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Donald Pendagast

A full-time MBA student at UConn concentrating in Business Analytics working on research in organizational design, self-management, workplace autonomy, and innovation.

📍 Hartford, CT

A critique on conscious capitalism

Conscious capitalism is said to be a framework for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, but in a more practical application for U.S. firms it is unclear how well suited it is to tackle the major concerns facing capitalism in the 21st century. There is a disconnect between the

Adding preferred pronouns to my email signature

A few weeks ago, I worked with Moira Rosek to host Julia from UConn's Rainbow Center to offer a Husky Safe Zone training at the GBLC. This was part of an effort we are calling Dignity x Diversity to invite graduate school of business students to conversations regarding

"All theories are based on small companies"

At the conclusion of our course, Professor Souder allowed us to ask two questions of him, one having to do with written business communication and the other on anything we wanted. Is Amazon a monopoly and should Amazon be broken up under anti-trust law or any other reason? This is

The future of organizational design

To those who I think a great deal of, I ask what keeps them up at night. For the last few years what has kept me up late at night is how we work. The lessons, tactics, and mindset I learned in college as an industrial engineer seemed stale in

Writing for culture

Today marked a new moment when the topic of organizational structure was turned back to us as it pertains to defining our own. The topic of culture was immediately thrusted upon us — a new cohort — and establishing and navigating a process was of utmost importance. It was like one of

Forming an MBA LGBT+ Organization

Putting the cart before the horse a little, I was thinking about what other LGBT graduate business school groups call themselves. Most are pretty typical, while some are a bit more playful (e.g. The Letters, Out of Office). What is in a name? I was thinking: Dignity by Diversity.

Meeting your customer when they are

Businesses of all kinds operate on the assumption that customers need to come to them. Why not try to flip this on it’s head?

On independence

I wonder now, how independent any of us really are, ever, even at its—how do I say—peak availability, if you will. Can you ever value independence and not be to a large degree selfish? Are we ever as independent as we might think or say? Can we be together and independent, simultaneously?

A dose of mortality

"Hi Donald, it’s Mom. Have you got John’s phone number handy? I wanted to give him a call.” I thought it was a strange request, but passed it along without much thought. John is family. Maybe Mom just wanted to discuss an idea for the upcoming Christmas