Rice University Jones Graduate School of Business: New Faculty and Electives Introduced for the 2019–2020 Academic Year

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Rice University Jones Graduate School of Business aims to help their full-time MBA students develop the “quantitative chops and workplace skills employers are hungry for.” Let’s take a look at some of their new electives and faculty for 2019-2020.

Scott Sonenshein has two new classes for 2019-2020: “Bestsellers: The Science and Wisdom,” in which students explore some of the bestselling books on leadership and business in order to distinguish the valid and helpful from the rest; and “Organizational Change Intensive,” an intensive, 1-day team-based simulation on leading organizational change.

Jaeyeon Chung’s “Buyer Behavior” draws on theoretical frameworks of cognitive and social psychology to examine consumer behavior, while in Eleanor Putnam-Farr’s “Marketing Experimentation,” the focus is on gathering information from customers, via experiments and surveys, that is interpretable and actionable.

Arun Gopalakrishnan joins the faculty this year from his former position at Washington Olin. In his new course “Customer Lifetime Value,” students will be introduced to the importance of CLV to firms, venture capitalists, financial analysts, and marketers, and will learn to build powerful and predictive CLV models using Microsoft Excel.

Konduru Sivaramakrishnan’s “Management Control Systems” looks at strategic planning and control systems that can give managers the information they need to make dynamic decisions that are in step with rapidly changing business and market conditions.

In Anastasiya Zavyalova’s new course, “Non-Market Strategy,” students “…gain analytical tools to assess a firm’s environment beyond competitive markets and make decisions that are beneficial for the firm and for society.”

Bruce Carlin is a new faculty member this year, moving over from a position at UCLA Anderson School. His new course, “Corporate Rivalry,” teaches students to “think like a game theorist” to develop a systematic way to evaluate strategic problems.

Michael Antonoff’s “Creating the Data-Driven Business” provides students with the “fundamentals of data management, analytics maturity models, the role of ‘Big Data,’ application of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cognitive computing technologies for predictive and adaptive analytics, and creating value-based business analytics strategies.”

Finally, in Manual Sanchez Rodriguez’ “Blockchain as Economic Infrastructure: The Internet of Value,” students will learn about the “design principles of the blockchain economy and its implementation challenges. Analyze the potential application of this ‘protocol of truth,’ beyond currency: to develop decentralized networks, to optimize logistics and trade; to record value and identity (smart contracts, birth certificates, insurance claims, art, land titles and even votes).”

It looks like an interesting year for MBA students at Rice Jones!

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