Wu also delivered one of the article’s most memorable leadership reminders: accountability stays human. Even when AI contributes to decision-making, project managers own the work the moment it is presented. He cautioned that organizations must build governance, invest in user training, and preserve human judgment to counter risks like AI bias and hallucinated outputs. His perspective bridges academic rigor and industry practice, reinforcing a core Feliciano School value: innovation moves forward fastest when it is paired with strategy, governance, and disciplined leadership.

The goal of the project was to drum up excitement for Prudential’s life insurance packages with individuals from Gen Z, most of whom aren’t actively shopping for life insurance. “That’s always been an issue with insurance companies, getting young people to think about life insurance,” says Zhu. “My MBA students were tasked with figuring out what would help Prudential with this problem.”

To provide her students insight into the insurance industry, Zhu designed assignments in which they interviewed seasoned insurance veterans to assess Gen Z’s life insurance knowledge and needs. They analyzed and compared the offerings of Prudential’s key competitors to those of Prudential and generated a set of reports. “They did a lot of analysis before they could make a recommendation to Prudential,” says Zhu.

Students then developed marketing campaigns for three distinct personas and presented their top ideas to a small team of Prudential executives. So impressed with the presentations was Prudential’s CMO, Phillip Edwards, he asked Zhu’s students to present their ideas to the entire Prudential marketing team. “This was a really good networking opportunity for my students. They got to know a lot of people who work at Prudential. Hopefully they can even get job offers,” says Zhu.

As a scholar, Zhu is adept at obtaining useful information from a variety of databases, as are her graduate students. Undergraduate students, however, tend to be intimidated by data. “They see research articles and they’re confused and scared,” says Zhu. To allay their fears, she demystifies the research process by sharing her research methodology with students and helps them find a passion for asking questions.

BSG is an online game in which student teams run fictitious athletic footwear companies in head-to-head competition against each other. Similar to real athletic footwear companies, the simulation firms operate in a global market, selling branded and private-label products across geographic regions throughout the semester to manage the complexities of production, distribution, marketing, operations, facilities, celebrity endorsements, compensation, training and finance. Each week, the best-performing BSG companies are measured on 4 performance variables, Overall Score, EPS, ROE, and Stock Price. 

“Teams have to develop a strategy and then have to do some deep analytic thinking as to how to execute that strategy and that analytic thinking is one of the main things employers look for,” said Jeffrey J. Monacelli, Assistant Professor on the Management department, who integrates BSG in his MGMT 439 capstone curriculum. 

Twenty Montclair State students joined 20 Austrian peers for a week of collaborative problem-solving in areas such as mobility, energy, and waste. Working in cross-cultural teams, students developed innovative strategies through a structured process of trend analysis, systems evaluation, and strategic planning.

The program also included site visits to places like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Prime Produce co-working space, and Iron Bound Farm, showcasing real-world applications of sustainable business models. The week concluded with team presentations to outside experts, offering critical feedback to refine students’ projects.

As part of the program, students and faculty spent the Spring Break week in Austria, where they continued to develop their innovative ideas in real-world contexts.

Associate Professor of Management Te Wu led an experiential-based course that tackled Penske’s problem. Eight students, divided into three teams, vied against each other to come up with pragmatic recommendations and also win a top prize of $1,000. 

Instead of a structured syllabus, Wu led discussions on how to execute a strategy, such as: how to find information, do research, and come up with deliverables. Students learned how to set up a project schedule, establish milestones with deadlines, and how to ask smart questions of the Penske executives in a Zoom call that did not waste their time. Most importantly, Wu pushed them to set a threshold for quality that would reflect well on the students and their efforts.

Wu spurred students to prepare for and even welcome the uncertainties that pop up in the business world – and to adapt. “Good professionals ought to be trained to deal with ambiguity and fuzziness. Not that they’ll get everything right, but they’ll try different things. Embracing this degree of fuzziness is extraordinarily uncomfortable for our students, but that’s what the course is about. They’re supposed to figure it out.”

Each team put together a 10- to 15-minute PowerPoint presentation and written report for Penske executives at the Montclair campus. The winning team, consisting of a sole student who divorced her assigned team, took first place because of her polished delivery, analytical presentation and diligence. While Penske took the competition seriously, they did not execute any of the recommendations. Rather, they used it as a recruiting tool to find outstanding students for potential employment.

Perhaps the ultimate value of the course was fostering good judgment in students, whether in reading a room or preparing for a project in a thoughtful, rigorous way. “At the broadest level, it gives students a taste of what management consulting is like,” Wu says.

The research found that when companies voluntarily provide paid parental leave, it sends a powerful signal of inclusivity and support. This benefit led to an increase in employee commitment, particularly among U.S. employees, who may not expect such policies compared to their U.K. counterparts. The effect was especially pronounced for U.S. men under 50, a group that may benefit from but typically does not anticipate paid paternity leave.

Beyond her research, Dr. Grotto also delivered the keynote address at the Private Risk Management Association’s Inaugural Women in Insurance Event. Her talk, “Where Do You Draw Your Line? Managing Blurred Work-Life Boundaries,” focused on strategies for maintaining a healthy work-life balance in today’s demanding professional world.

Her work highlights the importance of organizational policies that support employees and foster greater commitment, ultimately benefiting both workers and businesses alike.

In 2019, ADP and FSBUS worked together to create the Professional Selling and Sales Management certificate program, a 12-credit track that emphasized analytical, leadership and communication skills. Setting their sights on an even more ambitious educational goal, the Management department formed an advisory board of top executives willing to share their insights, expertise and current thought leadership in the HR field. The result of these efforts became the Strategic Human Capital Management concentration for the Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree program.

Launched in fall 2023 with 21 enrolled students, the program revolves around the new expanded role of HR in business – one where the human resources department actively helps companies achieve their overall objectives, instead of hewing to the more traditional HR model of employee management. “Most companies today are thinking about HR more strategically. We wanted our program to reflect the latest state of HR,” says Melissa Gutworth, associate professor of Management and coordinator of the program.

Arguably, the most important feature of the Strategic Human Capital Management program is that students are given hands-on training with ADP’s software. Called Workforce Now, the software is used by more than 900,000 companies around the globe and covers topics such as onboarding, hiring, training, performance appraisal and compensation – in short, the entire employee life cycle. Students gain proficiency in how to use this software through two lab courses, giving them a competitive advantage when they graduate. “Even if they end up at a company that’s not using Workforce Now, our students are going to be able to adapt very quickly to whatever HR software that company is using,” Gutworth says.

In April 2024, students in the Strategic Human Capital Management program got to further strengthen their bonds in the business world with an on-site visit to ADP’s corporate headquarters. They had the opportunity to meet with HR executives and recruiters – and ADP got to scout out new talent for their own ranks. In a reunion of sorts, students shared a celebratory session with the Montclair alumni employed by ADP, forging connections and hearing firsthand experiences of working in the trenches.

Even though the program is less than a year old, it has already resulted in some notable achievements. One student enrolled in the concentration applied for and won a $1,000 scholarship from a local chapter of the Society of Human Resource Management. “The biggest thing that makes the Strategic Human Capital Management program unique is the fact that we have this partnership with ADP. We’re the only school in New Jersey that does,” Gutworth says.

BSG is an online game in which student teams run fictitious companies in head-to-head competition against each other. Similar to real athletic footwear companies, the simulation firms operate in a global market, selling branded and private-label products across geographic regions throughout the semester to manage the complexities of production, distribution, marketing, operations, facilities, celebrity endorsements, compensation, training and finance. Each week, the best-performing BSG companies are measured on 4 performance variables, Overall Score, EPS, ROE, and Stock Price.

“Teams have to develop a strategy and then have to do some deep analytic thinking as to how to execute that strategy and that analytic thinking is one of the main things employers look for,” said Jeffrey J. Monacelli, assistant professor of management, who integrates BSG in his MGMT 439 capstone curriculum.