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UC Davis Graduate School of Management

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UC Davis Graduate School of Management 1 Shields Ave
Davis, CA, 95616
United States
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Demographic Information

Number of full-time MBA students (2011): 

60

Number of part-time MBA students (2011): 

120

Total duration of full-time MBA program: 

21 months

MBA faculty (Fall 2010): 

62

Females as percent of student body: 

38%
Who Are the Students? See what percentage of the 2010-2011 graduating class came to this MBA program from the private sector, the non-profit sector and government jobs
 
Private Sector (84%)
 
Non-profit (14%)
 
Government (2%)


Description of MBA Program: 

Giving back to the community – creating positive social change, both locally and globally – is woven into the culture of the UC Davis Graduate School of Management.  The MBA  curriculum, which teaches students to transform “Ideas into Action,” and activities such as Net Impact, MBA Challenge for Charity, and the Community Consulting, are fostering a new generation of business leaders dedicated to community involvement, social responsibility and making a difference.  Founded in 1999, the Net Impact chapter is one of the most active in the country and has been honored by Net Impact with several awards since its founding.



Faculty at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management are committed to providing students with a solid foundation of environmental and social responsibility in an MBA program that emphasizes innovation, collaboration and excellence.  They are world-class teachers and researchers who received their doctoral training at some of the most esteemed schools in the country including: Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, the University of Chicago, UC Berkeley and Northwestern.  Many have received prestigious honors, such as Professor Brad Barber who was awarded the 2006 Moskowitz Prize for his research in the field of socially responsible investing, and Dean Nicole Biggart, who was awarded the 2008 Aspen Institute’s Faculty Pioneer Award for Institutional Impact.



The UC Davis Graduate School of Management has established three centers that are devoted to research and activities that have a powerful impact on the business world.  These centers leverage our faculty’s research and expertise, enrich the curriculum and learning environment for the students and connect the school more directly with corporations and practicing managers.  For example, the Center for Entrepreneurship promotes entrepreneurship at UC Davis and within the surrounding region by bringing together business, science and engineering students – who often develop socially responsible solutions to pressing societal challenges. Whether for profit or social benefit -or both - this Center enables students to envision a better world and make it a reality.  The Center for Investor Welfare and Corporate Responsibility promotes research, pedagogy and outreach that improves investor welfare and/or corporate responsibility.



In 2011, UC Davis launched a new MBA curriculum.  The centerpiece of this bold initiative, the IMPACT (Integrated Management Project, Articulation, and Critical Thinking), integrates what students learn in the functional core courses and in broader management themes including globalization, business ethics and sustainability.  Elective courses emphasize social, ethical and environmental issues and focus on real-world application of management principles through the use of executive guest speakers who present “live” case study analyses, and actual "client" businesses for student projects. Many courses require team projects and emphasize managing by innovation and entrepreneurship.



The Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Davis, is consistently ranked among the world's top business schools and successfully prepares MBAs for social and environmental stewardship.



How does the MBA program 'walk the talk' of social and environmental impact?: 

The UC Davis Graduate School of Management has focused on strengthening and broadening our core programs that incorporate sustainable/responsible practices in many areas, including:  moving into LEED-certified Gallagher Hall, launching a comprehensive waste-reduction, recycling and composting program, and establishing a zero-waste goal for all events.


Our Center for Entrepreneurship completed its 13th Entrepreneurship Academy with over 500 graduates from 65 universities, 25 states and 10 countries.  The goals are to bring responsible science out of the lab and in to the world in areas that matter.  This includes, energy, water, agriculture, food, nutrition, health, wellness, medicine, and transportation.


The GSM doubled the opportunities for students to learn first-hand the responsible international business through the International Study Trip program.  Through this quarter-long class, followed by a two-week intensive trip, students learn the meaning of doing responsible and sustainable international business as well as an understanding of how multinational, national and state businesses execute on their own strategies.  


The UC Davis Graduate School of Management with the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and Executives published the fifth annual "UC Davis Study of California Women Business Leaders: A Census of Women Directors and Executive Officers.”  This landmark study examines the representation of women on the boards and in the executive suites of California’s largest publicly traded companies.


The School implemented several student-driven programs:  a student initiated ethics pledge; a values-based leadership lecture and workshop series; a nonprofit fellowship fund; the Sacramento Mayoral Fellows program where MBA students address issues related to the Sacramento community; student- led Community Consulting Group projects.


Davis Net Impact delivered a number of programs focused on improving awareness including:

  • Local & Organic Foods:  Students learned about local agriculture.
  • Using Sustainable Design to Engage Consumers and Reduce Consumption:  Students discussed the research and design principles that Preserve employs to influence consumer behavior and reduce consumption.
  • Sustainable and Smart Development: Students discussed urban sprawl versus infill, the history of suburbs and the future of design and culture. This will be followed by a field trip to Sacramento for a guided tour of a poorly designed neighborhood and a well-designed neighborhood.


Big Bang! is the annual UC Davis Business Plan Competition. The goal is to promote responsible and sustainable entrepreneurship at UC Davis and the region.  Big Bang! provides a year round forum in which UC Davis students, alumni, staff and faculty can collaborate to develop and test their business vision and plans. The competition provides a network of resources for mentorship, team creation, education, networking and financing for these aspiring entrepreneurs. For 2010, the winners are:

  • Inserogen: Innovative plant-based technology for animal and human vaccine production that provides improved vaccines available for all peoples.
  • Nomad:  Nanotech to boost hard drive capacity by 800% save energy/resources.
  • Pedianostics:  New paradigm for diagnostic tests for infant disease that currently kills over 15,000 children per year in the US.

Academic Department

Course Name: Budgets, Controls and Ethics
Instructor: Jerome Suran

Professional organizations, such as engineering departments, medical centers, law offices and consulting groups, whether in the private or public sectors, are increasingly regarded as businesses subject to the same budgetary and productivity disciplines as non-service business. This course deals with budget allocation, performance control-to-budget and ethical issues in the managment of professional operations.

Topics addressed include control of budgetary performance in the face of market uncertainty; ethical issues in the process of allocating resources adn the pricing of services; workplace issures such as privacy, safety, downsizing, outsourcing, conflicts of interest; ethical dilemmas in introducing innovative products and services; productivity and quality measures; ethical problems in international business.

Course Name: Business Context
Instructor: Hemant Bhargava, Jerome Suran, Michael Maher, Wil Agatstein

Business Context introduces MBA students to business organizations from a global perspective, with the goal of developing an understanding of the complete context within which businesses operate. You gain experience with an integrated framework that addresses the international and macro-economic business environment as well as strategic concerns and the identification of market opportunities. You are also introduced to the theory and practice of leadership, teamwork, and communication. The study of business ethics forms a prominent component of this course.

Course Name: Business Development Clinic - Part 1 / Part 2
Instructor: Andrew Hargadon, Wilton Agatstein

Our program addresses the role of ethics and morals in discussions of how entrepreneurs and investors alike represent an ongoing network in which reputation and integrity form the basis of long-term career opportunities. In relation to environmental issues, we focus particularly and directly on our Green Technology Entrepreneurship Academy as well as our upcoming Food and Health Entrpreneurship Academy. Respectively, these academies are focused on enabling science and engineering researchers to more effectively commercialize their research. This material does not appear in the syllabus but rather permeates the lectures, as the course focuses on building new ventures within a framework of investors, employees, customers and suppliers. The strong focus on networks throughout the class reinforces the lesson that reputation and integrity matter.

Course Name: Business Intelligence Technologies - Data Mining
Instructor: Yinghui (Catherine) Yang

This course briefly touched upon data privacy issues which falls into the ethical category.

Course Name: Business Intelligence Technologies - Data Mining Practicum
Instructor: Yinghui (Catherine) Yang

This course briefly touched upon data privacy issues which falls into the ethical category.

Course Name: Business Taxation
Instructor: Robert Yetman

The concepts of ethical tax behavior is interlaced throughout the entire course. We cover 10 cases involving tax avoidance schemes, some of which are clearly morally defensible, other completely immoral, and several on the cusp. The central idea is to instill in a student the ability to identify a tax planning scheme that is over the line, and how to avoid crossing that line while still minimizing tax payments. I also cover the broader issue of “tax fairness”, or the theory of tax equity and efficiency. We cover the basics of what the effects of different types of taxes are, and why they are equitable or not. The words “ethics” or “morals” are not used in my syllabus, but the cases are so listed.

Course Name: Business Taxation Practicum
Instructor: Robert Yetman

The concepts of ethical tax behavior is interlaced throughout the entire course. We cover 10 cases involving tax avoidance schemes, some of which are clearly morally defensible, other completely immoral, and several on the cusp. The central idea is to instill in a student the ability to identify a tax planning scheme that is over the line, and how to avoid crossing that line while still minimizing tax payments. I also cover the broader issue of “tax fairness”, or the theory of tax equity and efficiency. We cover the basics of what the effects of different types of taxes are, and why they are equitable or not. The words “ethics” or “morals” are not used in my syllabus, but the cases are so listed.

Course Name: Consulting Center
Instructor: Richard Dorf

The UC Davis Consulting Center gives teams of our students practical, hands-on experience completing strategic projects in partnership with our client organization's management. Our MBA student consultants work with field study advisors to address critical management problems for business, government and not-for-profit clients. These projects benefit organizations and give students an opportunity to apply their knowledge and skills to real challenges while earning credit toward their degree. In 2009-2010 and in 2010-2011 four projects were devoted to environmental, social or ethical topics.

Course Name: Corporate Financial Reporting
Instructor: Paul Griffin

Accounting and disclosure choices raise serious conflicts of interest, especially, between managers and shareholders. At the extreme, these conflicts can lead to civil and criminal acts. This course examines, in part, how and why managers make good and bad accouning choices, and offers guidance for investors and regulators on means of detecting bad accounting and disclosure policies. This course also examines company social responsibility and environmental accounting. Additional accounting and disclosure rules were mandated by the Sarbenes-Oxley Act of 2002.

Course Name: Corporate Social Responsibility
Instructor: Joseph DiNunzio

The goal is to develop a thought process and approach to CSR that students will be able to build on during their post-school leadership roles, whether as corporate executives, entrepreneurs, or NGO leaders. The class will expose students to a broad set of CSR issues in the context of cross-functional business challenges, and then focus on the analysis and critical decisions that managers must make to move their business and their social agenda forward. Via the case studies that we explore and the guest speakers that we interact with, we will assess CSR efforts across a wide variety of business situations and through a diverse set of points of view. Students will also lead their own field study of a local / regional company, where they will have the opportunity to observe and assess CSR initiatives in the “real world” of day-to-day business.

Pages

Type of Offering

Gallagher Hall Grand Opening Event
Type: Grand Opening / Networking Event
Date: October, 2009

The commitment to environmental responsibility is expected to establish Gallagher Hall as the first building on the UC Davis campus and the first business school in California to qualify for Gold standard certification by the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design (LEED) program.

DDSS: Leading Organizational Change (Kevin Johnson & Michelle Rhee)
Date: February, 2011

The Graduate School of Management hosts high-level executives and business leaders from socially responsible companies to campus for special speaking engagements. These speakers share their experiences- their ups, downs, struggles and successes. Students participate in question-and-answer sessions as well as one-on-one conversations.

Economic and Regulatory Realities of Greenhouse Gas Reduction
Type: Panel Discussion
Date: April, 2010

An informative panel discussion on greenhouse gas reduction strategies, with a focus on economic, political and practical issues raised by different regulatory and policy approaches to emissions control. A panel of experts will weigh in and dicuss many questions including, can we achieve meaningful reductions at a reasonable cost in the U.S. or the rest of the world? What are the costs and benefits of policies designed to reduce emissions?

Health Care Reform Panel
Type: Panel Discussion / Networking Event
Date: November, 2009

UC Davis Management Professor Brad Barber moderated a panel of business executives involved in the health care and insurance industries as they discuss the economic issues underlying federal health care reform.

Women in Leadership (WiL) Women in the Engergy Industry: PG & E Panel
Type: Networking Event
Date: May, 2010

The UC Davis Women in Leadership (WiL) club hosted a panel discussion where the experiences of female professionals at PG&E were discussed. Students were given the opportunity to learn more about the Energy & Utilities sector and the direction its taking and network with PG&E female professionals.

DDSS: The Broader Middle East and the Global Economy (Ambassador Edward Djerejian)
Date: June, 2010

The Graduate School of Management hosts high-level executives and business leaders from socially responsible companies to campus for special speaking engagements. These speakers share their experiences- their ups, downs, struggles and successes. Students participate in question-and-answer sessions as well as one-on-one conversations.

Ambassador Djerejian, is one of the United States’ most distinguished diplomats and a leading expert on the complex political, security, economic, religious and ethnic issues of the Middle East - offers insight on the Middle East's economic role on the global stage.

Annual Ethics Pledge Ceremony
Type: Ceremony/Event
Date: September, 2009

In 2009 a group of MBA students initiated the UC Davis MBA Ethics pledge. This ceremony focuses on integrity in business and community involvement.

Pledging Honesty and Integrity: Believing that integrity is a cornerstone of leadership, students begin their MBA experience with an ethics pledge to “complete my degree with honesty and integrity” and to “hold myself and my classmates to the highest standards of honor from this day forward.” Every Daytime MBA student voluntarily signed the student-initiated declaration.

Governors' Global Climate Summit 3
Date: November, 2010

More than 1,200 delegates attended the Governors’ Global Climate Summit 3. Highlighting how UC Davis, and all nine of the other UC campuses, are deeply committed to clean energy and environmental sustainability. This event showcased speakers, ideas, innovations, and issues related to the increasing need to address environmental and climate effects.

DDSS: Predicting the Present with Google
Date: December, 2010

The Graduate School of Management hosts high-level executives and business leaders from socially responsible companies to campus for special speaking engagements. These speakers share their experiences- their ups, downs, struggles and successes. Students participate in question-and-answer sessions as well as one-on-one conversations.

UC Davis MBA students eat CSR for Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Type: Networking Event
Date: November, 2010

Informal discussions on issues related to Corporate Social Responsibility, sustainability and ethics in business.

DDSS: National Security and Altenative Energy
Date: January, 2010

The Graduate School of Management hosts high-level executives and business leaders from socially responsible companies to campus for special speaking engagements. These speakers share their experiences- their ups, downs, struggles and successes. Students participate in question-and-answer sessions as well as one-on-one conversations.

Co-hosted by UC Davis Energy Institute. This brown bag talk featured former CIA director turned-clean tech venture capitialist R. James Woolsey. A foreign policy specialist concerned with renewable energy and energy security.

Road to Recovery: Finance Reform and New Economic Realities
Type: Panel Discussion / Networking Event
Date: March, 2010

UC Davis GSM Professor Brad Barber moderates this session to shed some light on the issue of regulatory reform in U.S. financial markets. The discussion examines financial regulation in the context of the financial crisis, explain the major players and forces, and discuss possible means to address current policy shortcomings. A panel of leading investment, regulatory and academic experts offered their insights and perspectives on the trends emerging in this new landscape.

E3: Economic Prosperity, Energy and the Environment
Date: May, 2010

UC Davis is taking a leadership role in spurring the innovations, ideas and dialogue that are needed to help create a clean energy future for Northern California — and beyond.

This event draws together leaders in business, education, government and the non-profit sector. Together, we address questions regarding how we can harness technology to create greater prosperity and improve the environment.

Annual NorCal Net Impact Social (Bay Area Net Impact Chapter)
Type: Networking Events
Date: November, 2010

This social draws sustainability-minded MBA's from throughout Northern California. Participants share advances and challenges from their own schools and enjoy an informal evening of networking.

New Student Net Impact Weekend Retreat
Type: Retreat
Date: September, 2011

The mission of Net Impact is to foster a new generation of leaders who use the power of business to create a better world; pushing for positive change in the corporate and not-for-profit world. The GSM chapter of Net Impact has a yearly weekend retreat of fun and relaxation while sharing the charter of the Net Impact team and welcoming their newest classmates as members of the Graduate School of Management.

DDSS: Sustaining Inspiration: The Challenges & Opportunities of Running a Privately Held, Employee Owned, Socially Responsible Business
Date: October, 2010

The Graduate School of Management hosts high-level executives and business leaders from socially responsible companies to campus for special speaking engagements. These speakers share their experiences- their ups, downs, struggles and successes. Students participate in question-and-answer sessions as well as one-on-one conversations.

Speaker Kevin Cleary, President & Chief Operating Officer, Clif Bar & Company shares his company’s commitment to sustainability and corporate responsibility.

Energy Efficiency Center -Green Technology Entrepreneurship Academy (GTEA)
Date: June, 2010

The Green Technology Entrepreneurship Academy (GTEA) provides science and engineering senior undergraduates, graduate students, post-doctoral researchers and faculty with the knowledge and skills they need to move environmentally sustainable research out of the laboratory and into the world. The five-day intensive academy provides participants with focused lectures, practical exercises, and hands-on experiences designed to give them the knowledge, skills, and networks to explore how their research can make broader impact in industry, the marketplace, and the world.

Job Clubs

Job Clubs: These are student run clubs of career changers/job seekers who come together weekly or bi-weekly to discuss their career development.

Topics they discuss may include looking for jobs in Corporate Social Responsibility or ethical ways to conduct their job searches (not embellishing resumes, representing themselves accurately in networking and interviewing situations).

Job Search / Interviewing/ Resume Workshops

All workshops offered reflect and stress the core GSM cultural values of ethics and commitment to community, as they relate to the Career Development Continuum for each of our students. Topics include ethical ways to conduct their job search, not embellishing resumes, representing themselves accurately in networking and interviewing situations.

Shadow Day

Shadow Day: MBAs to experience firsthand the culture and typical workday at diverse organizations and expand their understanding of different industries and functions. Through this program, our students develop a clear understanding of the each firm’s commitment to ethical, sustainable and socially responsible business practices. Firms are selected based on their engagement in these areas.

Pages

Determinants of nonprofits’ taxable activities
Author(s): Michelle Yetman; R. Yetman

The topic of nonprofit commercialization has received increased attention from various groups including donors, regulators, and researchers. Perhaps the most commercial of all activities undertaken by nonprofits are those considered to be so far removed from an organization's exempt mission that the Internal Revenue Services (IRS) considers them to be taxable. Examination of these taxable activities can provide unique and valuable insights into the effects of purely commercial activities on nonprofit behavior. Nonprofits report their taxable activities on the confidential IRS 990-T. Although some information on taxable activities is reported on the publicly available IRS 990, unavailability of the IRS 990-T has prevented prior examination of its accuracy and reliability. Using a unique data set of otherwise confidential IRS 990-Ts, the authors calibrate the reliability of taxable activities as reported on the IRS 990, providing a roadmap for researchers to follow when examining nonprofits' taxable activities using publicly available data.

Journal Title: Journal of Accounting and Public Policy Volume: 28 Edition: 6 Page Numbers: 495-509
How passive "face time" affects perceptions of employees: Evidence of spontaneous trait inference
Author(s): Kimberly D. Elsbach; D.M Cable; J.S. Sherman

We examine how passive ‘face time’ (i.e. the amount of time one is passively observed, without interaction) affects how one is perceived at work. Findings from a qualitative study of professional office workers suggest that passive face time exists in two forms: 1) being seen at work during normal business hours — or expected face time, and 2) being seen at work outside of normal business hours — or extracurricular face time. These two forms of passive face time appear to lead observers to make trait inferences (i.e. they lead observers to perceive employees as either ‘dependable’ or ‘committed’, depending on the form of passive face time). Findings from an experimental study confirm our qualitative findings and suggest that trait inferences are made spontaneously (i.e. without intent or knowledge of doing so).We discuss the implications of our findings for theories of person perception and the practice of performance appraisal.

Journal Title: Human Relations Volume: 63 Edition: 6 Page Numbers: 735-760
The Effectiveness of Reputation as a Disciplinary Mechanism in Sell-Side Research
Author(s): Ayako Yasuda; L. Fang

We examine whether the quality differentials in earnings forecasts between reputable and nonreputable analysts vary with the severity of conflicts of interest. We measure personal reputation using the Institutional Investor All-American (AA) awards, and bank reputation using Carter-Manaster ranks. While both personal and bank reputation are associated with higher quality forecasts overall, their effectiveness against conflicts of interest differs. The severity of conflicts has a negative and significant effect on the performance of non-AAs at top-tier banks relative to other analysts, while it has a positive and significant effect on the performance of AAs at top-tier banks relative to others. Thus personal reputation is an effective disciplinary device against conflicts of interest, while bank reputation alone is not.

Journal Title: Review of Financial Studies Volume: Vol. 22 Edition: 9 Page Numbers: 3725-3777
The Impact of Service Operations Failures on Customer Satisfaction: Evidence on How Failures and Their Source Affect What Matters to Customers
Author(s): Shannon W. Anderson; H.C. Dekker

Research in consumer psychology shows that customers seek reasons for service failures and that attributions of blame moderate the effects of failure on the level of customer satisfaction. This paper extends research on service operations failures by hypothesizing that attributions of blame also affect what matters to the customer during service failures. Specifically, we hypothesize that the relative weights that customers assign to key service elements in reaching an overall assessment of customer satisfaction are affected by customer attributions of blame for service failures. We use the U.S. airline industry as a quasi-experimental research setting to investigate the components of customer satisfaction for three samples of customers who experience (1) routine service, (2) flight delays of external (i.e., weather) origin, and (3) flight delays of internal origin. Although the level of customer satisfaction is lower for all service failures, we find that the key components of satisfaction differ between delayed and routine flights only when customers blame the service provider for the failure. Specifically, when delays are of external origin satisfaction is lower than for routine flights, but there is virtually no difference in the weight that customers assign to the components of customer satisfaction (including employee interactions). In contrast, when delays are of internal origin, satisfaction is lower than for either routine flights or flights delayed by external factors, and employee interactions have a significantly diminished role in customer satisfaction evaluations. Contrary to the popular view that employee interactions take on a greater role in determining customer satisfaction during service failures, we find that the opposite is true if the customer attributes blame to the service provider. Our findings highlight the important role of customer attributions during service failures and present more nuanced evidence on the role of employee-customer interactions in mitigating the effects of service failures on customer satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Journal Title: Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Volume: 11 Edition: 1 Page Numbers: 52-69
Toward User Patterns for Online Security: Observation Time and Online User Identification
Author(s): Yiyang (Catherine) Yang; B. Padmanabhan

Research in biometrics suggests that the time period a specific trait is monitored over (i.e. observing speech or handwriting “long enough”) is useful for identification. Focusing on this aspect, this paper presents a data mining analysis of the effect of observation time period on user identification based on online user behavior. We show that online identification accuracies improve with pooling user data over sessions and present results that quantify the number of sessions needed to identify users at desired accuracy thresholds. We discuss potential applications of this for verification of online user identity, particularly as part of multi-factor authentication methods.

Journal Title: Decision Support Systems Volume: Vol. 48 Edition: 4 Page Numbers: 548-558