The MPA Distinguished Speaker Lyceum is one of the most important traditions in the MPA program. Last Tuesday we hosted Ms. Camille Stovall, a partner at Deloitte and the Chief Operating Officer of Deloitte Financial Advisory Services (FAS). The conversational interview between Ms. Stovall, Professor Steve Limberg, and my fellow MPA students ranged from how to approach difficult restructurings to the importance of analytics. The latter prompted Prof. Limberg to ask just how analytics are used in the real world.
Although this is probably no new thing, I’ve just begun to notice how my generation treats creativity as a romanticized notion. In my organizational behavior and strategic IT management class, my fellow classmates are always praising the creativity fostered by companies like Apple, Google, and Southwest Airlines.
The interesting thing about this is the business world tends to actually deter creativity. According to psychologist and Wharton management professor Jennifer Mueller, research shows that even as people explicitly aspire to creativity and strongly endorse it as a fundamental driving force of positive change, they routinely reject creative ideas and show an implicit bias against them under conditions of uncertainty. Subjects in Mueller’s study also exhibited a failure to see or acknowledge creativity, even when directly presented with it.
If you think about it, this observation makes perfect sense. One of the reasons the accounting major is extremely popular is because of the job-stability it provides, the low-risk nature of the job, and the fact it can be very compliance based. In the accounting industry, there are very adverse perceptions towards risk and creativity.
Now accounting and creativity are two words no one wants to hear together. With so many widely-publicized scandals of “creative accounting” leading to multi-million dollar frauds, there is no wonder why this is the case. However, I have come to discover this year that accounting is a relatively creative organization, despite this negative association with “creative accounting”. The strict legal and ethical bounds of accounting contribute to making creativity in accounting more challenging and more rewarding.
Before Facebook chat and text messaging, AIM was my technology-based communication of choice
Technology has always been something I have been really passionate about- hence, when I became an MPA, I kept MIS as my minor here at McCombs. I look at websites, read blogs, etc. and just love to hear the fascinating stories about how technology is shaping and improving the world we live in. However, something else very crucial to the changing world is communication. I am a strong believer in the importance of honest communication and believe that communicating, itself, also shapes and improves the world we live in.
That being said, I was intrigued when I came across a NYTimes article this morning that contrasts ‘communication’ with ‘connection,’ and discusses the role that technology has in the “sacrificing of communication.”
The article goes on to explain the notion of being “alone together.” In a world where we are attached to our smart phones and computers, we feel constantly connected to all of the people in our lives. Sherry Turkle, the author, goes on to explain how we expect more from technology and less from each other. We feel like, because we could send an email or text message at any time, we are all connected. Of course, this is important in a world that is getting smaller and I am not trying to downplay any of the amazing technologies that help business communication today. I just think it is important to remember that there is a difference in what you get out of a face-to-face conversation vs. one online or via email. Continue reading Sacrificed communication→
Last week, a group of MPA students, myself included, who are recruiting with one of the Big 4, had the opportunity to participate in an activity co-sponsored by TOMS shoes. For those of you who may not know the story behind TOMS, essentially they donate one pair of shoes to someone in need everytime a pair is purchased.
At the recruiting event, the donations were two-fold. First, because of the buy one-give one strategy at TOMS, one pair of shoes was donated to someone in need for every student attending the event. Second, we also donated our decorated TOMS to a local Austin charity.
The community service aspect of public accounting certainly increases my desire to work in the industry. All of the Big 4 have multiple ways of helping to serve and improve the community. Midcaps and regional firms definitely participate in community service as well- I am just focusing on the Big 4 for the sake of this blog.
Here are some of my favorite community service efforts by the Big 4:
Deloitte’s big community service event is called IMPACT day. On IMPACT day, Deloitte professionals across the country all set aside their work and work for a nonprofit in their community. Just to put this in perspective, there are OVER 50,000 Deloitte employees nationwide and almost all of them will participate in this special day- that’s a lot of community service!
The Economist published an article on April 9th concerning an idea of California college students that could possibly radically affect college students everywhere if it is taken into consideration by universities.
Students of the University of California propose that instead of charging tuition, they’d like universities to take 5% of their salary for the first twenty years following graduation.
This idea has some huge implications for higher education. An individual’s level and quality of education would no longer be determined by parental current income, but by a student’s future income, which would open more opportunities for them.
What particularly fascinates me about this article is the potential overhaul of universities’ organizational structure and culture. They would be the ones bearing the most risk under this proposal. With their income being contingent on their student’s job placement, universities have large incentives to become much more focused on placing their students in high paying career positions. Continue reading An interesting proposition for colleges:→
