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Podcast

Price Tells a Story About Your Product

In this episode of the McGill Delve podcast, Professor Rim Hariss talks price strategies. Supply and demand, manufacturing costs, and other operational factors are important determinants of a product’s price. But beyond that, retailers can manipulate prices to tell a story about their brand. Professor Hariss explains how different price strategies affect relationships with consumers, how price anchoring and skimming influences consumer behaviour, and the opportunities and risks of putting products on sale.

Demystify and Take Control of Your Personal Finances

Personal finances may seem complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. Benjamin Croitoru is an Associate Professor of Finance and the Academic Director of McGill Personal Finance Essentials, a free personal finance course offered by McGill University. In this episode of the McGill Delve podcast, he walks us through how to control our finances, avoid common investing mistakes, and feel more comfortable speaking to financial advisors.

How Simple Management Practices Can Save Lives

Anicet Fangwa is an Assistant Professor in Strategy and Organization at the Desautels Faculty of Management. In this podcast episode, he highlights three simple management tactics that can reduce infant mortality rates in the Democratic Republic of Congo: performance-based incentives, auditing, and feedback. With these tools, institutional donors can maximize the impact of their funding and potentially save lives.

How Social Goals Can Drive Health Innovation Policy

In its fight against Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), the Brazilian government made it a priority to develop innovation capacity within their borders, and their methods could be a blueprint for other countries hoping to do the same. Paola Perez-Aleman, Associate Professor of Strategy and Organization at McGill University, joins Dr. Sabine Dhir to discuss Brazil’s approach to building healthcare innovation capacity.

For Specialty Medications, Science is the Best Marketing

In a recent study, marketing professor Demetrios Vakratsas found that physicians use scientific evidence to learn about new specialty drugs, rather than consulting traditional marketing materials. So what does this mean for marketers in the pharmaceutical sector? And how does this affect the delivery of care for patients with rare conditions? Professor Vakratsas shares his insights on this episode of the McGill Delve podcast.

Activist Hedge Funds Want a Seat on Your Board of Directors

Activist hedge funds exert their influence in several ways, but recently they’ve been trying something new: acquiring board seats on their portfolio companies. Once there, fund representatives can advise and monitor company leadership to maximize the company’s value. Ipek Yavuz, Assistant Professor of Finance at the Desautels Faculty of Management, studied the impact of activist board members who perform advisory and monitoring roles in target portfolio companies. She shares her findings on the latest McGill Delve podcast episode.

A Little Financial Data is a Dangerous Thing

Taha Havakhor is a Professor of Information Systems at McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management. In a recent study, he looked at how retail investors used data from a financial API – that’s an Application Programming Interface – to inform their investment decisions. He found that, when using stock pricing data pulled from an API, consumer investors were prone to making riskier investment choices. He tells us why in the latest episode of the McGill Delve podcast.

Sustainable Fast Fashion is a Three-Body Problem

In a recent study, Professor Mehmet Gumus learned that consumers are reluctant to pay more for sustainable clothing. This creates a conundrum for fast fashion companies. Sustainable manufacturing is expensive, so firms want to know their investment will be worth it. But, if they’re going to succeed, major stakeholders will have to join forces to make an impact. Gumus believes companies, consumers, and public institutions can work together to help fast fashion change fast. He joins us on the McGill Delve podcast to talk about how.

When Catastrophic Failure Brought the Space Industry Together

In 2014, a commercial spacecraft crashed during a test flight, killing one pilot and severely injuring the other. What followed was a coming-together of industry leaders, driven by a shared passion for exploration and the need to legitimize a nascent commercial space industry. Through this incident, we learn about the behaviours of nascent industries after an extreme event. We also pick up important lessons in risk-management and stakeholder relations in high-risk fields. Sen Chai, Professor of Organizational Behaviour at the Desautels Faculty of Management, documented it all in a research paper. She joins us on the McGill Delve podcast to talk about it.