July 2002
Sharing Leadership
Top dog leaders can share the power of their office. Are we talking leaders with egos the size of Manhattan who might be willing to share leadership? Yes! Hard to believe, but increasingly we are seeing the proliferation of shared power or co-leadership models.
Smeal College Of Business Professor To Receive Honors For Paper
A Penn State Smeal College of Business professor will be honored by the Academy of Legal Studies in Business during its upcoming annual meeting.
Does The Sec's Financial Watchdog Need More Funding?
The collapse of Enron, and WorldCom, fueled by their accounting shenanigans, have most Americans and investors wondering who, if anybody, at the Securities and Exchange Commission is watching the books. Coming on the heels of one of the biggest bookkeeping deceptions in history, it may surprise investors to learn that the SEC's chief financial watchdog responsible for overseeing the financial reporting of publicly trading companies - the Division of Corporation Finance - is actually doing an excellent job with limited resources.
eBusiness Research Center Readies The Power Of One
A follow-up book to the award-winning Pushing the Digital Frontier: Insights into the Changing Landscape of E-Business is under development for publication in Fall 2002. Like its predecessor, The Power of One - Leveraging the Potential of Personalization Technologies , is being created under the auspices of eBusiness Research Center (eBRC) in the Penn State Smeal College of Business, and will be co-edited by Nirmal Pal, Executive Director of the eBRC, and Arvind Rangaswamy, research director of the eBRC and director of the e-Incubator Laboratory in Penn State's Smeal College of Business.
Accounting Professor Receives Best Paper Award
A faculty member in the Penn State Smeal College of Business received honors for a research paper from the Global Business and Technology Association (GBATA).
Pennsylvania Furnace Resident Selected As Student Marshal For Summer Commencement At Penn State
Donna M. Parente of 849 Harold Drive in Pennsylvania Furnace will serve as student marshal for the Smeal College of Business during Penn State's Summer Commencement. That ceremony takes place Saturday, August 3, in the Bryce Jordan Center at the University Park campus.
Small Business Owners Doing Little To Promote Ethics
Many business leaders are failing to provide adequately for ethics compliance in their organizations, and small-business owners, are doing little -- in some cases, nothing at all -- to promote an ethical corporate culture, according to a recent survey of CEOs.
Trusting Big Business
Market valuations are determined as much by business fundamentals as they are by trust in the players. That's not very comforting since CEOs are near the bottom of the pile when it comes to engendering trust. A July 2002 survey by the Gallup Poll News Organization categorized occupations according to the trust Americans place in each. At the top are teachers - - 84 percent of us believe that most can be trusted. Military officers generate trust among 73 percent of respondents, 66 percent believe that most Protestant ministers can be trusted, 51 percent for accountants, 48 percent for professional athletes, and 45 percent for Catholic priests. Near the bottom of the list are journalists - - only 38 percent of us believe that most can be trusted, 25 percent say most lawyers can be trusted, and a mere 23 percent of us believe that we can trust CEOs of large corporations. Just two occupations rate below CEOs - - managers of HMOs (20 percent say they can be trusted) and car dealers (15 percent).
Research Examines SEC's Division Of Corporation Finance
Problems in corporate financial reporting are dominating headlines. Orie Barron, associate professor of accounting in the Penn State Smeal College of Business, has co-authored four papers examining the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance. The papers on the DCF are the only academic research on the topic. The papers were co-authored with Charles Kile of the University of Alabama at Huntsville. Below is a Q&A with Barron & Kile on their research.
Penn State Research Centers Lead Washington D.C. Conference On Accelerating Global Commerce Through Technology
An upcoming Washington D.C. conference co-sponsored by two Penn State research centers is bringing together representatives and key thought leaders from academia, government, and industry to address the technology sector's rebound and economic recovery.
Email: A Productivity Blessing And Bane
According to industry figures, 8 billion emails are exchanged each day over the Internet. This figure is expected to at least triple by 2005. Americans are second only to the Japanese in access to the Internet, with 68 percent of U.S. businesses operating online. In fact, most American employees rely on email as their primary means of workplace communication. And, we'll soon become much more mobile in accessing the Internet. Globally, there are now 500 million users of mobile devices (primarily cell phones, but also Blackberries and other wireless email communication devices), with this number expected to double by next year.
Children And Materialism In The New Era
Over the past decade or so marketers have increasingly targeted the 27 million youth that are 9-14 years old. Midway between early childhood and adolescence, they have been labeled "tweens" and this subsegment has drawn the attention of a broad array of marketers.
Small Business Owners Doing Little To Promote Ethics
Business educators must embrace radical new strategies and alliances in order to survive. That's one conclusion of a new report issued by a task force of business school leaders, chaired by Judy Olian, Dean of Penn State's Smeal College of Business.
Executive Sabbaticals, In Good Times And Bad
Sabbaticals are a much appreciated benefit in academia, where once every seven years faculty in the best universities can apply for a semester break from their routine obligations to explore new research directions, teaching approaches, or learning. Until recently, this perk was largely concentrated in the ivory towers of academia. More recently it's extending to the corporate world, especially among senior managers and executives.
Nominations Sought For Alumni Awards
Many Smeal College graduates continue to bring distinction and honor to the University as alumni. Each year, the Smeal College Alumni Society tries to recognize alumni achievements with its award programs. If you know of deserving alumni, the Executive Committee of the Penn State Smeal College of Business Alumni Society Board is calling for nominations for several alumni awards.
