Colorado State University College of Business 2023 PRME Report

2023 PRME REPORT

Contents TABLE OF

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08

Purpose & Values

Business for a Better World

16 52

30

Method

Partnerships & Dialogue

Research

62

Organizational Sustainability biz.colostate.edu

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Proud Member of PRME Signatories

CSU’s College of Business is

committed to the Principles

for Responsible Management Education and the United Nations’ Sustainable

Development Goals in pursuit of our Business for a Better

Committed to Business for a Better World Our shared vision that business can be a force for positive change provides the foundation for everything we do at Colorado State University’s College of Business. I am proud to lead a business school with values that align so closely with the United Nations' Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME). In joining more than 800 other PRME signatories, our College is honored to be included among other global change makers committed to preparing the next generation of leaders with the vision, knowledge and skillset necessary to enact positive social, environmental and economic transformation. I am encouraged to know our efforts resonate with hundreds of other intuitions around the globe.

Our Business for a Better World vision and aligned strategic plan empower and inspire faculty, staff and students to innovate and advance the PRME principles every day. From faculty who publish award-winning research with practical implications for public policy and business sustainability, to a thoughtful curriculum spanning all disciplines that centers on sustainability at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, to students who have contributed more than 28,000 hours of corporate sustainability work for 58 organizations globally, across the board, we are making a difference. We are developing future leaders committed to sustainability with the skills and dedication to lead with optimism through complex and uncertain times.

As you will read in this report, our College community has made significant strides in advancing PRME principles. I look forward to seeing these efforts continue to evolve and create meaningful impact as we strive towards a better future together.

World vision.

Principle 1 | Purpose

We will develop the capabilities of students to be future generators of sustainable value for business and society at large and to work for an inclusive and sustainable global economy.

Principle 2 | Values

We will incorporate into our academic activities, curricula and organizational practices the values of global social responsibility as portrayed in international initiatives such as the United Nations Global Compact.

Principle 3 | Method

We will create educational frameworks, materials, processes and environments that enable effective learning experiences for responsible leadership.

Principle 4 | Research Beth Walker, PhD Dean, College of Business Colorado State University American Marketing Association (AMA) Fellow 4 Purpose & Values

We will engage in conceptual and empirical research that advances our understanding about the role, dynamics and impact of corporations in the creation of sustainable social, environmental and economic value.

Principle 5 | Partnership

We will interact with managers of business corporations to extend our knowledge of their challenges in meeting social and environmental responsibilities and to explore jointly effective approaches to meeting these challenges.

Principle 6 | Dialogue

We will facilitate and support dialogue and debate among educators, students, business, government, consumers, media, civil society organizations and other interested groups and stakeholders on critical issues related to global social responsibility and sustainability.

Principle 7 | Organizational Sustainability

We understand that our own organizational practices should serve as example of the values and attitudes we convey to our students.

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Business for a Better World A C C ES S

MISSION

We are in the business of transforming lives. Through business education, scholarly research and community engagement, we make our world a better place.

VISION

To build a nationally recognized College of Business that:

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Provides access to an exceptional business education Pursues excellence in publishing research that contributes to our understanding of business and its role in society Leverages the power of business to make the world a better place

2025 Goals

The College of Business mission and vision provide momentum for its strategic planning framework, illuminating its purpose and guiding progress. As we strengthen our operational foundations and empower our workforce, we can achieve our goals through intentional and focused action.

6 Colorado State University | College of Business

E X CE L L E N CE

IMPACT

COMM UN I T Y

Business for a Better World Faculty, staff and students at the College of Business are united in our shared purpose of Business for a Better World. This focus guides the College’s Strategic Plan, which in turn informs curriculum, research, student engagement and community outreach. This purpose is tangibly incorporated throughout our curriculum, student experiences and partnerships and brings together our community to make a difference locally, nationally and globally.

The report captures the ways in which the College’s Business for a Better World vision and strategic plan align with the Principles of Responsible Management Education.

OVERARCHING GOAL

I am so proud to be furthering our mission of transforming lives through high-quality education that teaches the next generation of business leaders to unite purpose and profit to create a better world.”

Dean Beth Walker

NATIONAL VISIBILITY

Establish the CSU College of Business as a national leader advancing business education to address the social, environmental and economic challenges of the 21st century.

Core Goals

Research Elevate the quality and impact of our scholarship.

Student Access and Success Transform the educational experience to enhance learning, champion access and improve students’ opportunities for success.

Enabling Strategies People Develop and empower a workforce that is purposedriven, highly valued and diverse.

Student Preparation Impart students with the values, knowledge and skills to navigate rapidly evolving markets and careers and to address global challenges with sustainable business models and practices.

Community Engagement Engage and enrich the communities that we serve.

Financial Foundations Secure financial and operational stability and strength to sustain programs and fuel the College’s strategic priorities.

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Purpose & Values P R INC IPL ES 1 &2

We will develop the capabilities of students to be future generators of sustainable value for business and society at large and to work for an inclusive and sustainable global economy.

We will incorporate into our academic activities, curricula, and organizational practices the values of global social responsibility as portrayed in international initiatives such as the United Nations Global Compact.

Earning Accolades for Sustainability In

Annual ranking places College’s MBA program among top nationally

2023, Corporate Knights honored the College with a No. 4 Better World MBA nationally and No. 7 globally. This marks the second year the international publication has recognized the College’s programs among the world’s best.

The ranking evaluated 209 business schools across the world and focused on two metrics: what proportion of the core curriculum addresses sustainable development principles and what percentage of

recent graduates are working in “impact organizations."

The highly competitive and growing field included programs accredited

by AACSB, AMBA or EQUIS, and also evaluated schools from the most recent Financial Times Top 100 MBA list.

The recognition affirms the power of the College of Business’ vision that business has the responsibility to drive positive social, environmental and economic change.

We’re proud to be equipping students with the skills needed to lead sustainability initiatives and create lasting change.”

Kat Ernst Impact MBA Program Director

Awards honor Impact MBA among elite sustainability programs The Impact MBA’s Corporate Sustainability Fellowship Program earned a silver award for nurturing employability in the prestigious Wharton-QS Reimagine Education Awards for North America in 2022.

The award was the culmination of an eight-month process and five rounds of assessment, during which programs were judged

based on their project's approach, engagement and impact. The annual award recognizes innovative approaches that enhance student learning outcomes and employability.

The program also received the Wharton-QS silver award for sustainability education globally in 2020.

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Positive Impact Rating Students rate College a Level 4 ‘transforming’ institution for two consecutive years

In

the Positive Impact Rating for Business Schools’ 2023 report, CSU was one of only seven U.S. schools rated by students at Level 4, the secondhighest possible rating. It was the second consecutive year it achieved this rating. No U.S. schools were rated at Level 5.

The Positive Impact Rating is the only rating that uses student feedback to assess a school's ability to energize, educate and engage its community. This recognition is a direct reflection of the College’s commitment to its Business for a Better World vision.

“It means that our impact efforts are felt and experienced by students, that our vision of Business for a Better World is embedded in how we educate and collaborate, and that the College is making progress in meaningful ways,” said Grace

Wright, the College’s sustainability initiatives specialist. “There is still a lot of work to be done, and we appreciate students helping to guide the priorities for the College.”

The rating assesses schools around the world from Level 1 (beginning) to Level 5 (pioneering). Level 4 is given to "schools with a positive impact culture, embedded in governance and systems, with visible results and progress in many impact dimensions."

The student ratings and feedback collected in the survey offer valuable insight into the impact staff and faculty are making in classrooms and across communities, allowing the College to build on what’s working while examining how to continue to improve.

surveys for the 2022 report, said they were encouraged to see that students understand the importance of the role business plays in making the world a better place.

In my program, I expect to have sustainability integrated into the courses, but it’s an amazing thing that the undergraduate students feel that way as well.”

Hillary Prince Impact MBA Alumna

Impact MBA students Marie Samson and Hillary Prince, who were responsible for distributing student

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Empowering Transformation Case competitions develop Business for a Better World ethos ethical crisis or decision they faced in life, then submit a video essay describing the challenge. Because of the universality and importance of ethics instruction, students from across campus were eligible to enter the competition.

Accounting faculty achieve sustainability credentials

College’s expert on data privacy recognized with prestigious award

Assistant dean among 2022’s Top Voices in Racial Equity on LinkedIn

As the importance of sustainability accounting and environmental, social and governance reporting grows, the College is developing leaders who understand how to measure, interpret and report on these impacts.

The marketing department’s Kelly Martin’s research specializes in customer data privacy, studying how marketers use customer information and the impact of firms’ data privacy practices on customer behavior and firm performance.

Five accounting faculty have completed their Fundamentals of Sustainability Accounting (FSA) Level 1 and Level 2 credentials, which enable them to integrate sustainability into their curriculum and coursework. The College began offering certification training to MBA students in 2021 and launched an FSA course in Spring 2023.

These topics have dominated headlines in recent years, and Martin’s 2017 article, “Data Privacy: Effects on Customer and Firm Performance,” received the prestigious Sheth Foundation/ Journal of Marketing Award in 2022 for its continued impact on both academic and practical understanding of the topic.

Assistant dean of social and cultural inclusion Patrice Palmer doesn’t like to ask students to do things they haven’t done themself. That’s why when it came time to preach the importance of using LinkedIn, Palmer took a hands-on approach and created their own profile.

12 Purpose & Values

Now, more than 44,000 people follow Palmer, whose posts detail their experiences as a Black, queer, transgender (non-binary) person working in the world of business and education. Their insight and wide impact earned recognition from LinkedIn as one of the Top 10 Voices in Racial Equity.

T

esting knowledge and skills using real-world scenarios is a time-honored tradition in business education, and College of Business case competitions amplify those experiences while also giving students the chance to flex their command of Business for a Better World thinking.

Three Business for a Better Worldfocused case competitions – the Deloitte Women in Business Case Competition, the Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) Case Competition and the Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative (DFEI) Video Case Competition – extend the opportunity for students to unknot corporate challenges while developing a stronger understanding of how their values can guide important business decisions.

During the 2022-2023 school year, competition participants vied for nearly $35,000 in cash prizes and scholarships provided by partner institutions such as Deloitte, FirstBank and New Belgium Brewery that align with the competitions’ mission to promote diverse thinking.

“Addressing real-world implications of our Business for a Better World vision provides additional dimensions to classwork,” said Andrea Karapas, Women in Business Case Competition organizer and director of the Career Management Center. “These events provide that perspective and raise the stakes with competition that brings out the best in our students.”

The DFEI competition prompted competitors to discuss a major

During the Women in Business and JEDI competitions, students addressed problems based on gender and equity issues pulled from industry. Teams analyzed the situation, collaborated to develop solutions and presented their approach to judges drawn from sponsors and partner institutions.

The experience offers opportunity to directly interact with executives before entering the job market.

You’re never going to get better without feedback.

You can give yourself as much feedback as you want, and it’s important [to do so], but it’s not going to take you to the next level unless you’re also getting outside feedback.”

Miranda White Women in Business Case Competition Winner biz.colostate.edu 13

Next Steps GOAL GOAL

Baseline student perception

GOAL

PROGRESS

Employees perceive we are achieving our mission (measured on a five-point Likert Scale)

Employees believe they contribute to the College’s vision of becoming a national leader in advancing business to address the social, environmental and economic challenges of the 21st century (measured on a five-point Likert Scale)

PROGRESS

PROGRESS

GOAL

• Achieved Positive Impact Rating (PIR) Level 4 Transforming Institution in 2022 and 2023 • Increased PIR participation rate by 36% in 2023 NEXT STEPS & TARGETS • Maintain or increase PIR rating • Increase student participation rate 14 Colorado State University | College of Business

• Monitored employee perception at 4.9 in 2021 and 4.7 in 2022 NEXT STEPS & TARGETS • Maintain or improve employee perception

• Monitored employee perception at 5 and 2021 and 4.9 in 2022 NEXT STEPS & TARGETS • Maintain employee perception

Increase impact-focused rankings and recognition PROGRESS • Achieved ranking of No. 4 nationally and No. 7 globally in Corporate Knights’ Better World MBA Ranking

GOAL GOAL Increase information sharing about our College’s impact

• Received QS-Wharton Reimagine Education Award

PROGRESS

• Received AACSB Innovations that Inspire Award

• Distributed impact snapshot

• Developed PRME report

Increase organizational ownership and accountability to our mission and vision PROGRESS • Hired one full-time sustainability staff member • Formed Green Team

• Maintain or improve Corporate Knights ranking

NEXT STEPS & TARGETS

• Approved 19 impact-focused Budgeting for Strategic Outcomes proposals in 2022 and 2023

• Increase B4BWrelated recognition for Undergraduate, Online, and Evening MBA programs

• Continue PRME reporting • Increase audience and viewership for impact-related content

NEXT STEPS & TARGETS

NEXT STEPS & TARGETS

• Launched sustainability partnerships webpage

• Track number of faculty- and staff-led impact-focused initiatives and events

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Method PRI N CI P L E 3

We will create educational frameworks, materials, processes and environments that enable effective learning experiences for responsible leadership.

Impact MBA Fellowships In

Students drive real-world sustainable initiatives

2022 and 2023, 69 Impact MBA students completed approximately 28,000 hours of corporate sustainability work in the Impact MBA’s fellowship program.

The fellowships are a key part of every Impact MBA student’s degree experience and offer 400 hours of hands-on learning while guiding partner organizations to adopt sustainable initiatives.

Impact students directly translate classroom learning to real-

world applications to meet companies’ actual sustainability needs. Whether conducting risk analysis, analyzing greenhouse gas emissions or measuring a company’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives through reporting, the outcomes are meaningful and help organizations move forward.

“The program opened my mind to the opportunities that existed,” said Kameron Hanna, an Impact MBA fellow. “I now see just how

many possibilities there are to work on sustainability and how many industries really need sustainability professionals.”

Implementing sustainability initiatives Hanna’s fellowship with the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) Markets Institute explored implementing worker- and producer-centered business models. After conducting several interviews with companies outside of the WWF, Hanna identified numerous opportunities for organizations to expand sustainability efforts.

“It has showed me the importance of getting all companies, regardless of the sector, a little bit more on the path to sustainability,” he said.

Another Impact MBA student, Miki Salamon, helped the Denver Zoo conduct a greenhouse gas inventory. Despite the zoo’s well established sustainability practices, it wanted to get a better understanding of its operations to influence future goals.

18 Method

“A greenhouse gas inventory provides a holistic and accurate understanding of your business operations,” she said. “Then you can identify hotspots for areas of focus to really narrow down on and try to reduce emissions in those spaces.”

Working alongside the zoo, she learned not only how committed its team was to the animals’ wellbeing but about its conservation efforts as well.

“I was really taken aback, because I think I’m just used to sustainability, especially in corporate settings, being so siloed and kind of an afterthought for people,” Salamon said.

“So it was really impressive to see how well it was integrated within the whole organization.”

Matching fellows and hosts

The Impact team partners with host companies that propose specific sustainability projects, connecting students with opportunities to put their knowledge to use. Similar to medical residency matching, students submit their preferences and are

The fellowship program has multiple layers of impact: student impact, company impact and environmental impact. It’s creating meaningful change for our stakeholders, and it will only continue to grow. Business for a Better World is in our DNA.” Grace Wright Sustainability Initiatives Specialist

connected to host organizations based on their submissions.

The Denver Zoo landed on Salamon’s list of matches. “I saw Denver Zoo and I just thought, ‘Wow, that’s so interesting,’” Salamon said. “Who would ever be able to say they had the opportunity to work at a zoo?”

The Denver Zoo was looking to do a greenhouse gas assessment. It was a match made in heaven.

Lasting impact

The fellowship program is making an impact on its students, but its influence goes far beyond the work they’re doing in the field and in the classroom.

The network and community coupled with real-world work experience drives students to discover just how capable they are of becoming leaders of change. Choosing to invest in a program that positively affects its students, community and environment is part of the reason the Impact MBA is a true leader in sustainable business education.

Undergrads partner with real-world ventures for sustainable projects Social enterprises and the College collaborated to provide undergraduates with hands-on experience on improving the impact of businesses.

Professors Paulo R Borges de Brito and Jaewoo Jung teach the undergraduate Social and Sustainable Venturing course, which partners with social enterprises to help improve their business operations and enhance impact. In their course, students worked with small companies that produce upcycled rain barrels, provide economic opportunity to sex

Curriculum innovations prepare students for a complex and changing world For more than a decade, the College has been one of only a handful of business schools that require a core sustainability course for all undergraduate students. At the graduate level, the Impact MBA has been driving curricular innovation for more than 17 years.

In the spirit of innovation, the College analyzed the depth and breadth of sustainability curriculum

at all levels and made efforts to continue transforming how it integrates sustainability and social impact into curricular offerings.

In just the last two years, the College has made a significant investment in new impact-focused curricula.

The College launched an Impact MBA and Master of Finance dual degree as well as an Online MBA Certificate in Sustainable Business, which includes new courses in ESG finance, corporate social and sustainable responsibility, and sustainability ethics and business practice. The College also developed and approved a new undergraduate All-University Core Curriculum (AUCC) course called Fostering Sustainable Organizations

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and launched two experimental courses: a Fundamentals of Sustainability Accounting class and a Fostering an Inclusive Workplace Climate class.

To further integrate the Business for a Better World vision into graduate programming, the College added a better world flex core category to the Online MBA as well as Business for a Better World competencies to all Online MBA core classes.

In addition, significant efforts were made by faculty to integrate greater depth of social and sustainable content into existing courses.

These efforts are tracked through the College’s annual survey for sustainable curriculum integration.

trafficking survivors, use fly larvae for waste management and resell slightly used clothing.

are multifaceted, intertwined and often more complex than theoretical scenarios.”

The real-world element of the course not only offers students a chance to put their classwork into practice, but also exposes them to the pressures and oftentimes muddy scenarios of operating a business.

Students aren’t the only ones who benefit from this learning experience. Partner organizations are also exposed to students’ fresh perspectives.

“Engaging with actual companies allows students to see that business challenges are not as unidimensional as textbooks might suggest,” Jung said. “In the business environment, problems

“This impacts our community in so many ways,” Borges de Brito explained. “Collaboration with real companies can lead to long-lasting relationships between students and community organizations.”

First-Gen Business Summit Summer summit gives high schoolers a taste of campus

F

rom real-life university lectures to visits with CEOs to TikTok dance parties in the residence halls, 43 young people had the opportunity to see firsthand what defines a great college experience and a vast majority of them hadn’t even graduated high school yet.

During the Summit, students were assigned teams and tasked with coming up with ideas for businesses they believe would create a better world. They presented their pitches to a panel of judges on the last day, and the winners received CSU

22 Method

In 2022, two student-managed financial funds valued at $1.1M raised nearly $80,000 in scholarships, ultimately making college more affordable for their peers and reflecting the College’s Business for a Better World vision.

The Summit and Veterans funds place students at the helm of significant portfolios. Just like in the real world, students can experience market fluctuations with the potential for large-scale losses and learn that beating the market is not easy.

Whether the funds beat the market or underperform, students gain distinctive experience managing funds real-time market conditions.

The benefits when the funds perform well go far beyond the students directly managing funds and support scholarships for others.

Using the same Bloomberg terminals commercial fund managers run, students access real-time news, verified data and other trading tools as part of their analysis. After research into their stock picks, students present to their peers, defending their analyses and polishing the leadership and communications skills essential to business professionals.

tangible,” said associate finance professor and advisor of the Summit Fund, Hilla Skiba. “The funds’ success speaks to the rigor of our students’ investment analysis and has contributed to the College’s land-grant mission of extending access through financial aid.”

“Managing a real-world portfolio makes classwork much more

Four College faculty receive University’s sustainability curriculum innovation grants

This experience was part of the First-Generation Business Summit, which brought high school students and recent graduates from Colorado and beyond to campus. Many of them were from underserved or rural communities, and all of them will be the first person in their families to attend college.

“I’ve had multiple students tell me that they didn’t think college was in their fate, but after attending the Summit, they realized they really wanted to go,” said David Ferree, an undergraduate recruitment coordinator for the College of Business.

Student-managed investments raise $80K in scholarships

scholarships up to $2,500 funded by CSU’s Green and Gold Foundation and FirstBank.

While the scholarships are contingent on whether students attend CSU, this wasn’t the entire mission of the Summit. Organizers hope that by offering a taste of campus life, they’ve inspired firstgeneration students to persevere and set a goal of attending college – even if it’s on a campus other than CSU.

For two consecutive years, four College faculty have been selected to receive highly competitive sustainability curriculum innovation grants from CSU to introduce sustainability concepts into coursework.

We’re a land-grant institution, and if someone who wasn’t planning on it decides to attend college – wherever that is – we did our job.”

David Ferree Assistant Director of Resident Recruitment

CSU’s School of Global Environmental Sustainability and the President’s Sustainability Commission award the grants annually to expand and improve interdisciplinary sustainability content across the University curriculum.

“The University’s dedication to sustainability further empowers College of Business faculty to develop our courses and to keep

our students at the leading edge of sustainability education,” said finance professor Harry Turtle, one of the grant recipients. “Students benefit by the College and CSU amplifying each other’s enthusiasm.”

Two grants focused on enabling finance and real estate department faculty to meaningfully integrate ESG curriculum into their courses. In 2022, Tianyang Wang received funding to develop curriculum that introduces students to new advances in ESG frameworks and sustainability in the business world.

In 2023, Hilla Skiba and Harry Turtle were awarded a grant to develop an ESG graduate student-managed

investment fund. They also used their updated ESG investment modules in multiple classes and introduced an ESG investments course as a component of the College’s graduate Sustainable Business Certificate.

The marketing department’s Chris Berry also received a 2023 grant to redesign a course on marketing and societal well-being to focus on sustainable marketing and consumption. It provides students with an understanding of how marketing and consumption practices relate to the broad domain of sustainability.

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$600K grant supports gender diversity in computer information Building on its history of developing programs that increase gender diversity, the computer information systems department received funding to continue recruiting and retaining women into its program.

The grant of $600,000 provided by the Center for Inclusive Computing at Northeastern University was shared with the College of Natural Sciences' computer science department.

CSU team wins humanitarian competition involving 130 students from 16 countries A team of four CSU students won a 2021 international competition designed to offer solutions to countries grappling with natural disasters and the supply chain issues that ensue.

Impact MBA students Emily Bergman, Tess Lapray and Blerinda Veliu teamed up with Julia Choolwe Munsaka – a PhD student in the Political Science Department – to share their proposal to build “resiliency kits” for people in Mozambique.

Team CSU received $5,000 for winning the Hanken School of Economics HUMLOG Challenge, which attracted 37 teams of 130 students drawn from 21 schools in 16 countries.

Munsaka, who’s from Zambia, wanted to focus her research on Mozambique because the African country’s many miles of coastline

have made it vulnerable to the natural disasters that have become more frequent due to climate change.

Food insecurity is a major issue that arises after disasters, she said.

Distributing the kits would require partnerships with the nonprofits and non-governmental organizations already on the ground.

Bergman said their goal was for the kits to cost $1 each and to include evacuation materials to lessen human impact during the next disaster. The people building the kits would be from Mozambique, creating additional jobs in one of the poorest countries in the world.

“We’re really trying to step back and allow space for communities to create and lead their own disaster response initiatives, with support from the government and other NGOs,” Bergman said.

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The award is used to support evidence-based approaches to creating educational opportunities for all students.

“As one of the first CIS programs in the country and among the top 50 in the nation, we are honored to receive this gift to support advancing the next generation of diverse leaders,” Leo Vijayasarathy, chair of the computer information systems department in the College of Business, said. “In particular, we see women taking a more active role in shaping the future of technology and its applications – ultimately connecting business and technology in innovative ways to move our society forward.”

With information technology becoming more important across virtually all industries, the department is focused on developing the next generation of tech worker. The grant enables the department to continue its pursuit of expanding access to high-tech positions and will help ensure that its programs remain within reach, regardless of a student’s background.

Building Bridges Creating community for first-gen students

J

azmin Arias may be the first person in her family to attend college, but she’s not working toward her degree alone. As a member of the College’s firstgeneration community, she joins other students, faculty, staff and alumni who understand the challenges associated with being the first to pursue a college education.

First-generation students often have more generational, cultural or familial pressures than their peers. Challenges range from being the only English speaker able to represent the family in public situations to having less parental guidance navigating internships and resources available to students.

Arias can relate. She is among the 22% of College of Business students who identify as first gen.

Many of those students engage with the First-Generation Business Association, a College of Business student organization that helps students navigate campus life beyond the classroom.

That community comes together to network and celebrate its members’ triumphs at an annual Building Bridges dinner. The event reaffirms the College’s support for first-generation students pursuing their degrees. At the event, Arias spoke of her experience growing up in a Spanish-speaking household. She learned English in kindergarten and soon became a translator for her parents as they navigated immigration.

“My journey to this campus is filled with family and love,” the junior business administration major said.

She recounted how she once saved her cousins from a house fire, and what it was like to be nine years old and explaining to officers what had just happened to her family.

“But I still went to school the next day,” Arias said.

The College’s first-generation community has provided Arias and others with support and inspiration that they can persevere in the face

of ongoing challenges. True to the tight-knit first-gen community, Arias is involved the First-Generation Business Association and helps mentor fellow Latinx students navigating college.

Becoming the first in your family to earn a college degree has a transformative generational impact, positively changing the life of the student and the lives of those that surround them. We’re dedicated to serving our first-generation community and proud of our commitment to expanding access to education.”

Alex Diemer First-Generation Business Association Advisor

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LEAP Scholar A

New partnership provides pathway for Indian students to earn degree

partnership with Leap Scholar forged in 2022 created a unique hybrid learning program that allows students in India to complete the College’s STEM-designated master’s degree in computer information systems (MCIS) at a much lower cost than typical international students.

“After these students graduate, they will fill a much-needed niche,” Leo Vijayasarathy, the chair of the Department of Computer Information Systems said. “Clearly tech jobs are plentiful, so producing business graduates coming out of a STEM program is definitely beneficial to the economy.”

training authorization to work in the U.S. after graduation.

This program trains workers for careers in in-demand fields ranging from cybersecurity to data analytics – helping meet the need for technical professionals well versed in business applications.

The LEAP Scholar partnership program allows students to complete the first semester of their MCIS degree in India before coming to Colorado for their final two semesters on campus in Fort Collins. The hybrid approach helps students save approximately $25,000 over the course of the program compared to starting the program on campus.

Depending on the success of the partnership, Vijayasarathy said the College of Business could begin offering similar pathways to students throughout southeast Asia and the Middle East, truly making the mission of Business for a Better World a global endeavor.

The first class of students from India began the MCIS program in Fall 2022. Vijayasarathy said many of these students have had previous experience working with global tech companies like Amazon or Accenture, meaning they’re already acclimatized to how businesses in the U.S. operate before they start at CSU.

Whether it’s international students or domestic students, we want to make sure that we provide access to a high-quality degree for everyone interested in a CSU education.”

The program also allows international students to receive up to three years of practical

“One of the University’s goals is to have a diverse population of students, and that’s what we’re trying to do here: make our program attractive, affordable and accessible,” Vijayasarathy said.

Leo Vijayasarathy, PhD Chair, Department of Computer Information Systems

Next Steps GOAL Increase the percentage of nonwhite undergraduate (RI business concentrations) and graduate (RI and enterprise) students enrolled in the College of Business GOAL Increase the percentage of first-generation undergraduate students enrolled PROGRESS • Increased first-generation representation from 518 students (20.3%) in 2021 to 614 (21.7%) in 2022 • Hosted summer First-Gen Business Summit in 2022 and 2023 NEXT STEPS & TARGETS • Increase first-generation representation above 21.7%

PROGRESS • Maintained nonwhite representation among undergraduates from 647 (25.5%) in 2021 to 718 (25.4%) in 2022 • Increased nonwhite representation among graduates from 240 (21.6%) in 2021 to 235 (23%) in 2022 NEXT STEPS & TARGETS • Increase nonwhite representation among undergraduates • Increase nonwhite representation among graduates

GOAL Close achievement gaps (retention, six-year graduation rates, placement) among all groups (e.g., first-generation students, underrepresented students, Pell-eligible students) that are tracked by the University PROGRESS • Tracked six metrics • Achieved best four-year graduation rate of 61.4% among all CSU colleges; second highest rate at CSU is 45.7% • Equalized minoritized students’ and non-minoritized graduation rates NEXT STEPS & TARGETS • Reduce existing placement, graduation and salary gaps for specific groups

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GOAL Support and grow student extracurricular impact-focused efforts PROGRESS • 18 student clubs engaged in impact-focused education and volunteer efforts NEXT STEPS & TARGETS • Increase club events and speakers focused on impact.

• Track student involvement in impact-focused case competitions

GOAL Increase percentage of curricular content addressing global challenges and sustainable business models/ practices (five-point scale, ranging from –2 to +2)

Next Steps

PROGRESS • Increased percentage of curricular content addressing global challenges from 25.6% in 2012 to 25.7% in 2022 • Increased sustainable business score from 0.65 in 2021 to 0.83 in 2022 • Incentivized additional integration for ESG Finance and Marketing for Societal Impact courses NEXT STEPS & TARGETS • Increase percentage of curricular content addressing global challenges • Increase sustainable business score above 0.83

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GOAL

Strengthen and support development of courses, certificates, and programs focused on CSR/ESG/ Sustainability/SDGs at the graduate level PROGRESS

• Launched Impact MBA and Master of Finance dual degree • Launched graduate certificate in Sustainable Business • New graduate courses in ESG Finance, Corporate Social and Sustainable Responsibility, Sustainability Ethics, and Fundamentals of Sustainability Accounting NEXT STEPS & TARGETS • Grow program, certificate and course enrollments

All undergraduate College of Business majors complete core sustainability course PROGRESS • Achieved 100% completion rate of BUS 201 for undergraduate business majors as part of core curriculum NEXT STEPS & TARGETS • Launch 3-credit AUCC course in 2024 and expand enrollment for the course year over year

Support and celebrate faculty classroom impact PROGRESS • Awarded five all-College awards for classroom impact • Presented Dean’s Distinguished Teaching Fellowship • Increased media and social media highlights of classroom impact NEXT STEPS & TARGETS • Continue program/efforts

GOAL

GOAL

Increase participation in crossUniversity impact-focused curriculum

Strengthen and support development of courses, certificates and programs focused on CSR/ESG/ Sustainability/SDGs at the undergraduate level

PROGRESS

PROGRESS

• Developed AUCC course

• Received campus approval for 3-credit sustainable business AUCC course

GOAL

GOAL

GOAL

• Secured faculty and staff representation and leadership on many committees, including SOGES curriculum committee, President’s Sustainability Commission and climate change initiative NEXT STEPS & TARGETS • Launch AUCC course • Increase participation in SOGES minor and crosscampus educational initiatives

• Delivered sustainable supply chain seminar • Developed Marketing for Societal Impact course NEXT STEPS & TARGETS • Launch additional impactfocused courses • Explore undergraduate certificate or concentration in business sustainability

Increase student participation rates in “signature experiences,” defined as an immersive activity that allows students to apply classroom learning to a real-world setting PROGRESS • Cataloged signature experiences offered by the College • Funded seven signature experience proposals through Tinberg grants in 2022 • Provided students with an average of 1.86 signature experiences NEXT STEPS & TARGETS • Increase student participation percentage in signature experiences (measured via senior survey) • Continue to fund Budgeting for Strategic Outcomes and Tinberg proposals to grow signature experiences

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Research P RINC IP L E 4

We will engage in conceptual and empirical research that advances our understanding about the role, dynamics and impact of corporations in the creation of sustainable social, environmental and economic value.

Tackling Illegal Wildlife Trafficking Advancing interdisciplinary science for disrupting wildlife trafficking networks Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

What if we could reduce illegal wildlife trafficking by disrupting the illicit supply chain that enables protected wildlife species to be carried across borders and into the hands of buyers?

A

Madagascar to advocate for a multidisciplinary approach to eliminating illegal wildlife trafficking.

Macdonald, an associate professor in the Department of Management, spent the first 15 years of his academic career studying how companies can prevent and recover from supply chain disruptions.

He was focused on the kinds of disruptions that we saw during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, from toilet paper shortages to furniture delays.

As one of the rarest tortoises in the world, ploughshare tortoises have been protected by law in Madagascar since 1960, but they continue to be poached and sold as pets. By examining the case of the ploughshare tortoises through an interdisciplinary lens, local officials could discover vulnerabilities in the wildlife trafficking network’s supply chain and determine how resilient the supply chain would be in the face of disruption.

College of Business professor, John Macdonald, is part of a unique interdisciplinary team examining illegal activity through the lens of supply chains.

Until a few years ago, he had never considered using his expertise to research how to intentionally disrupt a supply chain – but that’s exactly what he and his colleagues are doing.

“By analyzing the characteristics of illicit trade from a business and logistics perspective, we’re aiming to stimulate the kind of research needed to reduce illegal wildlife trafficking around the world,” Macdonald said. “We believe that disrupting a supply chain could be a powerful crime-fighting tool.”

In “Advancing interdisciplinary science for disrupting wildlife trafficking networks,” published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Macdonald and his coauthors use the example of illicit ploughshare tortoise networks in

“Research journals often publish work focused in one umbrella discipline, such as conservation or business,” Macdonald said.

“One outcome of the research work is the call for journals to be willing to publish work using an interdisciplinary approach, as this will signal to researchers that such approaches are welcome. The example of ploughshare tortoises showed that interdisciplinary efforts may be more effective than singlediscipline efforts.”

Funded by an $809,666 grant from the National Science Foundation, Macdonald has coauthored a total of four articles on the topic of illegal wildlife trafficking over the past academic year.

In addition to the PNAS research, his team published “Quantitative

Investigation of Wildlife Trafficking Supply Chains: A Review,” in Omega; “Illicit Activity and Scarce Natural Resources in the Supply Chain: A Literature Review, Framework, and Research Agenda,” in the Journal of Business Logistics; and “A Data Directory to Facilitate Investigations on Worldwide Wildlife Trafficking,” in Big Earth Data.

“The PNAS article advocates for the aforementioned interdisciplinary approach,” Macdonald said. “This approach is then used as a framing in several subsequent articles: first, to look at the current knowledge state and gaps between illicit activity and scarce natural resources, such as certain minerals; second, identifying appropriate operations research techniques to answer important questions about the structure, operations and drivers of illicit networks; and third, to further break down communication barriers with a directory of available data resources for other researchers around the world to utilize.”

John Macdonald, PhD Associate Professor, Department of Management

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‘A pervasive and global problem’

networks such as drugs, weapons and human trafficking.”

Illegal wildlife trafficking is an extremely profitable crime, with an estimated value between $5 to $35 billion per year, according to a citation in Macdonald’s Omega article. The crime is driven by strong demand for wildlife and wildlife products, which have a wide range of uses, including fashion, food and traditional medicine.

Research into illegal supply chains is also becoming increasingly important as countries begin to pass laws that deal with sustainability and supply chains, Macdonald said.

These new laws – and increased social awareness – are pressuring companies around the world to better understand their operations.

It can be difficult to crack down on wildlife crime, in part because it spans more than 150 countries and more than 37,000 species of animals and plants. But the scale of the problem only makes it more important for researchers to understand how supply chains are used for criminal activity.

Through their work, Macdonald and his colleagues are hoping to encourage social and environmental sustainability in areas beset by illegal wildlife trafficking.

“The illicit wildlife trade is a pervasive and global problem that has far-reaching impacts on both society and the environment,” the Omega article explains. “Aside from threatening numerous species around the world and acting as a potential disease transmission vector for several zoonotic diseases, including the COVID-19 pandemic, this complex system is often linked with other illicit

The power of an interdisciplinary team Wildlife crime has often been researched from a conservation biology perspective, but it has only recently gained visibility as part of an integrated supply chain, criminology, operations research and artificial intelligence problem, Macdonald said.

In the PNAS article, he and his coauthors demonstrate how examining illegal wildlife trafficking networks’ supply chains could be key to stopping them, specifically signaling that different interdiction and disruption strategies could be tested on empirical data through machine learning and computational modeling.

The team’s very existence is a testament to the power of an interdisciplinary approach, uniting several logisticians — Macdonald included — as well as conservation criminologists and computer science researchers.

The beauty of this kind of approach is that each researcher approaches the problem with a different perspective, Macdonald

said. Academics have been researching how to stop illegal wildlife trafficking for decades — just not through the lens of logistics. But with this effort, researchers from different disciplines are coming together to combine their ideas.

Menus Fighting Climate Change

‘The building blocks of synthesis’ Because this type of interdisciplinary research into disrupting illegal wildlife trafficking hadn’t been done before — and because the nature of illegal activity means there isn’t readily available data on the subject — the researchers essentially had to start from the beginning, building a foundation on which to do further study.

“These multiple efforts don’t represent quantitative analysis that allows you to predict the next piece – instead, they represent the building blocks of synthesis,” Macdonald said. “We wanted to analyze what else was out there already so we could learn how to build on it.”

Despite significant research and increasing awareness around the importance of wildlife conservation and the dangers of illegal wildlife trafficking, little is known about the supply chain structures and operations of these illicit networks.

That makes this research an essential step toward better understanding wildlife crime.

By analyzing the obstacles to eliminating illegal wildlife trafficking, Macdonald and his colleagues have laid the groundwork for future developments in how to detect, reduce and hopefully, eliminate it.

Examining the effects of carbon emission information on restaurant menu items: Differential effects of positive icons, negative icons and numeric disclosures on consumer perceptions and restaurant evaluations

If

Journal of the Association for Consumer Research

people had more information about the carbon footprint generated by the food they eat, would they make different decisions when ordering in restaurants? About a third of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions are produced by the global food system — and some restaurants have begun taking steps to mitigate their climate impact by providing information about the emissions associated with specific menu items. Chris Berry and his coauthors examined consumers’ reactions to three different menu labels that restaurants could use to show the carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions required to produce a particular meal. The researchers found that while these labels successfully influence consumers’ choices, they can also have unintended consequences.

Studies show that if one of the menu labels is an icon that flags items below a specific emission threshold, that could drive perceptions in an unhelpful direction for products that barely miss the threshold. For example, if two menu items are very similar in their environmental impact, but one is eligible for the icon and the other isn’t, consumers could find themselves debating various types of salads instead of focusing on the value of ordering a salad instead of a hamburger. Simply adding numeric information about a meal’s CO2 emissions to a restaurant’s menu may be the most objective and least likely to mislead consumers, the research shows.

Chris Berry, PhD

Associate Professor, Department of Marketing

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Tragedy, Truth & Technology The 3T Theory of social media-driven misinformation Journal of the Association for Information Systems

T

he algorithms social media platforms use to share content prioritize keeping users engaged on the platform, but they’re also central to the spread of misinformation. Drawing comparisons from classic Greek and Shakespearian tragedies as well as insight into user experience, Hamed Qahri-Saremi developed a theory that explains how users’ decision-making processes may be hijacked by algorithms when evaluating false claims, ultimately leading to unfavorable real-world consequences. Algorithms that select content surfacing on social newsfeeds exploit these processes.

By prioritizing content similar to previous posts with which a user interreacted, they customize and repeat misinformation, helping normalize

and undermine users’ abilities to evaluate the claims. Display of comments and “likes” related to false claims further complicates evaluation of false claims, as they leverage social influence responses that imply credibility through peer approval.

As users work to evaluate the truthfulness of claims, these algorithmic functions often magnify misinformation’s impact on the assessment process. By continually dripping falsities to users, social media platforms follow the same playbook as villains in classic tragedies, undermining users’ decisions and directing them to take destructive actions that vary from squandering public resources to committing crimes in the name of false claims.

Auditor Shopping Don’t make me look bad: How the audit market penalizes auditors for doing their job

Hamed Qahri-Saremi, PhD Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Information Systems

W

hen lawmakers passed the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which requires companies to use a different audit firm to perform audits for shareholders required by law, they intended it to provide additional oversight and security into publicly traded companies’ accounting practices. Twenty years later, Elizabeth Cowle and her coauthor discovered that on average, audit firms that provide more strict internal control opinions have lower client and fee growth than less critical auditors. These effects were more pronounced for firms that issued critical opinions of high-profile companies. Cowle also found that once audit firms with a reputation for

The Accounting Review stringency start issuing fewer strict opinions, they’re able to recoup some of their lost growth.

The findings indicate that companies may gravitate to audit firms with a reputation for leniency, and that market forces may undermine some portions of Sarbanes-Oxley designed to provide oversight to accounting practices. Cowle’s research adds to calls to reform the 20-year-old act. Reforms would more effectively protect individual investors who rely on audits to make informed investment decisions and help avoid accounting scandals similar to those that cost stakeholders billions of dollars in the early ’00s.

Elizabeth Cowle, PhD Assistant Professor, Department of Accounting

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Busting Negativity Bias

Managing the Double Bind

Negativity bias and perceived return distributions: Evidence from a pandemic Journal of Financial Economics

H

umans aren’t always good at evaluating risks, a weakness that Harry Turtle and his coauthors’ research ties to lack of participation in the stock market. By drawing on historical data gathered during the 2009-2010 swine flu pandemic as a yardstick to measure the tendency to over-estimate risks, a psychological process known as negativity bias, Turtle found that people who overestimated their chances of dying from

swine flu were also more likely to overestimate their chances of losing money in the stock market: Pulling information from the RAND American Life Panel, Turtle found people estimated their chance of dying from swine flu as 270 times higher than actual risk. Those people’s negativity bias also translated to their outlook on the market, with respondents estimating the likelihood of yearover-year gains at 39%. Historically, investors actually experience yearover-year gains 74% of the time.

Turtle also found that lowereducated and lower-income individuals displayed higher degrees of negativity bias. The research has important implications for fighting poverty and helping lower-income families build wealth by identifying a root cause for stock market avoidance and suggesting the

Women directors’ participation tactics in the boardroom

development of alternative financial products such as defined-benefit plans that reduce the perception of risk and combat negativity bias.

Organization Science

E Harry Turtle, PhD

Professor, Department of Finance and Real Estate

ven when operating at the highest levels of corporate America, women face the challenge of balancing stereotypes of femininity and authority. This struggle is known as the double bind, and successful female directors adopt several strategies to navigate this tension. Tiffany Trzebiatowski and her coauthors investigate how women on corporate boards of publicly traded companies gain the trust of their board members while weighing in on matters outside their areas of expertise as an executive.

Depending on their goals, women adopted communication styles that uphold warmth-based stereotypes of women and competency-focused expectations for directors. When seeking to diversify opinions on the

board, successful female directors drew on behaviors associated with warmth, asking questions and building connections with other directors. When facing competencybased expectations, they directly asserted their opinion or referenced outside research. Two other strategies, waiting and checking with others, addressed both warmth and competency concerns.

The glimpse inside the boardroom – traditionally a difficult place for researchers to access – confirms that gendered structures and ways of doing business persist at even the highest levels of management.

Businesses that encourage different means of expression on boards may benefit more from diverse directors’ experiences.

Tiffany Trzebiatowski, PhD

Assistant Professor, Department of Management

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Leading the Board in a Crisis Surviving Remotely How job control and loneliness during a forced shift to remote work impacted employee work behaviors and well-being Human Resource Management

S

ome workers cheered the shift to remote work forced by the COVID-19 pandemic while others hated the change. What was the difference between the two?

Samantha Conroy and her coauthors found that perceptions around remote work boil down to how each employee perceived the amount of job control and their level of workplace loneliness. Workers who prefer high segmentation between their work and home lives tended to perceive the shift to telework as eroding barriers between the professional and personal spheres, leading to a decline in job well-being following the change. Those who prefer a looser work-life balance experienced less stress in the change to telework as long as they had job control.

40 Research

Surprising the researchers, the stresses of perceived loneliness of remote workers didn’t lead to counterproductive behaviors such as tardiness, incomplete work or leaving early, regardless of workers’ preferences for work-life segmentation.

Some workers found the transition to pandemic-era telework extremely disruptive to work-life balance and their well-being. Conroy’s research exposes opportunities for HR professionals to develop policies that give employees a greater sense of control when making grand changes to workplace arrangements, as well as developing strategies to keep employees engaged and less lonely when working remotely.

Strategy and performance implications of board chair leadership Journal of Management

C

OVID-19 placed innumerable companies in crisis situations, and surveys sent to more than 2,000 directors in April and May 2020 revealed how leadership styles and board leadership impacted companies’ response to the pandemic. Mary Waller and her coauthors found that board chairs engaged in decisive, handson leadership in response to the crisis resulted in their companies performing better than those led by a chair with other leadership styles. Paradoxically, they also

found that when executives held a dual role as CEO and chair of the board, that leadership style was not associated with advantages in crisis performance. Waller hypothesizes the difference in performance stems from two factors: CEO directors may have board oversight, and nonCEO leadership may encourage oversight behavior that simplified responses to the crisis. Non-CEOs frequently led their companies to adopt simplified, streamlined strategies where CEOs planned too far in advance.

Competitive simplification is central to surviving a crisis, and Waller’s research takes a new look into the implications of board structure and

Samantha Conroy, PhD Associate Professor, Department of Management

Mary J. Waller, PhD

Senior Research Scholar, Department of Management

chairs’ behaviors on outcomes of the crisis, including developing crisis strategies that reduce the stress placed on employees tasked with keeping the company moving forward in the face of crisis.

Undergraduate Research Fellowships Fellows receive hands-on experience in academic research

F

or many undergraduates, “research” means digging through the stacks in the library, but for a handful of business students, it means helping to generate the big ideas from which future papers will draw.

The Business for a Better World Undergraduate Research Fellows program matches academically curious undergraduates with research faculty, employing students to support select research. Entering its third academic year in Fall 2023, the program addresses the challenges of getting undergraduates involved in business research.

Without the need to complete repetitive lab work often offloaded onto undergraduates, the College had to develop a program that incorporated students deeply into research design and analysis.

“At CSU, there’s a strong norm for providing undergraduate students with research opportunities,” said Ken Manning, College of Business senior associate dean for faculty and research. “How could we do that in the College of Business?

There’s a lot of social science in business research, and more than half the work is just the cognitive effort that goes into it.”

As students work with faculty on their respective projects and receive hands-on experience in developing tools and analyzing data, they also meet weekly as a community with Manning and other research faculty to talk about what it means to be an academic researcher. Faculty also meet one-on-one with students to discuss their projects as well as academic and career ambitions.

As the students materially contribute to their research projects, they’re also engaging in topics about which they’re passionate, such as diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in hiring or the role of gender in organizations. As they explore these topics, they see how short the line between academic research and empowering businesses to build a better world can be.

Postgraduate plans vary for students active in the Business for a Better World Undergraduate Research Fellows program. A handful of fellows are considering continuing

42 Colorado State University | College of Business

Working on these research projects has really opened my eyes. We should be questioning why there are disparities in society. We should be looking at why those things are happening.”

Molly Peek Undergraduate Research Fellow

in academia. Others plan to take the experience with them into their first jobs in industry. When they do, they’ll also take the Business for a Better World mindset with them.

“It just makes me more aware of the problems that are out there,” undergraduate research fellow Molly Peek said. “I’m reading all of these papers that have solutions and ways that we can move forward.”

Responsible Research in Business & Management honor roll Seven research papers chosen for the Responsible Research in Business & Management (RRBM) honor roll exemplify the shared values of RRBM and the College that business can be used to build a better society.

Samantha Conroy, PhD Department of Management

44 Research

Department of Management

Kelly Martin, PhD

Department of Marketing

Chris Berry

"A Longitudinal Assessment of Corrective Advertising Mandated in United States v.

Philip Morris USA, Inc.,” Journal of Business Ethics

John Macdonald

“Quantitative Investigation of Wildlife Trafficking Supply Chains: A Review,” Omega

Rob Mitchell

“Entrepreneurial Visions as Rhetorical History: A Diegetic Narrative Model of Stakeholder Enrollment,” Academy of Management Review

“Stakeholder Engagement, Knowledge Problems and Ethical Challenges,” Journal of Business Ethics

also providing students with a strong foundation for addressing society’s biggest challenges by embodying the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit. Recent faculty awardees include Samantha Conroy, Tom Dean, Kelly Martin and Harry Turtle.

Tom Dean, PhD

Research Paper

“Reimagining Profits and Stakeholder Capital to Address Tensions among Stakeholders,” Business & Society

Tinberg professorships support sustainable business education Tinberg Business for a Better World University Professorships honor excellence among faculty who embody the College’s Business for a Better World ethos. Faculty selected for this donor-funded professorship have a track record of excellence in research while

Honoree

Harry Turtle, PhD

Department of Finance and Real Estate

Lynn Shore

“Inclusive Leadership: How Leaders Sustain or Discourage Work Group Inclusion,” Group and Organization Management

Tiffany Trzebiatowski

“Managing the Double Bind: Women Directors’ Participation Tactics in the Gendered Boardroom,” Organization Science

Research Highlights January 2022 - September 2023 Title of Article

Journal

Researcher

Ethical Underpinnings for the Economy of the Anthropocene: Sustainability Ethics as Key to a Sustainable Economy

Ecological Economics

Chris Becker, PhD

An Examination of Perceptions of Similarity to Cigarettes, Health Risk Perceptions, and Willingness to Try Across Nicotine Vaping Products

Nicotine & Tobacco Research

Chris Berry, PhD

Identifying and Addressing the “Health Halo” Surrounding Plant-Based Meat Alternatives (PBMAs) in Limited Information Environments

Journal of Public Policy and Marketing

Chris Berry, PhD

Communicating Intent: Effects of EmployerControlled Tipping Strategy Disclosures on Tip Amount and Firm Evaluations

Journal of Business Research

Chris Berry, PhD

Fighting Infodemics: Labels as Antidotes to Misand Disinformation?!

Journal of Public Policy and Marketing

Chris Berry, PhD

How Service Communities Cocreate Social Resilience to Promote Wellbeing

Journal of Services Marketing

Christopher Blocker, PhD

Rethinking Scarcity and Poverty: Building Bridges for Shared Insight and Impact

Journal of Consumer Psychology

Christopher Blocker, PhD; Jon Zhang, PhD

Beyond Radical Affordability in the Base of the Pyramid: The Role of Consumer Self-Confidence in Product Acceptance

Journal of Consumer Affairs

Christopher Blocker, PhD; Ken Manning, PhD

Joint Drivers of Different Shades of Green IT/IS Practices: A Strategic Cognition Perspective

Information Technology and People

Adela Chen, PhD; Nick Roberts, PhD

One Tool to Rule? – A Field Experimental Longitudinal Study on the Costs and Benefits of Mobile Device Usage in Public Agencies

Government Information Quarterly

Adela Chen, PhD

Where are the Workers? Leadership-Follower Fit and Behavioral Work Withdrawal in the Logistics Supply Chain

Journal of Business Logistics

Samantha Conroy, PhD; John Macdonald, PhD

Intimate Partner Violence Disclosure in the Workplace: Examining Frequency, Workplace Occurrences and Pay Levels

Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health

Samantha Conroy, PhD; Tiffany Trzebiatowski, PhD

Back to Basics in Human Resource Theorizing: A Call for Greater Attention to Jobs

Human Resource Management Review

Samantha Conroy, PhD

46 Colorado State University | College of Business

UN Sustainable Development Goals

Title of Article

Journal

Researcher

Artificial Intelligence and Pay Information Disclosure (PID): Changing How Pay is Communicated

Compensation & Benefits Review

Samantha Conroy, PhD

The Other Side of the Coin: An Integrative Review Connecting Pay and Health

Journal of Applied Psychology.

Samantha Conroy, PhD

Retain or Rotate: The Association Between Frequent Auditor Switching and Audit Quality

Accounting Horizons

Liz Cowle, PhD

Persist or Let It Go: Do Rational Entrepreneurs Make Decisions Rationally?

Journal of Business Venturing

Dawn DeTienne, PhD

The Effects of Internal Controls on the Audit Completeness and Reliability of Earnings Announcements

Accounting Horizons

Michelle Draeger, PhD; Eric Lohwasser, PhD

Principles of Purposeful Business’ Illustrative Examples

Journal of the British Academy

Charlie Ebert, PhD

High Performance Work System and Employee Mental Health: The Roles of Psychological Empowerment, Work Role Overload, and Organizational Identification

Human Resource Management

Sherry Fu, PhD

Consistent and Low is the Only Way to Go: A Polynomial Regression Approach to the Effect of Abusive Supervision Inconsistency

Journal of Applied Psychology

Sherry Fu, PhD

Barriers to Corporate Sustainability in the United States

Journal of Management and Sustainability

Susan Golicic, PhD

Putting a Spotlight on the Ostracizer: Intentional Workplace Ostracism Motives

Group and Organization Management

Chris Henle, PhD; Lynn Shore, PhD; John Morton, PhD; Samantha Conroy, PhD

Attributions for Abusive Supervision: Who Subordinates Blame and Why, and does it Matter?

Scandinavian Journal of Psychology

Chris Henle, PhD

Winning the Opportunity to Pitch: Piquing Startup Investors’ Interest by Sending the Right Signals in Executive Summaries

Business Horizons

Kipp Krukowski, PhD

Why Are You Selling Your Business? Understanding Signaling Effects of Seller Rationale at Time of Entrepreneurial Exit

Journal of Business Venturing Insights

Kipp Krukowski, PhD

Earnings Management, Auditor Changes and Ethics: Evidence from Companies Missing Earnings Expectations

Journal of Business Ethics

Eric Lohwasser, PhD

Quantitative Investigation of Wildlife Trafficking Supply Chains: A Review

Omega

John Macdonald, PhD

Illicit Activity and Scarce Natural Resources in the Supply Chain: A Literature Review, Framework, and Research Agenda

Journal of Business Logistics

John Macdonald, PhD

UN Sustainable Development Goals

biz.colostate.edu 47

Title of Article

Journal

Researcher

A Data Directory to Facilitate Investigations on Worldwide Wildlife Trafficking

Big Earth Data

Clearance vs. Sale: Promotion Keywords and their Implications for Retailers and Public Policy

UN Sustainable Development Goals

Title of Article

Journal

Researcher

John Macdonald, PhD

To Concentrate or to Diversify the Supply Base?

Implications from the U.S. Apparel Supply Chain During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Journal of Business Logistics

Zac Rogers, PhD

Journal of Marketing Theory & Practice

Ken Manning, PhD

Financial Literacy - Evidence of Lack of Knowledge with Policy Suggestions

Journal of Financial Education

Patricia Ryan, PhD

Toward a Theory of Activist-driven Responsible Innovation: How Activists Pressure Firms to Adopt More Responsible Practices

Journal of Management Studies

Gideon Markman, PhD

Enhancing Leader Inclusion While Preventing Social Exclusion in the Work Group

Human Resource Management Review

Lynn Shore, PhD

Can We Serve Both God and Money? The Role of Indirect Appeal and its Limitation

European Journal of Marketing

Gideon Markman, PhD

Team Diversity and Faultline in Chinese Organizations: A Review and a Qualitative Study.

Asia Pacific Journal of Management

Lynn Shore, PhD

Sacralization and the Intergenerational Transmission of Values in Cadbury

Family Business Review

Gideon Markman, PhD

The Performance of Active Investment Positions in Foreign Markets

Journal of International Business Studies

Hilla Skiba, PhD

Digital Technologies: Tensions in Privacy and Data

Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science

Kelly Martin, PhD

Valuation Implications of Socially Responsible Tax Avoidance: Evidence from the Electricity Industry

Journal of Accounting and Public Policy

James Stekelberg, PhD

Putting Data Privacy Regulation into Action: The Differential Capabilities of Service Frontline Interfaces

Journal of Services Research

Kelly Martin, PhD

How Women on Boards Navigate the “WarmthCompetence” Line

Harvard Business Review

Tiffany Trzebiatowski, PhD

Beyond Income: Dynamic Consumer Financial Vulnerability

Journal of Marketing

Kelly Martin, PhD

Equality, diversity and inclusion: An international journal

Tiffany Trzebiatowski, PhD

Consumers’ Multistage Data Control in TechnologyMediated Environments

International Journal of Research in Marketing

Kelly Martin, PhD

A Key to Recovery for Working Mothers?

Psychological Detachment and the Roles of Relaxation, Mastery and Control on Boundary Violations

Journal of Business and Psychology

Tiffany Trzebiatowski, PhD

The Development and Validation of an Army Team Resilience Measure

Military Psychology

Travis Maynard, PhD

Remote but Not Forgotten: Ameliorating the Negative Effects of Professional Isolation Through Family Supportive Supervisor Behaviors and Schedule Flexibility

Momentum for Entrepreneurial Internationalization: Friction at the Interface Between International and Domestic Institutions

Journal of Business Venturing

Rob Mitchell, PhD

Investigating the Dynamics of Crisis Transmission Channels: A Comparative Analysis

Journal of International Money and Finance

Tian Wang, PhD

Ordinary Language and Dialogue in Entrepreneurship

Academy of Management Review

Rob Mitchell, PhD

Self-Employment and Eudaimonic Well-being: The Mediating Role of Problem- and Emotion-Focused Coping

Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice

Boris Nikolaev, PhD

Taking Mental Models Seriously: Institutions, Entrepreneurship, and the Mediating Role of SocioCognitive Traits

Small Business Economics

Boris Nikolaev, PhD

The Well-being of Female Entrepreneurs: The Role of Gender Inequality and Gender Roles

Small Business Economics

Boris Nikolaev, PhD

Situational Contingencies in Susceptibility of Social Media to Phishing: A Temptation and Restraint Model

Journal of Management Information Systems

Hamed QahriSaremi, PhD

U.S. Multinational Companies’ Payout and Investment Decisions in Response to International Tax Provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017

Journal of the American Taxation Association

Eric Rapley, PhD

Moving Beyond the Four Walls: The Impact of Supplier Sustainability on Firm Value

Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management

Zac Rogers, PhD

48 Research

UN Sustainable Development Goals

Next Steps GOAL GOAL Increase percentage of sustainability/UN SDG journal articles and citation count PROGRESS

GOAL Increase engagement and collaboration with sustainability-related research networks

• Increased proportion of research focused on UN sustainability goals from 41% in 2021 to 48% in 2022

PROGRESS

• Received 233 SDG citations in 2021

NEXT STEPS & TARGETS

NEXT STEPS & TARGETS • Publish more than 48% of research focused on UN sustainability goals • Receive more than 233 SDG citations

50 Colorado State University | College of Business

• Became RRBM Pioneering Institution • Track and increase number of faculty in impact/sustainabilityrelated leadership positions such as editors of public policy journals, members of boards with impact missions and members of editorial boards of impact journals

GOAL Increase student engagement in SDG-related research PROGRESS • Piloted Business for a Better World Undergraduate Research Fellowship program in 2021 with four students • Increased student participation from seven students in 2022 to eight in 2023 NEXT STEPS & TARGETS • Continue program and increase Undergraduate Research Fellow participation

Support and incentivize SDG-related research GOAL

PROGRESS • Piloted Business for a Better World Research Expense Fund, used by 11 faculty • Increased Business for a Better World stipends • Funded Business for a Better World Dissertation Proposal Competition and six PhD students • Developed Climate Change Research Support Fund • Purchased ESG Refinitive database NEXT STEPS & TARGETS • Continue programs

Recognition of research impact GOAL Promote societal impact of research PROGRESS • Distributed quarterly Research Insights newsletter to more than 1,320 non-CSU academic peers NEXT STEPS & TARGETS • Increase reach and open rate for newsletter

PROGRESS • Secured seven faculty publications to RRBM honor roll • Deployed 10 fellowships and five professorships, including four Tinberg Business for a Better World University Professorships in 2023 NEXT STEPS & TARGETS • Increase nominations submitted • Continue award program

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Partnerships & Dialogue P R INC IPL ES 5 &6

We will interact with managers of business corporations to extend our knowledge of their challenges in meeting social and environmental responsibilities and to explore jointly effective approaches to meeting these challenges.

We will facilitate and support dialogue and debate among educators, students, business, government, consumers, media, civil society organizations and other interested groups and stakeholders on critical issues related to global social responsibility and sustainability.

Institute for Entrepreneurship T

College offers free business resources for students, community

he College’s Institute for Entrepreneurship serves as a hub for innovation, taking a zero-barriers approach to entrepreneurship by offering free programming for CSU students and employees as well as community members in Fort Collins and across the state.

“The incredible thing about being Colorado’s land grant university is that the entire state is our campus — and we’re laser focused on ensuring that we’re there to support all of Colorado’s innovators and entrepreneurs,” said Scott Shrake, assistant vice president for strategy and executive director of the Institute.

“We’ve intentionally built bridges internally at CSU and with incredible partners across the state to be able to support those entrepreneurs at every crucial step of their journey.”

From hosting weekly lunches that allow students and faculty to discuss innovation and entrepreneurship to helping community members take their business ideas and make them into a reality, the Institute’s programs and resources were designed to develop an entrepreneurial mindset.

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“We have pushed all of our programming on campus and throughout the community with the belief that when communities are empowered to remove barriers, innovative ideas can flourish,” said Sarah Rhodes, the Institute’s entrepreneurship business resident.

“That’s our mission: providing all programming free or as close to free as possible for anyone from any background. As long as they have a computer to log in or they can show up on campus, we welcome them and their ideas.”

Although the College of Business houses the Institute, its staff aim to unite a campus-wide community of people who share an interest in business or entrepreneurship.

Faculty representatives in colleges across CSU’s campus promote the Institute’s programs, which are open to all students, not just business majors.

“It’s a matter of being able to help students — no matter what their background is, no matter what their major is — come together and ask, ‘What are you interested in? What are you passionate about?

And how can we help you take that to the next level?’” said Aubrey Kruse, the Institute’s marketing and events coordinator.

A tiered approach to venture development

Through the Venture Development Pathway — a series of free programs open to students, faculty, staff and community members — the Institute gives aspiring entrepreneurs all the tools they need to get their ideas to market.

With the support of seasoned mentors and coaches, participants conduct customer discovery and market research, create a business model, analyze their competitive landscape, and prototype products with the goal of launching successful ventures. The result is a tiered approach to pursuing an idea and bringing it to life.

The first stage is Venture Validator 1.0, a cohort-based program that takes participants through all the steps to get their ventures off the ground and figure out if there’s a real opportunity there. The two-week, four-session program

serves as the starting blocks for an entrepreneurial venture.

A record 84 people registered for the spring 2023 cohort, including 60 community members from across Colorado.

The second stage, Venture Validator 2.0, is a continuation of the customer discovery journey, offered in four sessions over two weeks. The third stage is Venture Jumpstart, a self-paced, modified accelerator where entrepreneurs learn about – and take – the concrete steps needed to begin their business operations.

After successfully completing Venture Validator and Venture Jumpstart, entrepreneurs can become part of the Venture RAMS mentorship program.

Student-focused programs, including the annual Venture Rams Business Showcase, allow teams of entrepreneurs to hone their business ideas, sharpen their pitches and compete to win cash prizes that can be used to start their businesses.

In 2023, the Institute also launched the Student Venture Accelerator, a three-month, immersive summer program.

“We took 11 entrepreneurial student teams from start – wherever they were at with their business – all the way to where all of them had the soft launch in some way,” Kruse said.

Building community and fostering innovation The Institute’s effort to offer resources to entrepreneurs and build a community of innovative thinkers extends far beyond Rockwell Hall and CSU’s Fort Collins campus.

Its community-facing programs include Pivot Jumpstart, an initiative borne out of the COVID-19 to help businesses build resiliency. Institute staff worked with faculty to develop a curriculum for businesses facing an unexpected challenge.

Over the summer of 2023, the Institute also helped launch the Colorado Collision Food Pitch Competition in Denver.

Business owners from across the state — including Sterling, Durango, Grand Junction, Hayden and the Front Range — participated in the competition, pitching products such as coffee, camel’s milk and glutenfree flour.

Supply Chain Management Forum cultivates green practices

Doctoral students receive $18K in grants to support impactful research

College sets donation records to help community fight hunger

More than 80 students and industry partners engaged in workshops and presentations focused on cultivating green practices and building stability at the Fall 2022 Supply Chain Management Forum. With a theme of “The New Normal: Integrating Resilience and Sustainability,” the semi-annual event bridges the gap between industry and academia. Attendees learned how organizations remain resilient and agile to ever-changing business needs, including stakeholder expectations around environmental responsibility and stewardship.

The Business for a Better World Dissertation Proposal Competition provided research grants to doctoral candidates to nurture the next generation of academics who conduct research with the potential to drive positive social change.

Recent recipients were from the Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Michael G. Foster School of Business, University of Washington; and Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota.

For 37 years, CSU has had an annual tradition called C.A.N.S. Around the Oval focused on rallying the CSU community to fight food insecurity through cash and food donations. For 17 years running, the College of Business has been the top contributor to the cause.

Since its inception in 2021, the competition has awarded $54,000 to nine PhD candidates. Although the disciplines and methods of research vary among winners, each winner is positioned to drive positive societal changes through their research.

Over the last two years, the College has contributed $45,739.63 to the Food Bank of Larimer County through the C.A.N.S. Around the Oval food drive. In 2022, the College raised $21,999 – accounting for over a third of the total donations – and collected 287 pounds of food, and in 2023, the College raised $23,739.87, making up nearly half of all donations.

More than 40,000 Larimer County residents – including 32% of CSU students – face food insecurity of some kind. Donations to C.A.N.S., which stands for “cash and nutritious staples,” help feed the College’s neighbors and address a critical community need.

The College of Business is committed to supporting researchers who share our vision that business can transform our world for the better.”

Ken Manning, PhD Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Research

56 Colorado State University | College of Business

EPA Pollution Prevention Grant In

Funding helps Impact MBA students champion green business innovations

the hierarchy of environmental protection and pollution prevention strategies, the first step in mitigating harmful waste is simple: address the problem at the source by not creating it at all.

Each year, five to seven Impact MBA students help local businesses achieve that goal. As a part of the required 400-hour corporate sustainability fellowship that’s a signature piece of their degree, select students partner with Colorado companies and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) to advance new sustainable source reduction initiatives.

“These projects result in meaningful work experience for the students, benefit the environment,

and often result significant benefits and cost savings for local companies,” said Grace Wright, sustainability initiatives specialist.

Students have worked on projects ranging from updating refrigeration systems to implementing solar arrays to making adjustments to fleet usage.

The effort is supported by a twoyear grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), awarded to CDPHE for pollution prevention. The Impact MBA received a sub-grant to pair students with businesses that need assistance on active sustainability initiatives. In 2022, the EPA renewed the grant to the Impact MBA and CDPHE. In addition to analyzing and implementing pollution prevention

efforts, students are also mentored by a sustainability consultant and create a case study documenting their initiative to submit to the EPA. The EPA shares students’ insights with other business leaders and professionals looking to drive change in their organizations.

[With the EPA grant], there’s a focus on identifying and sharing innovative practices.

That’s what we’re going to be looking for the CSU students to take on.”

Derek Boer CDPHE

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Accounting students offer free tax prep to community members in need For the eight weeks leading up to Tax Day each year, accounting students and community members volunteer their weekend mornings to help locals while also learning valuable career skills.

These students and volunteers are part of the College’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program. In 2023, the group completed 197 tax returns with an average refund of $1.9K, an increase from 2022 when it completed 105 returns with refunds averaging $1.6K. Community members, CSU students and employees who had an annual

income of $60K or less or were older than 60 were the main beneficiaries of the free tax service.

“It’s been so gratifying to give back to the community,” said Austin Henderson, a senior business student and one of the two student coordinators who help spearhead the program.

Community volunteer Mike Werner helped bring VITA to CSU and now serves as the site coordinator, a position in which he’s had the opportunity to mentor students and ensure that people in need receive the largest tax refunds possible.

Not only are we providing a service to our community, but we’re also helping students learn the real-world interviewing and tax preparation skills that will help them excel in their careers. It’s truly part of the Business for a Better World vision.”

Mike Werner Community Volunteer

HR Edge Network provides students with industry connections and real world experiences The College’s Human Resources Edge Network is a collaborative partnership between executives and faculty who jointly solve realworld business problems through cutting-edge research, sharing of best practices and networking with fellow leaders in the HR field.

At the network’s two annual meetings, attendees share their expertise and discuss the latest thinking in strategic HR areas such as organizational culture, teams, leadership, diversity and inclusion,

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employee health and wellness, conflict and negotiation, and talent management practices.

Together, industry professionals, faculty and students discuss current challenges and create solutions that have real-world and strategically important impacts on organizations.

At the Spring 2023 meeting, students Abbey Blik and Amy Deeter presented survey data they collected about students’ involvement in HR internships.

They shared that 28% of HR students had held an internship, and of those students with internship experience, 100% said that their coursework set them up for success.

Blik and Deeter also facilitated a student panel featuring four students who had held an HRrelated internship. The panelists provided feedback to the executives to enhance their internship programs and gave advice to the students in the audience, setting the stage for future success.

College joins ClimateCAP network to support collective leadership on climate change Business schools are often competing for students, rankings or top publications. In the ClimateCAP network, information sharing and collaboration are the norm.

In 2022, the College joined ClimateCAP, a collective of more than 35 purpose-focused MBA programs working together to provide students with the skills and insights they will need to be leaders in climate action throughout their careers.

“To create a more sustainable world, we must be willing to work

together to co-create approaches to the challenges that lie ahead,” said Grace Wright, the College of Business representative in the ClimateCAP network. “The College of Business is grateful to contribute to a network of education leaders who are working together to produce the next generation of transformative business professionals.”

ClimateCAP hosts an annual summit for MBA students to learn from sustainability-focused speakers, offers a fellowship program and recently launched a

new education series called MBA Academy: Understanding the Business of Climate.

Faculty and staff responsible for implementing sustainability education and programming at their schools typically serve as representatives in ClimateCAP. They regularly email and gather for virtual meetings to ask questions, share best practices and learn from each other, helping magnify each institution’s impact.

College partners with Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative to support systems change As an associate partner of the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative (GRLI), the College is a part of a global cohort of more than 35 business schools that are leading progress towards positive systems change.

Founded by EFMD Global and the UN Global Compact in strategic partnership with AACSB, GRLI is a worldwide community of learning organizations, including business schools, learning and development practitioners, NGOs, and businesses engaged in developing the next generation of globally responsible business leaders.

GRLI is invested in creating systemic change across three domains: how we live and make a living, how we learn, and how we lead. The organization contends that people must be consciously connected to themselves, others and the whole as a prerequisite for making change a reality, representing a shift from “I” to “we” to “all of us.”

Through its partnership with GRLI, the College aims to increase collaboration and information-sharing with peer institutions and engage in professional development opportunities, as well as transform student, research and community education and engagement.

Next Steps

GOAL Increase alumni working for impact-focused organizations PROGRESS

GOAL GOAL Increase engagement and collaboration with sustainability-related networks PROGRESS • Became GRLI Associate Partner

Increase business and community participation rates in “signature experiences,” defined as an immersive activity that allows students to apply classroom learning to a real-world setting PROGRESS

• Became PRME Signatory

• Formed working group to define, track and grow signature experience offerings

NEXT STEPS & TARGETS

NEXT STEPS & TARGETS

• Continue to seek meaningful collaboration opportunities

• To be determined by working group

• Became ClimateCAP Partner

60 Colorado State University | College of Business

GOAL Increase corporate sustainability partnerships and opportunities PROGRESS • Completed more than 28,000 hours of sustainability work by 69 students in 58 organizations NEXT STEPS & TARGETS • 46 students to complete Impact MBA fellowships in 2024

GOAL Meaningfully engage in local, state and federal sustainability initiatives PROGRESS • Secured second round of EPA CDPHE Pollution Prevention Grant NEXT STEPS & TARGETS • Maintain EPA/CDPHE grant • Seek additional opportunities

• 57.3% of Impact MBA alumni in 2021 work for impactfocused organizations, as defined by Corporate Knights as all non-profits, CK Global 100 Companies, CK Clean 200 Companies and any company primarily focused on providing solutions to social and/or environmental problems (>50% of sales or prospective sales)

GOAL Strengthen collaborative learning and teaching PROGRESS • Launched GRLI sustainable business course and taught twice

• Tracked all MBA alumni in 2022

• Hosted sustainabilityfocused HR Edge and Supply Chain Forum

NEXT STEPS & TARGETS

NEXT STEPS & TARGETS

• Explore data collection mechanism to track all recent graduates, possibly integrate into employment survey

• Explore additional opportunities for sustainability focus in departmental programs and partnerships

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Organizational Sustainability P RI N CI P L E 7

We understand that our own organizational practices should serve as example of the values and attitudes we convey to our students.

Employees Launch Green Team Putting Business for a Better World into day-to-day practice

S

ometimes, the best way to teach is to lead by example.

The College of Business isn’t just showing students how to use business to build a better world in the classroom – they practice what they preach in daily operations.

Launched in 2022, the Green Team is made up of employees from across the College and meets monthly to develop operational sustainability goals and plan how to make them a reality.

“This is something that we’re teaching: how to operate business in a socially and environmentally responsible manner,” said Grace Wright, the College’s sustainability initiatives specialist. “We partner with companies to help them implement sustainability initiatives, we are a leader in sustainable

business curriculum and we advance research on responsible business. We also need to practice sustainable operations ourselves.

“We need to operate in the most socially responsible and environmentally responsible manner possible, and those things don’t just happen. It takes leadership, it takes funding and it takes a focused strategy. But mostly, really good sustainability projects take a groundswell of buy-in and collaboration and cooperation to make them happen.”

The team’s first project was to analyze a greenhouse gas inventory of the College’s operations, from heating and cooling the buildings to employee commuting. That audit was completed over the summer of 2022 in an effort to better

I’m just really excited to see how we can continue to help each person recognize their ability to make an impact in what they do every day.”

Grace Wright Sustainability Initiatives Specialist

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understand what’s driving the College’s environmental impact.

“We started by looking at the greenhouse gas report and identified where our major impacts were to help us pick what our priorities should be,” Wright said.

The team has worked with employees and students to create initiatives promoting alternative transportation, composting and energy efficiency in the College’s buildings. Over the next year, Wright hopes the Green Team can build on the progress it has made while collaborating with others in the College to launch new initiatives.

Pilot bike-commuting program saves 7,867 car-miles Riding your bike to work instead of driving might seem like a small environmental action in the grand scheme of things, but the Replace a Ride Challenge is proof that those little things add up fast.

specialist. “As a College, we’re really interested in supporting the health and well-being of our employees and taking actions that benefit the environment. Active transportation plays a big part in that.”

For two six-week periods in spring and fall 2022, 40 College of Business employees opted for active transportation for 1,714 total trips – a savings of 7,867 miles by car. To put that into context, that’s the equivalent of a drive from Fort Collins to the Panama Canal and back. It eliminated 4,786 pounds of carbon in the atmosphere.

Employees who replaced 16 rides or more during the Replace a Ride Challenge received $50 gift cards to local businesses, but even now that the incentive has passed, active commuting lives on.

“This is us turning the idea of Business for a Better World into action,” said Grace Wright, the College’s sustainability initiatives

Keelin McGill, Impact MBA program facilitator for graduate programs, said the challenge made her realize she didn’t need to drive her car to work – and it even inspired her to sell her worse-for-wear vehicle in favor of biking, walking and using free campus transit.

“It’s amazing to see how a simple initiative can create a profound impact, both on an individual level and within our community as a whole,” she said.

The College and CSU Parking and Transportation Services teamed up to pilot the concept of college-level engagement and programming to promote active transportation and have seen promising results.

“What stood out to me and why I’m excited to continue this model is just the camaraderie that came out of it and how much of a team builder it was,” said Jamie Gaskill, the associate director of active transportation in Parking and Transportation Services.

What I’m hearing from folks in the College of Business is, ‘I think I’m going to keep riding to work even when the challenge is over.’ It’s gratifying to see people overcome barriers and try something new.”

Jamie Gaskill Associate Director of Active Transportation, Parking & Transportation Services biz.colostate.edu 65

Students organize and champion College-wide composting program Although CSU operates its own composting facility, some of the compostable waste on campus still ends up in a landfill. Starting in April 2023, College of Business Net Impact Club students implemented a composting program focusing on education and access to compost bins.

With paper towel composting already available in campus bathrooms, the Net Impact Club spotted an opportunity to build on that program’s success and expand composting efforts across the College. The club, which empowers students to harness skills and passions in building a better world, distributes and manages bins across the busiest areas in Rockwell Hall and Rockwell West as well as faculty and staff areas.

“I was interested in launching the composting initiative because I wanted more options for composting beyond just paper towels,” Net Impact member Brian Deegan said. “I thought the effort could increase awareness of what items could be composted at the College of Business and possibly make people aware of what can be composted at home.”

recyclables and trash, members hosted tables in Rockwell West. A year later, the bins continue to be used throughout the College, and Net Impact is looking to expand to include more common areas.

Net Impact members audited the College’s waste to understand the rate of recyclable and compostable items going to the landfill. They also spoke with other campus groups that had success implementing composting programs to learn about best practices.

To educate students and provide guidelines on compostable waste,

Next Steps

GOAL

People Committee promotes sustainabilityfocused lunch-and-learn series As the College shifts its practices toward more sustainable solutions, its People Committee is helping staff and faculty develop habits that promote sustainability.

The committee, which is charged with providing activities to increase employees’ quality of life, prioritized providing sustainability programs as part of its lunch-and-learn series.

Lunch-hour programming offered voluntary sessions focused on composting, addressing controversial topics in the classroom, planting

container gardens, wellness resources, and identifying and protecting pollinators.

“A culture of sustainability already exists among College employees,” said Chelsey Lane, People Committee chair. “We have had great success with sessions that allow employees to delve deeper into economic, social and environmental sustainability topics and uncover ways to lead more sustainable lives – both personally and professionally.”

66 Colorado State University | College of Business

In addition to educational sessions, the committee also hosted activities that help raise awareness about sustainability and environmental stewardship. A sustainability swap gave employees the chance to trade CSU-branded merchandise with colleagues instead of donating it, while a stroll-and-clean effort picked up garbage around the College. A campus tree tour and hike of the nearby foothills helped cement an appreciation for the natural environment among participants.

The College will be a leader in sustainable campus operations at CSU and nationwide PROGRESS • Conducted College greenhouse gas inventory

GOAL

GOAL

Increase engagement in CSU operational sustainability PROGRESS

Increase engagement in College’s organizational sustainability

• Staff leadership on CSU Presidents Sustainability Commission (PSC)

PROGRESS • Conducted more than 15 sustainability-related trainings and programs for employees

• Impact MBA student involvement on Alternative Transportation Fee Advisory Board, PSC food procurement subcommittee and PSC fleet sustainability subcommittee

NEXT STEPS & TARGETS

NEXT STEPS & TARGETS

NEXT STEPS & TARGETS

• Continuation of programs

• Energy use intensity of 65 for all buildings by 2030

• Seek additional funding for initiatives

• Seek and promote engagement opportunities to students, faculty and staff

• Secured grant to fund and run programs related to sustainable transportation • Secured Efficiency Works partnerships and investment • Developed plans for sustainable courtyard landscape

• Launched Green Team

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CO LORADO ST AT E U NIV ERSIT Y

STARS Report College part of a broader impact and sustainability ecosystem

T

he deep, authentic focus on Business for a Better World makes the College a visionary in the world of business education. It also places it right at home on the Colorado State University (CSU) campus, where a broader ecosystem of impact and sustainability exists.

In 2023, CSU became the first university in the world to earn four consecutive Platinum STARS ratings. More than 1,100 academic institutions in 40 countries participate in the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS) assessment, the premier reporting framework for university sustainability. STARS tracks commitment to sustainability in areas as widespread as sustainability curriculum, sustainable operations, and equity and accessibility.

This unique accomplishment reflects the efforts of thousands of students, staff, faculty and community partners, all of whom believe deeply in the role of the institution in transforming society and the environment.

“Students study, work, eat, commute and often live on campus,” said Ken

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Manning, senior associate dean for faculty and research at the College of Business. “We recognize that sustainability must be integrated through a student’s full experience on campus, not just within the walls and reach of our College.”

CSU holds the fourth-highest score in the United States among nearly 600 participants earning a STARS rating. Further speaking to the University’s dedication to sustainability, it scored 100% in the academics and research categories, as well as 97% in engagement.

The College of Business’ initiatives are highlighted many times throughout the reporting and contributed to the data collection necessary for the report.

“STARS helps validate what we know to be true,” Manning said.

“From research to curriculum development and our operations, CSU is committed to positive societal impact in all aspects of what we do.”

The tangible takeaways of this ranking are clear to students. They have access to 823 sustainabilityfocused or sustainability-inclusive

courses. They may work within CSU’s 19 LEED-certified buildings, volunteer with impact-focused student clubs or take advantage of CSU’s extensive sustainable commuting options.

Student connection to sustainability efforts can run deeper. Many engage with opportunities for involvement directing campus strategy and funding available. These decisions influence current and future sustainability efforts on campus.

College of Business MBA student Andy Goeke served on the campus Alternative Transportation Fee Advisory Board (ATFAB), which provides guidance on alternative transportation priorities on campus and reviews and directs funding towards sustainable and active transportation initiatives.

“I initially got involved with ATFAB because I was looking for a way to contribute to the community on campus,” Goeke said. “As an avid cyclist and proponent of public transportation, it seemed like a great opportunity to be involved in promoting these and other alternative modes of transportation.

“By serving on ATFAB, I became more aware of the way that sustainability can be effectively embedded into our built environments, which is a key challenge facing communities. If we make more sustainable options accessible to more people, we can promote healthier and more engaged communities.”

ATFAB is only one of many studentadvised funding boards on campus.

These opportunities offer chances to get involved and have immediate impacts. They are one of the many

reasons that CSU ranks so highly on the STARS rating.

Students take notice of CSU’s authentic integration of sustainability when they are looking at where they want to spend their educational time and resources.

“CSU’s focus on sustainability was one of the main reasons that I chose to join a program here,” Goeke said. “Working toward a sustainable future is an important part of my life and something that I’d like to dedicate my career to. Seeing that

commitment in practice every time that I’m on campus is something that further motivates me to make my own contribution.”

The College is proud to be a part of this broader ecosystem of sustainability and contribute to the virtuous cycle in which Universitywide and College-level initiatives feed and propel each other.

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College of Business PRME Contact Grace Wright I grace.wright@colostate.edu

501 W. Laurel Street, Fort Collins, CO 80523 biz.colostate.edu

Managing Editor Zeel Patel

Design Lead Dave Holmstrom

Editors Ellie Mulder Leonard Matt Schild

Design Support Sydney Tomlinson Aurora Norton