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Colleen Baker

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PhD (Wharton) Professor Baker is an expert in banking and financial institutions law and regulation, with extensive knowledge of over-the-counter derivatives, clearing, the Dodd-Frank Act, and bankruptcy, in addition to being a mediator and arbitrator.

Previously, she spent time at the U. of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Business, the U. of Notre Dame Law School, and Villanova University Law School. She has consulted for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and for The Volcker Alliance.  Prior to academia, Professor Baker worked as a legal professional and as an information technology associate. She is a member of the State Bars of NY and TX. Read More

Amazon Prime Now has debuted in Nashville. Amazon Prime Now offers free two-hour delivery on many items for Prime members. The service is amazing and is already changing the way I shop. I really dislike shopping malls, especially during the busy holiday season, but I also dislike waiting weeks (or even days) for shipments to arrive, so Amazon Prime Now is a perfect solution.

With Amazon Prime Now expanding, I imagine even more brick and mortar retailers will be headed to bankruptcy unless they find a way to differentiate their companies and add more value.

Brick and mortar retailers may find differentiation through community building services. I already see some retailers attempting this. Running footwear and apparel stores are offering free group runs starting from their storefronts and/or group training programs for a fee. Grocery stores are offering group cooking classes. Book stores are offering book clubs. The list goes on.

These brick and mortar retailers are finding it more and more difficult to compete with e-retailers on price and convenience. With the rise in technology, however, face to face community seems to be increasingly rare. Brick and mortar retailers that aid in community building may…

Earlier this week, my co-blogger Josh Fershee authored an interesting post about the surprising crowdfunding success of the PicoBrew “Keurig for Beer.” After reading Josh’s post and the embedded links, I have to agree with him; I have no idea how they raised $1.4M for a product that I don’t see being that useful. The product appears to be both overly expensive and overly time-consuming.

I think many venture capitalists would join Josh and me in questioning the wisdom of PicoBrew, at least before it raised $1.4M. But as I wrote in an earlier post, crowdfunding may help overcome biases of venture capitalists. In the days since Josh’s posts, I have heard a few people talk about how excited they were about PicoBrew. These people were all at least 10 years younger than Josh, me, and most venture capitalists. While us “older folks” may not see a use for the product, judging from the crowdfunding results and a little anecdotal evidence here in Nashville, there appears to be significant market demand for PicoBrew. Similarly, on the show Shark Tank, the female “sharks” have accused their male counterparts of largely avoiding companies with products aimed at women; and while I…

Thanks to Greg Day, assistant professor of economics and legal studies at the Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University, for joining us as a guest blogger for the month of November.

Greg’s posts are collected below and his scholarship is available here:

Following up on Arbitration and Human Rights

Cobras and Housing Markets

Do Sophisticated Parties Really Prefer the Freedom of Contract?

And Now Another Corporate Inversion–And More Corporate Inversion Restrictions

I try to read everything Lyman Johnson writes, so my Thanksgiving break reading is his recent book chapter The Reconfiguring of Revlon. The abstract is below:

Three decades later, an irksome uncertainty still impedes a settled understanding of the Delaware Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Revlon, Inc. v. MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings, Inc. For such a towering doctrine, Revlon’s underlying rationales remain controversial, its exact contours and demands continue to be surprisingly unclear, and it holds out scant hope for remedial relief. In spite of these troubling features of today’s Revlon jurisprudence, however, Revlon is slowly being worked back into the larger fabric of Delaware’s fiduciary duty law and away from being a gangling, standalone doctrine. The organizing themes of this judicial project are strong deference in the deal context to decisions made by independent directors without regard to deal structure, the substantially reduced likelihood of equitable or monetary remedies in all types of deal-related lawsuits, and a nascent effort at harmonizing Revlon with Delaware’s more general, and ill-defined, doctrine on corporate purpose.

This chapter discusses the original Revlon decision and its rapid expansion before turning to lingering uncertainties surrounding the reach of Revlon, the decline of Revlon’s remedial

…

I recently received the following call for papers via e-mail

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Law and Ethics of Big Data

Co-Hosted and Sponsored by:

Virginia Tech Center for Business Intelligence Analytics

The Department of Business Law and Ethics, Kelley School of Business

Co-Sponsored by:

The Wharton School

Washington & Lee Law School

 

April 8 & 9, 2016

Indiana University- Bloomington, IN.

Abstract Submission Deadline: January 17, 2016

We are pleased to announce the research colloquium, “Law and Ethics of Big Data,” at Indiana University-Bloomington, co-hosted by Professor Angie Raymond of Indiana University and Professor Janine Hiller of Virginia Tech.

Due to the success of last year’s event, the colloquium will be expanded and we seek broad participation from multiple disciplines; please consider submitting research that is ready for the discussion stage. Each paper will be given detailed constructive critique. We are targeting cross-discipline opportunities for colloquium participants, and the IU community has expressed interest in sharing in these dialogues. In that spirit, the Institute of Business Analytics plans to host a guest speaker on the morning of April 8.th Participants are highly encouraged to attend this free event.

Submissions: To be considered, please submit an abstract of 500-1000…

Last week I shared my thoughts on REI’s #OptOutside campaign and concluded that the campaign appeared, in my opinion, to be more of a marketing ploy than anything truly socially responsible. 

I promised to discuss what I think it takes to build a respected socially responsible brand.

In my opinion, respected socially responsible brands are: (1) Authentic; (2) Humble; and (3) Consistent. 

These three work together. Authenticity comes, at least in part, from not over-claiming (also seen in humility) and from showing social responsibility in many areas over time (consistency). Authenticity with regard to social responsibility requires some serious sacrifice, at least in the short term. Humble companies admit their imperfections, work to right wrongs, and seek to improve. Building a socially responsible brand takes time, often decades.  As Warren Buffett supposedly said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it.”

Patagonia’s “Don’t Buy This Jacket” campaign was probably one of the best socially responsible advertising campaigns I have seen. This campaign seemed authentic because of Patagonia’s consistent history of social responsibility and because it seemed clear that Patagonia was going to take a serious financial hit from this campaign. Patagonia’s add was also…

REI recently announced that they will close their stores on the busiest day in retail, Black Friday. They are encouraging their customers and employees to spend time outside. REI is also paying their employees on Black Friday even though their stores will be closed.

At first, I was proud of REI for this move; Black Friday can be materialism at its worst. 

But I think REI made a poor strategic move by over-promoting this announcement and buying numerous social media advertisements for their #OptOutside campaign. REI’s self-congratulatory ads have been following me around the internet for the past few days. 

Advertising about your social responsibility is really difficult to do well.

Convincing customers that you are socially responsible through advertising is like trying to convince your friends you are generous through social media posts. Both are likely to backfire. As Wharton professor Adam Grant recently wrote, you shouldn’t say “I’m a giver;” that determination is for others to make.

In my opinion, praise of a company’s socially responsible behavior should come primarily from its stakeholders. REI received plenty of third-party press regarding their announcement (see, e.g., here, here, and here), but their self-promotion…

Gday

Please join me in welcoming guest blogger Greg Day. 

Greg is a legal studies professor at the Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University. Greg earned a JD at the University of North Carolina and a PHD in political science (with a focus on international relations) at the University of Mississippi. Before joining the faculty at Oklahoma State, Greg practiced with Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell LLP, a Delaware-based law firm. His scholarship focuses on the relationship between law and market inefficiencies.

Thanks to Greg for joining us, and I look forward to his posts. 

Jill Fisch (Penn) recently posted an essay entitled The Mess at Morgan: Risk, Incentives and Shareholder Empowerment.

The entire essay is worth reading, but I think her argument can be summed up with this quote: 

This essay argues that the effort to employ shareholders as agents of public values and, thereby, to inculcate corporate decisions with an increased public responsibility is misguided. The incorporation of publicness into corporate governance mistakenly assumes that shareholders’ interests are aligned with those of non-shareholder stakeholders. Because this alignment is imperfect, corporate governance is a poor tool for addressing the role of the corporation as a public actor. (pg. 651)

Jill Fisch argues that economic regulation may be a better solution to the problem of protecting the public than shareholder empowerment. (pg. 684).

While I acknowledge the essay’s mentioned limitations on shareholder empowerment, I don’t think economic regulation is the only alternative solution to the problem of protecting public values. As Jill Fisch notes “shareholder empowerment might be defended on the basis that it is less intrusive than direct regulation.” Corporate governance mechanisms other than shareholder empowerment may be both less intrusive and more effective than direct regulation. For example, (non-shareholder) stakeholder empowerment may…