career exploration

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

Meredith Carroll Faculty Focus , , , ,

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.”

For James Bort, Research and Experience Go Hand in Hand

Meredith Carroll Faculty Focus , , ,

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!”