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Moneymaker or not? It sounds too good to be true: you pay your workers a living wage, avoid pollution, and treat developing nations fairly. And though these tactics will cost you money, you’ll still improve profit as workers, investors, and shoppers reward your social responsibility. Yes, it is too good to be true, says business professor […]
California’s wine industry proclaims it’s leading the way toward sustainability. But are winemakers going green—or dry—enough to make a difference? California winemaking is big, big business. Two out of three bottles consumed in the U.S. are California wines. Those 196 million cases had retail sales of $18.5 billion in 2008; close to another $1 billion’s worth […]
A Cal thespian goes to the Big Show. Jean Afterman ’79 defines herself professionally as an attorney. That she is the vice president and assistant general manager of the New York Yankees comes next. Being one of only three women holding front office executive positions in Major League Baseball is also part of the deal. Nine […]
The forecast for newspapers may be grim, but J-schools look to a brighter future. As each week brings new reports of layoffs, buyouts, and bankruptcies across the print spectrum, the only thing clear is that an era in American journalism is ending. Graduate journalism programs, charged with training the next generation of professionals for a vocation […]
When employers interview new applicants, they’re looking for people who are honest, reliable, and responsible. Running criminal background checks is one way to screen applicants, but critics say these checks are unfair to black men, who are stigmatized by statistics: Black men are seven times more likely to be incarcerated than white men over the […]
Venture capital took root in Northern California thanks to one thing: connections. That web of connections has turned out to be the most powerful renewable resource that California has ever had, spawning a business phenomenon in the late 1980s that relied on private investment and merchant banks, that at its height in 2002 produced 7,812 […]
Money isn’t everything—at least, not to those in the business of venture philanthropy, an offspring of centuries-old socially responsible investing that Jerome Dodson modernized in San Francisco in 1984. In 1999, John (Bud) Colligan, a partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Accel Partners, working with long-time business executive Penelope Douglas, created a venture […]
On June 30, 1993, Carlos A. Fernandez, a lawyer and activist from San Francisco, California, testified before the House on behalf of the Association of MultiEthnic Americans, an organization whose goal was “to promote a positive awareness of interracial and multiethnic identity.” Fernandez proposed that Directive No. 15, the federal government’s guidelines for categorizing Americans […]
Further proof that humans are emotional beings: Workers care more about their employer’s intentions than about their take-home pay. Economics professor David Levine of the Haas School of Business and UC Santa Barbara economics professor Gary Charness divided 244 students into two groups, “firm” and “worker,” and randomly paired them. Each firm could choose to […]
For Alumnus of the Year Bob Haas, jeans are in his genes. In 1964 Robert Douglas Haas, co-valedictorian of the University of California at Berkeley’s senior class, delivered a commencement address that in its own way had the impact and prescience of Mario Savio’s famous speech. Haas noted a “missing link” between students and faculty and […]
Some eBay users are falsely boosting their reputations online by paying for positive feedback on the site, says business professor John Morgan. In online communities, ratings and reputation lead to more, and larger, transactions. Morgan found the transaction was often initiated by sellers offering a “Buy-It-Now” item—sometimes listed as a “Positive Feedback Ebook”—for 1 cent. […]
