2011 Volume 14 Issue 1

Editor’s Note

Editor’s Note

From Monetary Policy to Serendipity

Nancy Dodd, MPW, MFA

We are happy to present another great issue of the Graziadio Business Review. This issue features an interesting mix of articles written by Graziadio faculty authors and authors new to the GBR. The topics cover the need for a “consequence analysis” of the Federal Reserve’s decisions on business, family business succession, what you need to know about Trademark and Trade Dress Laws, better performance feedback, and serendipitous conversations that lead to new ideas. We’ve also included two great video interviews, as well as some insightful book reviews. And be sure to subscribe to the GBR Blog, which will be rolling out podcast interviews with each of the authors on their research.

A Look Inside This Issue

In “A Consequence Analysis that Needs to be Shared,” Darrol J. Stanley, DBA and Donald M. Atwater, PhD share their concerns about the downside of the Federal Reserve’s proposed actions regarding exchange rates. Dr. Stanley is a professor of finance and Dr. Atwater is a practitioner faculty of economics, both at the Graziadio School.

Family Business Succession” is a topic many business owners struggle with. Otis W. Baskin, PhD and Roger L. Neu, JD discuss factors that need consideration in creating a plan for succession.  Dr. Baskin has 19 years of global experience in this topic and is a professor of management in the Graziadio School. Roger Neu has 30 years of experience in implementing successful business transitions.

The Quest for Distinctiveness in Trademark and Trade Dress Law” is the first in a series of three articles on branding your name and your product, written by David Scalise, JD, Alexa Koenig, JD, MBA and Brandon Carr. Scalise is a tenured full professor at the University of San Francisco; Koenig is a civil and human rights attorney and a PhD candidate in jurisprudence and social policy at the University of California, Berkeley; and Carr is a third-year law student at UC Hastings College of the Law, a member of the Board of Editors of the Hastings Law Journal and currently serves as the senior development editor.

Effective communication is the heart of every business and good employee feedback is essential, albeit sometimes frightening. “The ABC’s of Effective Feedback” by  Steven M. Sommer, PhD and Edward H. Rockey, PhD addresses how to approach these meetings and address issues both positive and negative. Dr. Sommer is currently a professor of management and Dr. Rockey teaches “Behavior in Organizations” and “Creativity and Innovation for Leadership,” both at the Graziadio School of Business and Management.

Where do new ideas come from? How do people share information in ways to expand what they know? In his article “Self-Organizing Conversation as an Invitation to Serendipity,” Stephen R. Axley, PhD gives ways to create serendipitous moments that add value to an organization. Dr. Axley is a professor of management in the College of Business and Technology at Western Illinois University.

Live from the GBR Studio…

Theodore Roosevelt Malloch, PhD, is a prolific author, chairman and CEO of The Roosevelt Group, and research professor at Yale University. In the video interview “Spiritual Capital and Virtuous Business Leadership,” Malloch is interviewed by Samuel Seaman, PhD, a professor in Decision Sciences at the Graziadio School.

Harvey Koeppel, executive director of the Center for CIO Leadership, shares his thoughts on “The Role of the CIO” with Charla Griffy-Brown, PhD, associate professor of information systems at the Graziadio School.

We also have several great book reviews included in this issue. Check out the reviews on What I Didn’t Learn in Business School; The Future of Finance: The LSE Report; Who’s Your Gladys? How to Turn even the Most Difficult Customer into your Biggest Fan; Analytics at Work: Smarter Decisions, Better Results, and Technical Analysis: The Complete Resource for Financial Market Technicians, Second Edition.

Don’t have time to read the articles? Each offers an audio version, which you can download from the media player located at the top of each article. Upload them to your iPod and listen on the go!

We hope you will enjoy the articles as well as our new presentation.  Please feel free to contact us with your comments or leave comments for the authors on the pages of their articles.

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Author of the article
Nancy Ellen Dodd, MPW, MFA
Nancy Ellen Dodd, MPW, MFA, serves as academic editor of the “Graziadio Business Review and teaches presentations and stories at the Graziadio School.” Her book on creative writing, “The Writer’s Compass: From Story Map to Finished Draft in 7 Stages,” was published by Writer’s Digest Books in June 2011. She also served as editor of Marshall, a USC academic/alumni magazine, and started the Marshall Review, an online journal for the Marshall School of Business at USC. More than 135 of her articles have been published in local and national publications. Dodd received her master’s in Professional Writing from USC with a concentration in screenwriting and an MFA in playwriting at the USC School of Theatre. Ms. Dodd also teaches screenwriting as an adjunct faculty in Seaver College at Pepperdine University. She is currently working on her PhD dissertation in Global Leadership and Change.
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