Monthly Archives: June 2024

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AI Insights and Consumer Neuroscience: Faculty Research at the Technological Frontier

  By Meredith Carroll • June 24, 2024

By Jamie Merchant

A neon sign reading "The Future is Yours to Create" The hype has been extraordinary.

Over the past two years, news outlets have blanketed the public with stories about the impact of large-language models (LLMs), or “artificial intelligence,” and their profound implications for human civilization. The CEO of Tesla and billionaire investor, Elon Musk, warns that the technology represents one of “humanity’s biggest threats.” Other commentators predict a more benign future in which AI liberates us from toil, taking over the mundane tasks of office work.

With conflicting reports like these, one could be forgiven for feeling confused.

Putting the hype aside, what are the facts on the ground? How is this emerging technology actually used by businesses and organizations?

At DePaul’s Driehaus College of Business, new faculty in the Department of Marketing are cutting through the headlines to investigate the promise, and the limits, of LLMs for modern businesses.

One innovative use of LLM’s is for producing “synthetic data”, AI-generated responses that simulate humans in order to inform business intelligence. “How good is AI at really representing human variety?” asked Ignacio Luri, an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Driehaus. “That’s something I’m skeptical about. But it’s happening, so I’m studying it.”

Two men with Driehaus scarves engaged in an animated discussion

Luri, at right, in the Beta Hub

Luri, whose background is in marketing and linguistics, also studies what he calls the “market conversation”: the dialogue that unfolds around companies, consumers, and the brands that connect them. His current research focuses on the uses of AI analytics for studying that conversation. “I mostly study big data,” he said, referring to the modern study of human behavior based on very large data sets. “But I also have a qualitative toolkit.

“The market conversation is very cultural at heart,” he explained. “It happens in a cultural context. It can be really tempting to take a dataset and just crunch the numbers. But we’re talking about people. When we’re talking about the consumer conversation, things happen in a context – always. Who said that? When? Why? In what context? To whom?”

In other words: how consumers see brands, and conversely, how companies understand their customers, are both products of an ongoing dialogue between them. And, like any dialogue, the market conversation unfolds in the assumptions, habits, and beliefs that characterize particular people in a particular community at a particular point in time – that is, in all the messiness of human communication.

How apt are large language models to capture the subtle nuances of human speech, or the unique meanings that attach to specific words for a given community? Amidst all the enthusiasm for AI, Luri insists on the importance of not losing sight of the human element – the inherently contextual nature of communication.

“All that matters. It’s important not to abstract away from all that reality.”

 

As with generative AI, buzzwords swirl around the emerging field of neuromarketing. According to the Harvard Business Review, this new field “studies the brain to predict and potentially even influence consumer behavior and decision making.” One can easily imagine the value of this technology for businesses.

Such is the potential, but how does it work in practice? Most importantly, what are the real advantages and limits of the technology?

“With neuromarketing, I always say it’s a supplement, not a replacement, for traditional marketing research,” said Jennifer Tatara, Assistant Professor of Marketing at Driehaus.

A computer with a web cam poised on the top and an article about eye-tracking software displayed on the screen

A computer in the Beta Hub equipped with neuromarketing research software

Tatara works at the cutting edge of the neuromarketing field, which mines insights from psychology, marketing, and economics to look at the science behind consumer decision-making. Neuromarketing introduces biometric data into the study of consumer behavior, assisting researchers with an age-old question: what motivates people to make the decisions they do?

Marketing researchers and professionals, of course, are interested in a specific subset of people: consumers.

“We can use these tools to see into the decision-making process in a different way,” said Tatara, “to get into the black box of decision-making. We need a wide range of tools to get the full picture. But without biometric tools, you’re missing a piece of that picture.”

Some of these tools might be familiar. Electroencephalograms, for instance, gauge mental activity by tracking the small electrical impulses given off by the brain in response to stimuli. But some are more exotic: eye-tracking software yields insights into where consumers’ focus is drawn. Galvanic skin response, a measure of minuscule amounts of sweat, correlates with subjects’ emotional arousal.

Tatara emphasizes the potential of these tools to help both consumers and businesses make better, more satisfying decisions. But she is also quick to deflate the exaggerated claims sometimes made on its behalf, and to point to the ethical dimensions of this new field. As she puts it, “there’s no magical ‘buy’ button in the brain – this isn’t mind control.”

“Like with any new tool, there are ways to use it positively and ways to use it negatively. As marketers with access to these tools, it’s our job to make sure we’re not only selling, but we’re also helping. With a better understanding of how people make decisions, we can help them make better decisions.

“That’s why I’m happy that DePaul is taking an active role in teaching these tools. Here, faculty and students study and apply these tools; we’re doing it ethically, and we’re doing it to help consumers, at the end of the day.”

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Finding your Towering Strength: Paula Price’s (BUS ’82) Extraordinary Career

  By Meredith Carroll • June 24, 2024 ,

Paula Price (BUS ’82) shares her insights from an extraordinary career as a leader

By Meredith Carroll

Look at Paula Price’s (BUS ’82) resume, and it could be tempting to split it in two.

There’s her leadership experience, as extensive as it is varied. There’s her tenure as CFO for multiple Fortune 500 companies; her years of teaching for Harvard Business School; and her current role as an independent board director for four major, publicly traded companies.

And then there’s the part of her career that started right here at DePaul. The part where she mastered accountancy, the “language of business.” The part she spent on the ground, immersed in the many small but critical details that keep businesses running.

It is easy to imagine these two phases as diametrically opposed: first the view from the ground, and then the view from 30,000 feet. First the microscope, and then the panoramic lens.

Diametrically opposed, that is, until you hear Price tell her story.

A Tale of Dedication to Curiosity and Craft

Photos of Price on stage in conversation with Sulin Ba, Dean of the Driehaus College of Business, on April 22 (Photo credit | Working Anchor)

On April 22, Paula Price returned to DePaul to share insights from her career. She was the first speaker in the college’s Executive Speaker Series: a series, established with a gift from Cory Gunderson (BUS ’91) designed to help DePaul students envision and embark on their own paths to success.

Sitting across a small stage from Dean Sulin Ba, Price speaks in the measured tone of an experienced leader. She chooses each word with care and clarity. She is passionate about taking the time to get it right — whether “it” is a major decision in a corporate boardroom, or a visit to her alma mater.

What shines through above all else, though, is Price’s commitment to curiosity.

She lights up when talking about her early career. You can see the student in her; the young DePaul graduate, eager to master a notoriously challenging discipline.

“I spent the first several years of my career in public accounting really honing my skills and honing my craft,” she recalls. After that came a tenure in industry, when she began working with senior executives.

“What they wanted to know,” she says, “was: ‘is this a good business idea? Does this create value for our shareholders? Does this idea have a good return?’ It became very evident to me that accounting should do more than talk about the past. It should illuminate the path forward.”

It is the first of many moments of clarity – in the way Price speaks about the world of business, in the way she charted her own course through it. That fundamental insight led her to the University of Chicago, where she earned her MBA in finance and strategy. She became obsessed with putting her insight into action.

“How do you create financial models for looking at new product lines? For looking at acquisitions? For looking at research and development projects?” she remembers asking herself. “I just began building all these models. People knew that I was modeling these things. And they were asking me to work with them. They were asking me to lend my models to them.”

“I kind of thought,” she adds with a smile, “I could build a financial model for anything.”

From left to right: Malik Murray (BUS ’96, MBA ’04), Dean Sulin Ba, Laura Kohl (MBA ’94), Paula Price (BUS ’82) and Cory Gunderson (BUS ’91). Murray, Kohl and Gunderson are all members of the Driehaus Business Advisory Council. (Photo credit | Working Anchor)

Price’s curiosity, and the keen insights it generated, propelled her to the C-suite.

“Even as a CFO, the idea of fusing accounting, finance and strategy together was essential,” she says. “It was essential to telling the story of our business, to telling the story of our strategies and how they created value. To telling the story of what they would do in the future.”

There’s such clarity to the way she tells her story that it can be hard to imagine her path as anything other than foreordained. Hard to remember, too, that her time as a top leader spanned multiple major financial crises.

When Price looks back on moments of turmoil, it’s her dual perspective she returns to. Her ability to see the big picture without losing sight of the small but crucial details. To keep her eyes on the horizon without losing sight of the world around her.

“The biggest role of the CFO is to create space for innovation,” she says, when asked about difficult decisions she has faced. “And economic downturns often coincide with the greatest need to invest in innovation. That leads to tough decisions.

“What’s hard,” she adds, “is that at the end of those kinds of decisions are people.”

The People Factor

And that’s what Price returns to, what she never loses sight of in telling her story: people.

During her visit, she is asked about her seemingly inexhaustible career: the way her resume encompasses seven top leadership positions at major, publicly traded companies. That’s not to speak of her time teaching the next generation of leaders at Harvard Business School, or her service to nonprofits and her community.

It was all simpler, she says, than it might look from the outside.

“For every major move in my career,” Price says, “I can point to a relationship that is based on trust. Trust in my work. Trust in my abilities. Trust in my integrity. These relationships – they lead places. Connections lead places. Every person. Every change. Whether it’s moving to London. Moving back to the U.S. Moving into teaching. Moving out of teaching. Pivoting back into corporate. Pivoting onto boards. I can point to a person. For each move, I can point to a person.”

“You can’t be my friend overnight,” she quips, later, when Dean Ba points out that many of her friendships have lasted decades. In fact, some of them have lasted since high school. Two of her friends from her days at what was then called Jones Commercial High School sit in the front row, laughing. All night, they’ve been cheering her on.

Price and Dean Sulin Ba pose with two of Price’s close friends, both of whom attended DePaul alongside her: Charlena Griggs (far left) and Aaron Tolbert (BUS ’82, far right)
(Photo credit | Working Anchor)

Price sums up her advice to the students and young alumni in the audience by reflecting on her own career and the principles that have guided it:

“I have four pieces of advice. The first is: to find your towering strength. That is, the thing that distinguishes you from the next person. And, when you find it? Own it, hone it, and leverage it.

“The second, third, and fourth, is to: Build great relationships. Build great relationships. Build great relationships.”

From Chicago to the FBI: The Education of Sean McWeeney (BUS ’61)

  By Meredith Carroll • June 24, 2024 ,

The retired FBI agent, corporate executive, author and philanthropist reflects on the educations he received — in school and outside of it

By Meredith Carroll

An elderly couple posts against a scenic, outdoor backdrop

Millie Cronin and Sean McWeeney | Photo provided by Sean McWeeney

Now retired, Sean McWeeney (BUS ’61) lives a quiet life in Reston, Virginia, with his wife, Millie Cronin. They are both widowers; in fact, they met through Cronin’s first husband, a coworker of McWeeney’s. They volunteer for their local parish. They spend time with their family. They support causes close to their hearts, including DePaul. Just this year, McWeeney established the McWeeney Family Scholarship Fund to help under-resourced students attend DePaul.  

McWeeney’s life up to this point was anything but quiet. He served for decades in the FBI, where he played a central role in the capture of notorious Mob boss Carlo Gambino. He rose through the ranks to become the longest-serving section chief of the Organized Crimes division. After his retirement, he launched Corporate Risk International, a global security firm specializing in kidnapping and extortion cases. It’s a career so action-packed that, with the encouragement of his family and friends, he wrote a book about it, entitled “Up by the Bootstraps.”

Like many success stories, McWeeney’s life attests to the ever-shifting balance between luck and hard work. It’s a story about being in the right place at the right time, but it’s also about having the right skills to rise to the moment. It’s a story about education, broadly defined: the kind of education you get from the people and environments around you. The kind of education you make out of what you are given.

McWeeney’s education would ultimately take him around the world. But it began right here in Chicago.

A Chicago Childhood

It has been decades since McWeeney lived in Chicago – a lifetime, even. But his roots are still evident. He speaks with a faint Chicago accent. He talks about himself with a distinctively Chicagoan strain of understatement: humble yet direct; self-effacing yet also, justifiably, proud.

McWeeney was born in 1938 to two Irish immigrants. Among the kids in his West Side neighborhood, he can’t recall knowing anyone whose parents were born in the U.S. Being in that environment at that time was an education – only McWeeney didn’t know it yet.

“I was a scrappy kid,” he recalls. “I had an unusual name for that time, and they made fun of me for it.”

It was easy to fall into trouble.

“A lot of people I grew up with became Mafia,” McWeeney says. “We had one person we knew quite well whose brother was killed by the Mafia.”

It was an environment that offered up two ways to navigate the world.

“You either win one way, the good way,” McWeeney recalls, “or you win the bad way. And I happened to be lucky in who I turned out to be. Going to a school like DePaul certainly helped – and so did having good parents. I was lucky in that regard.”

The West Side gave McWeeney one kind of education. In school, he received another.

For high school, he earned a four-year scholarship to St. Ignatius College Prep. It promised to be a pivotal moment for McWeeney. But it lasted just two weeks.

McWeeney was kicked out after a fight with a boy who made fun of his name. He transferred to St. Mel’s, another Catholic school.

“St. Mel’s identified me as a bit of a thug,” he says.  “They assumed that ‘this guy isn’t going to college. This guy won’t go much further because he’s a scrapper.’ That’s part of being from the West Side, I guess.

“Anyway,” McWeeney adds, with his trademark understatement, “I outdid their expectations.”

From DePaul to the FBI

Outdoing those expectations began in earnest when McWeeney enrolled in the College of Commerce at DePaul University.

At DePaul, McWeeney found his place.

Despite working a grueling overnight shift at the railroad switchyard off 35th and Pulaski, he was active in sports and in his fraternity. In his senior year, he was elected class president.

He also met his first wife at DePaul: the late Joan Hennessy, a fellow student. They were set up on a blind date. They would travel the world together, raise a family, and launch Corporate Risk International from their kitchen table.

When McWeeney looks back on his time at DePaul, it’s his good fortune that he stresses. The good fortune to have met Hennessy; the good fortune to receive an education that allowed his world to expand, equipping him with tools he’d need to earn his MBA and launch a second career as a successful entrepreneur. Good fortune — and the commitment to taking advantage of it.

A black-and-white photograph of a man with a bowler hat and a rueful grin, escorted by a younger man behind him

McWeeney, at right, escorts Carlo Gambino into the courthouse for his hearing. The photograph would be widely reproduced, leading McWeeney to receive media enquiries up until today. | Photo provided by Sean McWeeney

From DePaul, McWeeney ventured out into the world. He joined the Navy as an officer candidate. He moved to Rhode Island, where he earned his MBA.

The MBA allowed him to stand out when he applied for his dream job as an agent at the FBI.

From day one, working in the FBI was its own kind of education. He lived in cities in distant corners of the U.S. He learned all he could – from the culture, and from agents who were stationed in these posts as discipline.

“The punished agents knew how to get the job done,” he writes in his memoir. They were also repentant, “eager to share their story and what they learned from it.”

In the summer of 1969, McWeeney and his family landed in New York, where he was eventually assigned to the Gambino Squad.

Thanks to his upbringing, he was precisely the right man for the job.

“There were a lot of agents, believe me, who were a little leery of talking to the Mafia,” he recalls. “But when you grow up where I did, you just kind of learn to talk to them. I used to go right up to them – let them know who I was and what I wanted to know.”

He approached his work as a plain dealer: collected, straightforward, respectful. In McWeeney’s hands, even the arrest of Gambino was understated.

Gambino’s wife and children were with him, McWeeney recalls, when McWeeney and his agents pulled him over near his home in Brooklyn.

“He seemed surprised,” McWeeney writes, “but consistent with his typical demeanor, he remained calm and gave us no trouble during the arrest.”

The Capstone of a Remarkable Career

The Gambino arrest, like McWeeney’s years at DePaul, was a turning point in a much longer story. From there, he would go on to senior leadership positions in the Bureau. He would found a successful, global company.

A book cover. The title is Up By the Bootstraps and the cover displays a pair of worn, old-fashioned leather combat boots with a pair of handcuffs lying at their feet

McWeeney’s memoir, Up by the Bootstraps, details his life and extraordinary career. | Photo provided by Sean McWeeney

But if you ask McWeeney, it’s those early days as an FBI agent that stand out.

“If anyone ever asks what I did, my first reaction is to say I was an agent,” he says. “I was a top executive, of course. But I’m very, very proud of the fact that I was an FBI agent.

“It was the first time my father ever said he was proud of me – and I heard that from secondary sources,” he recalls. “My dad was soft-spoken, a tough guy. All he did was work, work, work. For him to have said that meant a lot.”

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International Student Spotlight

  By Meredith Carroll • June 24, 2024

Two international students share their takes on Chicago, on finding their path and on the importance of mentorship

By Meredith Carroll

Serigne Dramé

What do I think of DePaul in a sentence? A school that gives you the tools and the flexibility to succeed.

Where is home for you, and how did you choose DePaul?

I’m from Senegal.

A headshot of Serigne Drame

Photo provided by Serigne Dramé

The “me” from 2019, when I applied to college, had a much different vision for my future. I wanted to be a game designer. And I applied to DePaul because it’s known for that. I was accepted to a number of different places — some in the U.S., some in France. What made the difference was that my sister was in Chicago and going to IIT.

Speaking of Chicago — what’s your experience been like in the city?

There’s this weird cycle. The winter gets so bad that you start thinking, “maybe Florida sounds nice.” But then the summer happens. And you think, “this is so nice I’m going to give it another try.”

I’ve taken bachata classes. For a time, I did pro wrestling. That’s the other thing about Chicago. It gives you so many possibilities. It’s international to an extent. And that’s the big draw.

The one thing I’ve noticed is that most people who live here think you’re from Chicago. That can be a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing: it’s easy to be integrated. The bad thing: people assume you know things — slang, expressions, politics — you don’t.

How did you go from studying game design to the degree you’ll be graduating with: a double major in Management Information Systems and International Business?

My first year was 2020-21. It was all remote. At the end of that year, I realized that I wanted to do more. MIS stood out because it offers this blend of business and technology.

MIS is one of those majors that you don’t hear a lot about. But what I like with it was that the core classes were business classes and the electives were technical — data analytics, databases, cybersecurity.

It’s more applied. And there’s the versatility. Looking back, if I had been a Computer Science student, I don’t think I would have gotten my M&A internship. I was able to take applied finance classes, and that allowed me to do well in the technical interviews.  The big advantage is the flexibility.

Searching for jobs and internships as an international student can be especially challenging. What has the experience been like for you?

I did two internships during my time at DePaul, both of them at EY. In September, I applied for a job at Deloitte. I heard back from them in January. And I got it. I feel lucky. There was a lot of hard work involved; but still, I feel lucky. The market is hard. And most employers don’t sponsor visas. There’s a lot of pressure; if you don’t find a job quickly, you’ll have to return to your home country.

The school of business has been really helpful for two reasons. I mentioned the flexibility aspect. But there’s also the fact that we’re in Chicago. Chicago is a big market; there’s a lot of professionals. Even beyond the career fairs, everyone has connections. You can just ask faculty after class, and they’ll connect you to someone.

How would you sum up DePaul in a sentence?

DePaul is really, for me, an example of it is what you make of it. If you leverage the Career Center, the knowledge that you get from classes, the connections, the career fairs, the software resources, you can go far.

What do I think of DePaul in a sentence? A school that gives you the tools and the flexibility to succeed.

 

Suchita Farkiwala

I have come to see the world from a bigger, broader perspective. Every day, there are things that I am learning, things that I am unlearning and things that I am relearning.

Where is home for you, and what has your experience at DePaul been like?

I come from Ahmedabad in Gujarat, India. Currently, I commute from Morton Grove, where I live with my family.

DePaul is in the heart of Chicago. So you get the best of the big city experience. The diversity at DePaul is incredible. People come here from all over the world.

A headshot of Suchita Farkiwala

Photo provided by Suchita Farkiwala

What were your career goals when you arrived at DePaul, and how has that changed?

I am an accounting undergrad. When I started, I simply wanted to make money, get a stable job, and make my family proud. Basically, I wanted to live the American Dream. But DePaul changed the way I see my life, what I want to do in my life.

Now, I want to give back to the community. I want to do something that impacts the lives of others. My professors inspired me to follow their path. One day, I want to come back to DePaul as a professor and help others so that they can be another success story from DePaul.

Mentorship has been a central part of your experience at DePaul. Tell us more about that!

Faculty at DePaul have been incredibly supportive of me, even before I started my journey as an accounting major here. Within the accounting department, Kent Klaus and Margaret Tower have been especially helpful. They pushed me to apply for on-campus jobs. They encouraged me to pursue an internship at Deloitte – and I got it.

Ever since I got that internship, I’ve tried to help other students so that they can get this chance too. I sit down with them: help them to get better grades in accounting class, get their resume done, practice interviewing with them.

Outside of that, I have been active with International Student and Scholar Services as a mentor. Mentorship is a gift that keeps giving. It’s made me grow so much as a person, as a professional. I’ve met so many new international students and learned so much about their cultures. It’s given me the chance to be the reason someone feels seen, heard, cared for, and valued.

What’s your favorite advice to give your mentees?

I tell them: Any time that you feel that your question is too dumb to ask, ask me. At DePaul, I have never found a person who said no to me when I needed help. Regardless of whether my question was academic, professional, or just about learning the basic ways to survive in Chicago.

Miracles don’t happen in a snap. Don’t rush. Give yourself some time to experience the magic of DePaul.

Finally: Don’t think that you are different. Think that you are unique. It will change the way you think about yourself. At DePaul, we celebrate that. There’s no pressure to fit in. So be yourself.

What’s some memorable advice you have received?

My accounting professors and a mentor from Deloitte both told me: Use your career as a canvas. Ask for what you want. Do whatever makes you happy. Accounting is very, very tough. It’s a tough major; it’s a tougher profession. So never feel like you can’t do this. Take the initiative.

My father always tells me: The only way to grow is to help other people grow. The only way to heal is to help other people. So don’t come back home with a trophy unless you are already committed to paying it back to those who made it happen.

How has DePaul changed you?

My professors have been here for me, my friends have been here for me. My supervisors and colleagues have been incredibly supportive.

My mentors always tell me, “don’t expect less for yourself.” They made me believe that.

I have come to see the world from a bigger, broader perspective. Every day, there are things that I am learning, things that I am unlearning and things that I am relearning.

My success is a shared success of my family and my DePaul community.

Now, DePaul feels like a home away from home.

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For Julia Ariel-Rohr, Joining the Faculty of Driehaus is a Homecoming

  By Meredith Carroll • June 24, 2024

By Meredith Carroll

Julia Ariel-Rohr mid-lecture

Photo by Kathy Hillegonds

The first thing that Julia Ariel-Rohr (BUS ’12) wants the Driehaus community to know is how thrilled she is to be back at DePaul.

“I wake up every day feeling so grateful to be here,” she said.

Ariel-Rohr doesn’t just bring extensive experience with financial reporting and auditing to her new role at Driehaus. She also brings her perspective as a DePaul graduate.

Her path began in the accountancy program at Driehaus, where Ariel-Rohr encountered two young, female accountancy professors: Kelly Richmond Pope and Wendy Heltzer.

“They opened my eyes to the fact that someone like me could be a professor,” Ariel-Rohr said. “I felt that sense of belonging at DePaul. When you’re at that age, that’s a hard thing to find.”

After graduation, she secured her first two jobs in the field with the help of DePaul connections. When she decided to apply to PhD programs, it was a DePaul alumnus — her audit partner, Scott Steffens (BUS ’89) — who advocated for her to have flexibility to fly out for interviews during industry’s busy season.

Returning to teach at Driehaus was meaningful for Ariel-Rohr because of her personal connection to DePaul. But the job was also attractive because of how the research being done at Driehaus aligns with her own.

“In the accounting world, I would say probably about 20% of us are behavioral researchers,” said Ariel-Rohr. “One of the things that attracted me to DePaul was that we have such a strong behavioral group.”

When it comes to behavioral auditing research, DePaul consistently places in the top 15 schools nationwide, according to rankings kept by BYU.

As the field faces an impending shortage of Certified Public Accountants, figuring out how to attract and retain talent will be more important than ever, said Ariel-Rohr.

“When you think about preventing fraud, and financial statement misconduct in public companies, it affects all of us who have retirement plans,” she said. “That is going to be a huge issue in the next 10 to 20 years.”

That’s where Ariel-Rohr’s research comes in. Her latest research examines how insights from behavioral research can increase retention and belonging in workplaces.

“The prior literature shows that a sense of belonging [at work] comes from small acts, from day-to-day experiences,” she said. Her research takes these insights a step further by looking at how factors such as a sense of belonging, a culture that encourages authenticity, and values-based mentorship can increase employee retention.

The impacts of such work can be significant, she said — not just for employee retention but also for audit quality.

“In audit, we’re really concerned about low-level staff speaking out if they have a concern about something,” she said. “That sense of belonging and that sense of psychological safety can also influence their ability to speak out, which can have downstream impacts on audit quality.”

“This [research] can improve our students’ lives as they are trying to work in this really intense field,” she concluded. “And it could potentially improve audit quality as well.”

Joining Practicality with Purpose at DePaul

For Ariel-Rohr, her research and teaching are deeply connected.

“It’s one of my goals to recruit people into a major that they might not have otherwise considered a fit for them,” she said. “One thing I love about teaching accounting is that I view this degree as a really good tool for social mobility. If you don’t have a safety net to fall back on, an accounting degree will give that to you.”

The ability to be financially independent was a big part of what drew her to accounting as a student at Driehaus. So, too, was the flexibility offered by a stable, in-demand profession.

“I often tell my students that if they have dreams of traveling and seeing the world, an accounting degree is a great way to do that,” she said. “I left my first job after a few years and went to travel around the world for a few months. Because I knew that as soon as I got back, I’d be able to find a job.”

Before she enrolled at DePaul as an undergraduate, Ariel-Rohr spent a year living outside of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Now that she’s back at Driehaus, she’s eager to start getting involved with study abroad opportunities.

When Ariel-Rohr reflects on her career, her research, and her teaching, one theme rises above the rest: purpose.

“I know for myself and for a lot of my students, we’re looking for purpose in our jobs,” she said. “Accounting isn’t automatically the first career path students think of when they think about finding purpose in their jobs. But there is definitely a place for it. Every single organization needs an accountant. So if students are into nonprofits, which is what I was passionate about, you can be a nonprofit auditor. If they really like sports: the Cubs has auditors, a CFO, controllers. There’s a place no matter what your interests are.”

As for Ariel-Rohr, she’s found a place, and a purpose, for herself at DePaul.

“Everybody thinks their student population is special,” she reflected. “But I truly believe that being in the city of Chicago with such a diverse group of hardworking students coming from all different backgrounds makes DePaul different.”

“It’s a dream,” she said, “to be back.”

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For James Bort, Research and Experience Go Hand in Hand

  By Meredith Carroll • June 24, 2024

By Jamie Merchant

A photo of James Bort

Photo provided by James Bort

“We always study entrepreneurs, you know? Looking at the employees of a startup is a little different.”

James Bort has a slightly unconventional outlook for a scholar of modern business.

“My dad was a line-level employee in a factory, and he had a very adversarial relationship with work,” he candidly shared in a recent interview. “So, when I started working for people who ran their own companies, that completely changed my view of what the world could be.”

An early exposure to the unique culture of startups — their collegial atmosphere, the give-and-take between employees and leadership — offered Bort a different model for understanding the workplace in the 21st century. That experience piqued an intellectual interest that motivates his research to this day.

Bort’s curiosity eventually led him to the academic study of startups, particularly the startup workforce. However, he points to the value of his on-the-ground experiences as an early-stage employee, entrepreneur, and musician for prompting the questions he asks about the modern workplace. Prior to joining academia, he was a software engineer, information technology manager, and restaurant owner in a career that spanned multiple industries. He even launched his own independent record label during his time in graduate school at Syracuse University.

It’s a research agenda shaped by art, science, and his personal history.

“Research is ultimately me-search,” Bort said, echoing the well-known statement of his graduate advisor, Johan Wicklund. “It’s a journey of self-discovery.”

Over the course of these experiences, the new assistant professor in the Driehaus College of Business became fascinated by the mutual lines of influence that run between startups and their employees: a startup is uniquely open to employee input and guidance, while at the same time it can serve as a springboard into future opportunities as the venture grows and evolves.

“There is this sort of bidirectional influence where you’re drawn to the startup because there’s endless opportunity, but then it influences you, in the sense that your career trajectory can be accelerated in some phenomenal ways.”

Storytelling as an Engine of Entrepreneurship

Having worked on both sides of the equation as a startup employee and an entrepreneur, Bort’s scholarly attention has recently been drawn to the role of narrative: to the power of the stories we tell to shape our perception of the world around us. For aspiring entrepreneurs, these stories can have an outsized impact on their career trajectories — or, as in his own case, on one’s research interests.

Bort’s background as a business owner indelibly informs his research in the field of entrepreneurship. Not only talking the talk, but also walking the walk is crucial, in his view.

“To have had that experience of like: it’s Wednesday, payroll hits tomorrow, and I’m still two grand shy. I have a day to figure this out — that hustle changes you as a human, and it certainly informs your approach to research.”

Our life experiences provide the raw material for the stories we tell ourselves. These, in turn, shape our perceptions of our own possibilities. For example, in a recent article published in The Journal of Business Research, Bort and his co-author, Henrick Totterman, found that “underdog” entrepreneurs — entrepreneurs starting from disadvantaged personal or economic circumstances — often have higher growth aspirations, precisely because of the adversities they have had to overcome.

But this work is not only relevant for specialists in the field. Bort’s students find it fascinating.

“The students love it,” he said. “I have units on neurodiversity and entrepreneurship and how we can flip these things into a strength. And [the students] really react strongly to it, because it’s becoming less stigmatized. It’s OK if you are depressed and going through it, because this is what the human experience is!

“The classic idea of the lone wolf entrepreneur, where everything’s perfect and you just see the success story — that’s not how it is. Really successful people struggle too.” It’s an empowering message for students crafting their own narratives as they set out on their post-college careers.

Bort is still getting to know the students and culture of the university. But he’s quickly getting a sense for what makes DePaul special. Teaching in the part-time MBA program has been particularly rewarding.

“They’re really, naturally curious and motivated. It’s one of the best groups I’ve had. When I did my MBA, it was part time as well, and it was really hard. So I try to construct the course to be like the course I would have wanted to take when I was in my MBA program!”