That was the message of Business with Purpose, a panel discussion held Wednesday, Feb. 13, at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus.

“Everyone says we need to maximize shareholder value, and that apparently means today. But that’s an ephemeral goal. If you actually thought about the longer-term shareholder value, you have to take into account the environment,” said Paul Johnson, senior advisor at financial services consultant Harbor Peak, LLC, and adjunct professor at the Gabelli School of Business.

“These are shadow liabilities that are unrecognized from an accounting perspective, but they are going to come home to roost.”

Johnson was joined by the Gabelli School’s David Gautschi, Ph.D., the Joseph Keating, S.J., Professor of Marketing; Michael Pirson, Ph.D., associate professor of management systems; and Julita Haber, Ph.D., clinical assistant professor of communications and media management.

The discussion, which was moderated by Sertan Kabadayi, Ph.D., professor of marketing and chair of the marketing area at Gabelli School of Business, was sponsored by the graduate student club Fordham Net Impact.

A Critique of Short Term Thinking

Johnson said the term “long-term” needs to be reintroduced into discussions involving business.

Facebook exemplifies how not to do things, he said, as it puts too much emphasis on growth at any cost, without any consideration for users’ concerns about data collection, privacy, and disinformation.

“You no longer have any customer that would take a bullet for the business. The U.S. is looking at whether or not [Facebook] should be regulated, and no user is going to stand up and say ‘Hold on a second, this is really precious to me,’” he said.

Gautschi, who is also dean emeritus of the Gabelli graduate school, noted that the business world got a black eye in 2007 when the financial markets took a nose dive. This was not new though; in 2001, companies such as Enron, Parmalot, and Global Crossing were found to be operating in unethical, and in some cases, criminal ways.

“The fundamental purpose of business is to generate value and to distribute it. One of the problems that we have is we have a lot of things that are of value. Unfortunately, they’re of negative value, Gautschi said, as he detailed nearly a century of shady behavior in the business community.

“They’re called negative externalities, and they have just been ignored. They need to be brought into the calculus of decision makers within business.”

We Need Problem Solvers

Pirson said it doesn’t help that Americans subscribe to the belief that says we need someone like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs to save us.

“We need a lot of problem solvers, and whether they’re leaders or not doesn’t really matter to me,” he said.

“We’re all on this planet, we all need to problem solve wherever we are. It just matters what kind of problems we want to solve.”

Panelists diverged on how to address short-sightedness. Pirson noted that psychological research shows that humans are innately terrible when it comes to predicting the future.

“It’s easier to actually focus on the current problems and solve them, and see what develops. Nobody predicted the internet. Nobody predicted that Trump was going to win,” he said.

“So, I don’t know if we’re going to do ourselves service by saying we’re going to be long-term problem solvers of some sort. Maybe those long-term problems won’t even exist because we won’t exist.”

Gautschi, who spoke at length about the ways that California utility Pacific Gas and Electric failed to adequately plan for challenges such as climate change, pushed back.

“I will not disagree that beings are limited in their abilities to think long term, but damnit we’ve got to start doing this,” he said.

“The trick for business people, in particular, is to figure out how to adapt.”

To Minimize Blind Spots, Embrace Diversity

One way to adapt? Embrace diversity, said Johnson. If you gather together the broadest possible group of people to give you input, you minimize the number of blind spots you’ll have. Then, you need to create psychological safety where anyone can propose even the craziest ideas without fear of retribution, he said.

“You give me a group of diverse people, average capabilities, and I will crush any group of experts on the planet in any topic, as long as we have some sort of domain expertise,” he said.

Whereas Gautschi, Johnson, and Pirson addressed business from an institutional perspective, Haber, who was the first person to teach a class where students can ride bikes, said it’s important to consider the individual as well. Three-quarters of Americans’ health problems can be traced back to stress, she said. We spend 50 percent of our time in front of a screen, and the average person touches their smartphone 2,600 times a day.

“I see it with my students. What a difference over the years. I give them a five-minute break, and nobody talks,” said Haber, who had all the attendees stand up and stretch with her.

“Loneliness is the new smoking. We’re afraid to say it. ‘Oh my god, I’m not a loser, I can’t admit it.’ This is something that happens, but it happens undercover.”

Such was the advice of Anthony Carter, FCRH ’76, former chief diversity officer at Johnson & Johnson, who made an impassioned case on Oct. 19 that the Gabelli School of Business is the best place for business students looking for a diverse and open environment.

Cura Personalis is in our DNA

His lunchtime speech, to prospective and current MBA students at the Lincoln Center campus, was part of the college’s second annual Diversity and Inclusion Summit. Mixing in personal anecdotes about his 40 years in business, as well as his time as an undergraduate at Rose Hill, Carter made an explicit connection between Fordham’s commitment to cura personalis and the importance of fostering a space where people of all genders, races, and sexual orientation can thrive.

This is particularly true given the current political climate, where homophobia, racism, gender inequity, and disregard for veterans and people with disabilities are very much real, he said.

This makes it very easy to focus on all the things that are wrong today, he said, but what we’re not quick to embrace is “the reality of what’s right about us.”

Being able to bring your whole authentic self to institutions is liberating, he said, and indeed, it’s at the heart of all pedagogy.

It’s also important when striving to better understand others, he said. As an example, he asked audience members what their first impression might be of a black man in the subway wearing a suit. Answers included “going to work,” “businessman,” “job interview,” and “banker.”

Carter noted that other people might peg him with more nefarious plans, like “scammer.” And they’re able to make this sort of assumption, he said, because they haven’t learned that man’s story.

“Your story is the reflection of your diversity, and I’m not talking about what you look like. The diversity of background, religion, geography, sexual orientation; you name it, I don’t know that by looking at you,” he said.

“But I know we represent the gorgeous mosaic of untold stories, and in these untold stories, we have the opportunity to really penetrate our souls. Our stories are also relevant to how business grows, because if you’re real marketers, you’re studying your customer base, and your customer base is diverse.”

A Place Where All Feel Welcome

Bliss Griffin, a second year MBA student; the inaugural fellow for diversity, equity, and inclusion; and president of the black and Hispanic MBA association at Gabelli, also addressed the students. After 10 years of acting, she said, she was attracted to business school. She didn’t feel like she fit in with “a lot of blue suits” at other schools, but the Gabelli School’s subway ads that touted the slogan “Privilege with Purpose” spoke to her.

And indeed, she said that once she enrolled, professors such as Sertan Kabadayi, Ph.D., professor of marketing, and Ben Cole, Ph.D., holder of the William J. Loschert Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship, have encouraged her to speak up. Griffin said Gabelli School Dean Donna Rapaccioli was likewise receptive when she approached her with a concern related to diversity and inclusion.

“I thought ‘You’re not going to fit in, this is a nuisance, people don’t want to hear this.’ And what she said was, ‘Can you come into my office? We’re doing this. We have these outside consultants who are helping us. Can you help us out on this?’”

“All of the things that I identify as dimensions of diversity in which I am a minority in this space are the reasons people were looking for me, and seeking my advice and my input,” she said.

“Give this institution an opportunity to rise to the occasion for you in the way that it absolutely rose for me, because those things about you that make you nervous are your value, and we want it in the room with you. We want to learn and grow from the insight that you have from being a minority in this space.”

But on the morning of July 16, a dozen members of the group joined advisor Sertan Kabadayi, Ph.D., assistant professor of marketing in the Graduate School of Business Administration, in making and bagging sandwiches for free.

The group, in partnership with Citymeals, the nation’s leading meals-on-wheels organization, spent the morning at the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Center in Brooklyn, packing and delivering 150 meals to seniors no longer able to shop or cook for themselves.

“This is one of many community service events to come from Fordham Marketing Society, as it aims to connect Fordham G.B.A with the those in need,” Kabadayi said.

One of the prizes, the Gladys and Henry Crown Award for Faculty Excellence, is given to a full-time faculty member in the Graduate School of Business Administration (GBA) whose exceptional performance and devotion to the school’s ideals and goals warrant extraordinary recognition.

The other, the Stanley Fuchs Faculty Award, is presented to a full-time faculty member who has made an impact on students through his or her dedication and commitment to the student body.

“Professor Kabadayi is an exceptional contributor to the School and the University, and we are proud that GBA students have chosen to recognize him with this double honor,” said David A. Gautschi, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Business Administration. “His diverse background in international industry, as well as his research interests, enable him to bring a global perspective to the classroom that can help our graduates compete in a today’s business environment.”

“If anyone deserves both, particularly at the same time, it’s Professor Kabadayi,” said Dawn Lerman, Ph.D., associate professor and area chair of marketing. “He is highly engaged with students in and beyond the classroom, and he demands a lot from them.

“This year, for students in his GBA classes, he purposely raised the bar—which was already quite high—to ensure that they worked hard and got the most out of class,” Lerman said.

Indeed, Kabadayi admits to challenging his students with an interactive teaching style that embodies a holistic approach of care for the whole person—a style that imparts lifelong learning skills to students.

“It is gratifying to me that students recognize the effort that I put into my teaching. They respond by putting effort into their learning,” he said. “I know that I am a demanding and challenging teacher who cares deeply about his students. My goal is to create active learners—not passive students.”

In addition to fulfilling his teaching load with distinction, Kabadayi has also accomplished significant research, with three published papers appearing this year.

“The Role of Wireless Service Provider (WSP) Trust on Consumer Acceptance of SMS Advertising,” written with Luke Kachersky, Ph.D., assistant professor of marketing, will appear in the International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising. “Choosing the Right Multiple Channel System to Minimize Transaction Costs” will appear in Industrial Marketing Management. Another paper, “Made In China But Sold At FAO Schwarz,” written with Lerman, was published in the International Marketing Review.

Kabadayi also authored an opinion piece in the Feb. 11 issue of Business Insider on the challenges AT&T faces after losing its iPhone monopoly.

He serves as faculty advisor to the Fordham GBA Student Marketing Society and is the academic director of both the Global Professional MBA Program and the recently announced Three-Continent Master of Global Management program.

Kabadayi joined the Fordham business faculty in 2005 after receiving his doctorate from Baruch College of the City University of New York. He will receive his awards on May 15 at the GBA Dean’s List and Awards Ceremony.

The academy cited Kachersky for his teaching, use of technology in the classroom, and assessments of student learning based on recommendations from peers, students and administrators.

“Luke does not just teach his students in the sense of imparting knowledge,” said Dawn Lerman, Ph.D., associate professor and area chair of marketing. “He also seeks to reach them and to engage them in ways that will benefit their classroom learning but also serve them outside of the classroom.”

This is not the first accolade Kachersky has received for his teaching abilities. He was honored in 2010 with the Cura Personalis Award for challenging students while providing them support to excel. He also earned the Marketing Area Teaching Excellence Award for 2009.

Among his many—and perhaps less official, noteworthy achievements—Kachersky has won praise from his students for his approach to teaching marketing research. That staple of marketing programs is, said Lerman, “notoriously feared by students and one that yields lower than average evaluations, regardless of the instructor.”

Kachersky reverses the teaching progression so that students learn data analysis before research design, allowing them to understand and appreciate nuances of the entire research process. He also incorporates social media into his courses to provide students with an understanding of how such media provide market insights.

“Ours is a dynamic field, perhaps the most among all courses of study in higher education,” Kachersky said. “We, as marketing professors, are charged with an insurmountable task of making sense of a field that changes continuously. If we embrace the process and the burden of struggling with this task, we can deliver much value to our students, enabling them to confront similarly unresolvable issues in their lives and careers.”

In addition to his teaching load, Kachersky is a busy scholar with two papers scheduled for publication this year: “Do Moniker Maladies Afflict Name Letter Brands? A Dual Process Theory of Name Letter Branding and Avoidance Effects” in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology; and “The Role of Wireless Service Provider Trust on Consumer Acceptance of SMS Advertising,” co-authored with his Fordham colleague, Assistant Professor of Marketing Sertan Kabadayi, Ph.D., in the International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising.

Kachersky is also one of the driving forces, along with Lerman and Associate Professor of Marketing Marcia Flicker, Ph.D., behind Fordham’s newest research center, the Center for Positive Marketing. The center studies marketing from the demand (consumers’) as opposed to the supply (marketers’) perspective.

Kachersky joined the Fordham business faculty in 2008 after receiving his doctorate from Baruch College of the City University of New York. He will receive his award, and make a presentation on his classroom success, in May at the AMS Annual Conference in Coral Gables, Fla.

—Syd Steinhardt