of two daily breaks, during which the judges
retired for food. The approval rate shot back up to near its original value, before falling again as the day
wore on.
After controlling for recidivism and rehabilitation programmers, the meal-related pattern remained. The
researchers offer two hypotheses for this rise in grumpiness. One is that blood-sugar level is the crucial
variable. This, though, predicts that the precise amount of time since the judge last ate will be what
matters. In fact, it is the number of cases he has heard since his last break, not the number of hours he has
been sitting, which best matches the data. That is consistent with a second theory, familiar from other
studies, that decision making is mentally taxing and that, if forced to keep deciding things, people get
tired and start looking for easy answers. In this case, the easy answer is to maintain the status quo by
denying the prisoner’s request.
Go Green! Should Environmental Messages Be So Assertive?
Environmental communications often contain assertive commands (e.g., Greenpeace’s ―Stop the
Catastrophe‖, Plant-For-The-Planet’s ―Stop Talking and Start Planting‖ or Denver Water Campaign’s
―Use only what you need‖), even though prior research has repeatedly shown that gentler phrasing should
be more effective when seeking consumer compliance. A research lately accepted for publication in the
Journal of Marketing shows that the persuasiveness of assertive language depends on the perceived
importance of the issue at hand: recipients respond better to pushy requests in domains that they view as
important, but they need more suggestive appeals when they lack initial conviction. The research shows
this effect in three laboratory studies and one field experiment using Google Adwords. The findings of the
authors – Ann Kronrod from Sloan School of Management at MIT, Amir Grinstein from the
Department of Management at the Faculty, and Luc Wathieu from McDonough School of Business at
Georgetown refer to various environmental contexts (i.e., economizing water, recycling plastic containers,
reducing air and sea pollution). The key implication of the findings is that issue importance needs to be
carefully assessed (or affected) before the language of effective environmental campaigns can be selected.