Business

Wharton alumnus and New York Jets linebacker Brandon Copeland, who lectured in the School of Arts and Sciences as part of a class on personal finance co-taught with Brian Peterson this spring, is featured. “My goal for this is to make this accessible to everyone,” he said.

Carolyn Kousky of the Wharton School spoke about efforts to convince more Americans to buy flood insurance. A major factor is expense, she said.

Edward Chang, a doctoral candidate in the Wharton School, spoke about the efficacy of corporate diversity and inclusion trainings. “It’s a big deal to close all of your stores, even just briefly, to devote time to training your employees.” However, he says, the culture of a company can’t be changed in just an hour.

Maurice Schweitzer of the Wharton School commented on threats from Hollywood studios to boycott Georgia’s production facilities in response to the state’s new restrictions on abortion rights. Schweitzer said boycotts like these are meant to appease people outside the state who want action from people with power, in government or otherwise: “We now expect CEOs to be moral leaders.”

Edward Chang, a doctoral candidate at the Wharton School, spoke about a study he led on workplace diversity trainings. With team members from Wharton and the School of Arts and Sciences at Penn, the researchers found that those with the most power, “men and white people,” were the least receptive to new information about diversity. “A lot of companies are doing these things because they think they work, but we don’t have any evidence to support that,” said Chang.

Christian Terweisch and Nicolaj Siggelow of the Wharton School emphasized the importance of trust between consumers and companies.

Mary-Hunter McDonnell of the Wharton School said that when companies take clear stances on political issues, their standpoints are usually in alignment with young consumers “because that’s their future.”

The Wharton School’s Morris Cohen said Europe is ahead of the U.S. when it comes to digitizing factories. BMW, for example, trains its employees to keep up with changing manufacturing processes, “teaching them that this is to their benefit, that this is not a way of replacing you, but making you more productive.”

PIK Professor Herbert Hovenkamp said anticompetitive practices, which protect the largest firms by making it difficult for employees to change jobs, are on the rise. Simultaneously, he said, large tech companies are buying up potential competitors “before they can ever emerge as vibrant competitors themselves.”