School Notes: School of Management
September/October 2017

Global Network scholars target urban issues

A group of Global Network for Advanced Management scholars met at Yale SOM on July 5–6 to discuss how cities can solve the pressing challenges they will face in the coming decades, including climate change, affordable housing, and employment. The faculty will collaborate on research and teaching topics as part of the new Collaborative on Urban Resilience and Effectiveness.

The event was a way to start the conversation and connect more faculty to discover where their interests lie, said Murali Chandrashekaran, senior associate dean for strategic partnerships and global initiatives at the Sauder School of Business, who organized the event. The Global Network has partnered with the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities program on Global Network Weeks and a course focused on urban resilience.

Combining man and machine

A new study coauthored by Lisa Kahn, associate professor of economics, suggests that firms that look for workers with social and cognitive abilities tend to be more successful.

Researching job advertisements, Kahn and her collaborator, David Deming at the Harvard Kennedy School, found that some companies frequently ask for social and cognitive skills—a combination of skills that computers lack—while other firms posting similar jobs in the same location rarely request such traits. The study determined that positions that require social and cognitive skills tend to pay more. And firms that emphasize these abilities appear to perform better, perhaps because they have more effectively complemented machines with human workers. The results provide more evidence that technology is driving a wedge between people who possess social and cognitive skills and those who don’t, Kahn said.