by Katherine Norris | Aug 13, 2020 | Academics, Current Students, Management, Professional Development, Student Spotlights, Uncategorized
Sarina Smith is a junior management major from Melissa, Texas. This summer, Sarina interned for Raytheon Technologies in McKinney, Texas in their Intelligence and Space Division as a program planning intern. Sarina is hopeful that this internship will lead to a full-time job with the company after graduation. “My management identified me as a ‘high performer’ and have invited me to intern again next summer as well as documented their desire to hire me upon graduation.” We asked Sarina a few questions about her internship and her preparation for her future career.
What were the greatest lessons you learned in the internship?
My role in the internship was performing schedule management and ensuring my programs had strong performance and robust project management analysis. This included cost estimating, earned value management, critical path, schedule risk, plus cost and schedule variance analysis. One important thing I learned about myself during this internship was that I am adaptable and highly capable. This internship took a lot of communication and advanced skills, however, with determination I accomplished more than I thought possible. Something else I have learned is the importance of being proactive and enterprising in the workplace. Much of the time I had to teach myself or find solutions independently. Taking initiative and not stopping until you reach your objectives is what leads to success.
How has your time at ACU prepared you for this internship and for employment after graduation?
My time at ACU has prepared me through relevant coursework. My academic coursework went hand in hand with my internship. My COBA classes were outstanding preparation for me having the technical knowledge and proper tools to be successful and most importantly my coursework gave me real-world relevant business scenarios. As a communication minor, my communication classes aided me greatly in leading meetings and interacting professionally with all levels of the organization. The leadership opportunities ACU offers also helped as much as the coursework. Being the pledge class president and current social director in my social club helped tremendously with organizational skills. The experience of being an officer and active in ACU Acapella choir increased my self-discipline. My confidence and communication skills were also expanded by serving on leadership teams for Sing Song, TED Talks, and volunteering as a mentor leader at Wildcat Week. My time at ACU has prepared me for employment after graduation by giving me the necessary tools and skills to thrive in the workforce.
I now understand more fully what being in the professional workplace entails. My goal is to excel in my career using as many resources as I can and through self-study. I will apply what I learned during my internship to my academic coursework by using my improved technology skills as well as better time management. Some transferable skills I developed during my experience were analyzing and prioritizing tasks, extracting important information, and facilitating group discussions.
What’s been your favorite thing about being a COBA student?
My favorite thing about being a COBA student is getting involved in the many opportunities COBA has to help you optimize your career goals. COBA’s Leadership Summit in Colorado was especially impactful. COBA truly cares about their students and will go to great lengths to see them grow.
What advice do you have for students who are preparing for an internship?
My advice would be to not underestimate yourself. Everyone has to start somewhere. Next, find mentors. It can be overwhelming being a part of something much bigger than yourself. Just like your classmates depended on you in a group project, your coworkers depend on you to help elevate the team. Therefore, ask for help. Having someone to show you the ropes and answer questions is a great way to make sure you are maximizing your contributions to the team quickly. Also, don’t be afraid to seek answers on your own. A mix of independence and self-direction but openness to learning from others is a winning combination.
by Katherine Norris | Aug 6, 2020 | Academics, Careers In..., Current Students, Financial Management, Outcomes, Student Spotlights, Uncategorized
Haden Johnson is a senior finance major from Dallas, Texas. Haden spent his summer as an intern for Everlight Solar in Madison, WI and will potentially begin a career with them after graduation. We asked Haden a few questions about what he learned from his experience and what advice he has for other students who are looking to find an internship that may lead to a future career.
What were the greatest lessons you learned in the internship?
I learned that even if it isn’t school-related, the best thing we can work on is ourselves. Every day we have a two-hour training finding out how we can improve ourselves inside and, more importantly, outside of work. My favorite thing about Everlight is that they focus on the fact we are always learning, all the way from the CEO to the newest interns.
How has your time at ACU prepared you for this internship and for employment after graduation?
ACU has shown me how to be personable with everyone I interact with, and creating relationships that go far past “business.” ACU has allowed me to realize that every little moment I have to improve myself counts and can be worth a ton. My favorite thing about being a COBA student is seeing how well connected this college is, and how much the people in it care. Even the people you might not know will check-in and make sure you are doing well, and it makes being a student “easy.”
What advice do you have for students who are preparing for an internship?
My advice would be to take your time and find a company or culture that suits your strengths, and where you can see yourself coming out of the internship and being a much stronger person. Not only will it be beneficial for your resume and professional skills, but it will allow you to work on being the best version of yourself outside of work and school as well.
I took this summer as a step similar to the step it takes from going to high school to college. This summer I looked at having a professional internship as a stage to grow as a professional, but also as a person. I didn’t know hardly anybody in Wisconsin but decided to take a leap of faith to test myself and see who I can be. The first night here felt like the first night in my freshman dorm, a little uneasy and uncertain about the future. Luckily, the more I dove out of my comfort zone, the more I was rewarded. This company, Everlight Solar, invested a TON in me early on, and it has paid dividends in myself as a professional, but more as a person. The people and friends I have met have pushed me far past my limiting beliefs of who I can be, and will continue to do so. I am very happy to have the opportunity to start and continue my professional career with Everlight, and I highly recommend this company for anyone who wants to jumpstart their business career.
by Katherine Norris | Jul 30, 2020 | Academics, Careers In..., Current Students, Management, Outcomes, Student Spotlights, Uncategorized
Kennedy Barnett is a senior management major with an emphasis on leadership and communications from Rockwall, Texas. Kennedy has interned for Encompass Health-Home Health in Dallas for the last two years. She is hopeful that this internship will transition into a full-time position after graduation. We asked Kennedy a few questions about her internship and her preparation for a future career as a student at ACU.
What were the greatest lessons you learned in the internship?
I have interned in the Professional Development department at Encompass Health for the last 2 years. In that role, I was able to interact with all departments and observe a lot of executive coaching and leadership development. I learned how to coach and give feedback, as well as how to show up professionally in the workplace.
How has your time at ACU prepared you for this internship and for employment after graduation?
Being able to successfully apply the things that I have learned in class motivates me to want to dig in and learn more. Dr. Marquardt’s Leadership in Organizations course and leadership theories have been especially helpful in preparing me for the workplace.
What’s been your favorite thing about being a COBA student?
The thing that stands out to me about COBA is the investment that the professors make in each of their students. They encourage, motivate, and build relationships with their students and it enriches our learning experience.
Kennedy with CEO of Encompass Home Health and ACU Alum and Board of Trustees Chair, April Anthony
What advice do you have for students who are preparing for an internship?
One of the most beneficial things for me has been sitting in on meetings or spending one on one time with people in positions that I could potentially be interested in. I would advise anyone entering an internship to go in open-minded and be willing to try out different positions or projects that might be outside of your comfort zone. You may discover that you are a great fit somewhere that you never would have considered otherwise!
I would like to encourage everyone to seek out an internship. It changes your mindset in class whenever you have some real-life experience that you can apply to the things that you are learning about. Interning at Encompass gave me a new perspective and made my junior year so much more enriching. I want that for each of you as well.
by Isabella Maradiaga Molina | Jun 4, 2020 | Academics, College Decisions, Current Students, Faith Infusion, MAcc, Placement stories, Professional Development, Student Spotlights, Uncategorized
Student leaders across campus display ACU’s mission daily through their academic excellence, Christian service and leadership on our campus. Every year, students like these are nominated by their academic department and from those nominations, fifty scholars are selected by the ACU Faculty Senate to receive the University Scholars Award for their graduating class. Among these fifty scholars who demonstrated outstanding scholarship by maintaining a GPA of 3.5 or higher, earned 90 hours towards their degree, and pursued knowledge in their research field, are four students from the College of Business Administration. The students who received this year’s award are Allie Sorrells, Bryce Adams, Jessica Herrera and Luke Stevens.
Allie Sorrells
Allie Sorrells is an accounting and management major from Waco, TX. During her time on campus, Allie enjoyed participating and creating long-lasting memories in ACU traditions like Sing Song, the Homecoming Parade, Freshman Follies, and Candlelight Devo. Allie has been an active member of the Honors College, Beta Gamma Sigma and the women’s social club Ko Jo Kai, where she served as treasurer this past academic year. Allie also served as project lead for the Enactus Children’s Business Fair through the Griggs Center for Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy. Among her favorite activities while at ACU was the opportunity to study abroad in Oxford with the College of Business Administration. While there, they visited the manufacturing plant of BMW and Porsche and participated in an extensive project with ASDA. “With ASDA, we analyzed the company’s business process at multiple locations and came up with our own solutions and improvements. We then shared these ideas with the corporate employees in a professional business presentation. Through that experience, we learned how to go about preparing for and giving formal presentations while incorporating what we were learning in class,” Sorrells stated. Allie commends her professors for bringing their industry expertise to the classroom, speaking from real-world experience and a place of faith, while preparing students to enter the world as ethical businessmen/women. With this faith and business incorporation in mind, Allie hopes to start graduate school, complete her CPA exams, and eventually work in corporate accounting or supply chain management. As she wraps up her time at ACU, Allie says, “I am very grateful for my time here at ACU and in COBA. It’s been a really special experience and I wouldn’t trade the past few years for the world. If you have not plugged in, find an organization in COBA, at ACU, or in the general community to become a part of. Also, get to know your professors; they can become some of your biggest advocates and supporters.”
Bryce Adams
Bryce Adams is a financial management major from Dallas, TX. Coming from a family of ACU Wildcats, Bryce was drawn to the academic excellence that this university strives. “The quality of ACU’s business school really sealed the deal for me,” Adams said. As a student at the College of Business Administration, Bryce has enjoyed opportunities like Leadership Summit, a week-long course in January where his perspective on life and business was transformed. Additionally, the advice and guidance of business alumni who visited the ACU campus have served as motivation for Bryce. “I think COBA has instilled values that are nestled within the education that are more important than the actual education. You can get an education anywhere; COBA certainly educates you but, if you let it, it will give you principles that serve you for life beyond business,” Bryce added. Besides being involved in his department as a member of Heacock Scholars, he serves as an Apartment Leader for World’s Backyard, where he seeks to share the Gospel while growing in relationship with the kids he serves and creating a long-lasting impact in their lives. As someone who has decided to give full control to the Lord, Bryce says, “Anything I’ve achieved is through God’s grace and provision. He deserves the accolades, not me. If you have any business ideas you’re thinking about or you just want to talk about the Lord, let’s grab coffee.”
Jessica Herrera
Jessica Herrera is an accounting major with a minor in mathematics from Schertz, TX. After pursuing her dream of receiving an education that incorporated Christianity, she arrived at ACU where she was immediately impacted by prayers and scripture readings by her professors during class sessions. Her involvement on campus includes being a member of the women’s social club Delta Theta and W-Club, a group of women joined by academic excellence. After taking advantage of professional development opportunities such as “Meet the Firm Night”, a networking event with different accounting firms, she is planning on enrolling in the MAcc program with hopes to land a job in one of the Big 4 accounting firms. She attributes her preparedness for the future to those professors who have invested in her education and the professional development that guided her career aspirations for the future. “ACU is such a great school and I feel that I have grown exponentially in my faith and education in the few years that I have been here. I have had a great college experience by taking advantage of the many opportunities and activities that ACU has available to its students,” Jessica shared.
Luke Stevens
Luke Stevens is a marketing major from Montgomery, TX. Luke came to ACU seeking a high-quality education that was accompanied by a Christian foundation, “ I didn’t want to compromise on my conviction to be educated in this way and ACU offered the perfect opportunity to pursue my desire for a Christian education,” Stevens said. During his time at ACU, Luke participated as Junior Class Treasurer for the Student Government Association, worked for the College of Business Administration as a student worker and served as project lead for the Enactus Brainstorming Committee. Besides his involvement with student organizations, Luke was able to attend Leadership Summit and feel the support of faculty and staff in his department who helped him advance his career opportunities. When asked what his favorite thing about his time at ACU was, Luke said, “My favorite thing about COBA is the relationships I made there. I have made lifelong friends with fellow business students and will always be grateful for their influence on my education and spiritual growth. The faculty and staff are simply exceptional. They care about quality education, exemplify ethical leadership, and have a sincere desire to see you succeed. I certainly consider several of the faculty and staff at COBA to be my mentors and friends.” Luke is planning to attend Southern Methodist University in the fall to complete a Master of Science in Business Analytics in the fall. As he leaves ACU until his next visit, Luke says, “My time as a business student at ACU has changed my life in drastic ways. Some people might pass through college and 10 years later not be able recall what they learned or people they met. For me, I know I will never forget the family I became a part of at ACU and what they taught me.”
by Katherine Norris | May 28, 2020 | Academics, COBA Faculty, Research, Uncategorized
COBA professors have been in a researching groove lately (as Don Pope would say, “They must be butter; they’re on a roll.”). We have seen professors such as Dr. Monty Lynn, Dr. Ryan Jessup, and now Dr. Dennis Marquardt, continue to conduct important research and have their work published in industry journals. Dennis Marquardt recently wrote a paper entitled: “Leader Goal Orientation and Ethical Leadership: A Socio-Cognitive Approach of the Impact of Leader Goal-Oriented Behavior on Employee Unethical Behavior.” The paper was written with co-authors Dr. Wendy Casper at UT-Arlington and Dr. Maribeth Kuenzi at SMU.
We asked Dr. Marquardt where his motivation and inspiration to work on this research came from. “For the past decade, I’ve been fascinated by the idea of ‘unintended consequences,’ specifically as this applies to leader/follower dyads. In other words, are there attitudes or behaviors that managers engage in that don’t necessarily seem unethical, but may have the consequence of unknowingly encouraging unethical behavior among employees.”
Photo by Jeremy Enlow
Dr. Marquardt summarized the concepts in the research and what type of consequences can come from such situations saying, “In this paper, we propose that leaders with high levels of a performance-avoid goal orientation are perceived to be less ethical and in turn, encourage employees to engage in unethical behaviors. Performance-avoid goal orientation refers to the extent to which a person approaches tasks or goals with a desire to not look incompetent compared to their peers. When a leader has such an orientation they are likely to send cues and signals to employees that making mistakes is to be avoided at all costs, that having the appearance of incompetence is unacceptable, or that making the leader look bad is a cardinal sin.”
He continued, “These cues and signals don’t seem unethical on their own, but imagine what they might do to employees over time. If I’m constantly hearing about avoiding mistakes and failures and trying to not look incompetent, what do I do when I actually do make a mistake? We propose that you might have a higher propensity to consider covering things up, blaming others, or lying about your performance. Our study analyzing several hundred leader/follower dyads found that leaders with high levels of avoid-goal orientation have significantly lower levels of ethical leadership (as perceived by their followers) and have employees who are more likely to engage in unethical behavior. Only when leaders also had a high learning goal orientation did the effects of avoid goal orientation become non-significant.”
Photo by Jeremy Enlow
Having this paper published is definitely a feeling of joy and accomplishment for Marquardt. “This paper has been in the works since 2014 and out of all my published papers, it’s the one I’m most proud of. God is good! There are many times I was going to give up on it because it took so many hours of work over these past six years. I’m thankful for great co-authors who are people I respect and people who have modeled a learning goal orientation for me.”
Dr. Marquardt’s paper “Leader Goal Orientation and Ethical Leadership: A Socio-Cognitive Approach of the Impact of Leader Goal-Oriented Behavior on Employee Unethical Behavior.” was published in the Journal of Business Ethics this May and is available for reading by clicking here.
by Isabella Maradiaga Molina | May 21, 2020 | Academics, Alumni Spotlight, COBA Faculty, Marketing, Research, School of Information Technology and Computing, Uncategorized
Have you ever struggled to make a decision when given too many options? Choice overload, or overchoice, is a cognitive process where people have difficulty making a decision due to a variety of options. Why does this happen?
As part of the lifelong relationship vision of the College of Business Administration, Associate Professor of Marketing, Dr. Ryan Jessup, and SITC Director and Professor of Computer Science, Dr. John Homer, partnered with ACU alum, Levi Ritchie (’15), to research the choice overload effect. Their paper, “Hurry up and decide: Empirical tests of the choice overload effect using cognitive process models”, was featured in the American Psychology Association’s April issue on decision. According to Scimago Journal & Country Rank, this journal is in the top 10% in psychology, neuropsychology and physical psychology subfield.
Dr. Ryan Jessup
While in graduate school at Indiana University, Dr. Ryan Jessup collected data to study a theory of decision making that prompted him to conduct this research as a follow-up from that work. As the lead author, Dr. Jessup generated the research idea and designed the experiment which was programmed by Dr. Homer. Levi Ritchie helped program part of the experiment in Python, recruited participants, and collected data before analyzing the data along with Dr. Jessup. The team combined their expertise in their respective fields to compile and edit the paper that was then published in the APA Journal. Dr. Jessup described the goal of their research as, “We wanted to test between multiple competing hypotheses that I had proposed in an earlier paper for the choice overload aka too much choice effect. The effect is that people purchase more when they have fewer options to choose from, violating basic economic principles.”
Levi Ritchie (’15)
The science of cognitive psychology is broad and contains a variety of potential research studies; however, Levi Ritchie described the importance of studying the choice overload effect as essential to the business field, “From a business perspective, understanding the elements that moderate the effect is crucial to marketing. Even when your selection of alternatives is plentiful, it may be beneficial to only present the strongest subset.” Similarly, Dr. Jessup commented on how important the understanding of this effect is when selling or promoting a product, as well as for personal decision making.
“An interesting thing about conducting quality research is that it makes us better at teaching. In my case, it is particularly true because I tend to teach courses on how to conduct or analyze research. But, even if I were teaching a different type of course it would still improve my teaching for several reasons. First, when teaching on a relevant topic, I would be far more aware of the pioneering research – in some cases because I would have been the one to do it; in other cases, it would be because I had to examine all possible theories and explanations when conducting my research, simultaneously giving far more breadth and depth than I would have gotten had I just read about it in the textbook or merely just read a few things about it. In essence, researchers know more about these findings because they are the ones making them – we are not merely reading about them. It is the ultimate in experiential learning”, Jessup said.
The conclusion of this research was explained in-depth in their publication, but Jessup summarized by saying, “We found that one of our proposed explanations well predicted the data whereas another one – the one that is commonly espoused as causing the effect – did not appear to play a role. A specific conclusion was time pressure appears to really drive the effect; so, if you are trying to sell things to people who are often hurried – think drive-thru’s or situations where people often have little children with them – you are better off giving them a very small set of options.”
Levi Ritchie is currently pursuing a career in Data Science, while Dr. Jessup continues to work on research on an improved theory of decision making that combines choice with learning. He is currently working on another project that involves the choices of married individuals and economic games with professors Katie Wick, John Homer and, recently graduated marketing major, Luke Stevens (’20).
