Department of Business Administration
New Happenings Archive
MKT 429 Students Help with Business Plan
Delmar McDaniel said that five years ago, his business, Uniform Express, was doing about $40,000 a week in sales.
Times have changed.
McDaniel, who founded the company in 1982, said sales have been slashed 75 percent in recent years, to only about $10,000 a week. Full Article
Dr. Eric W. Ford, an expert on information technology in healthcare who has written extensively on electronic healthcare records, has joined the faculty of The University of North Carolina at Greensboro as the Forsyth Medical Center Distinguished Professor. Ford, who begins his tenure this month, has a joint appointment in the Bryan School of Business and Economics and the School of Nursing.
Ford comes to Greensboro from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, where he held an endowed professorship honoring the namesake of the Jerry S. Rawls School of Business. Ford also served as the director of The Center for Health Innovation and Research at Texas Tech.
Prior to Texas Tech, Ford worked as an associate professor in the Department of Health Systems Management in the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University and held an endowed professorship in the Department of Health Policy & Administration in Pennsylvania State University’s College of Health & Human Development.
Ford earned a PhD in health services administration from the University of Birmingham – Alabama in 2000 and a master’s in public health from the University of South Carolina in Columbia in 1997. His research interests include issues of strategic management in healthcare and ways that information systems impact performance.
Marketing 429, Advanced Marketing Management, serves as a capstone course for marketing majors. For the second half of the semester, student teams work with a local for-profit or nonprofit organization to develop a marketing strategy.
This semester one team worked with the Greensboro Education Consortium. The Consortium consists of 12 local educational organizations such as the Greensboro Public Library, the Children's Museum, Greenhill Art Gallery, Greensboro Historical Museum, and the Natural Science Center. These 12 organizations offer outstanding programs, but there is a lack of public awareness of the scope and nature of what all these organizations offer. Moreover, they were not coordinating their marketing efforts. The students' assignment was to address these problems.
The students conducted primary and secondary research and recommended the development of an umbrella organization, GC-Kids, that would target caregivers of children up to 13 years old in Guilford County. They recommended a number of promotional activities that would increase community awareness of the educational opportunities these organizations offered, increase attendance, and improve educational opportunities for young people.
The student group presented its report as a part of UNCG's Undergraduate Research Exposition, a campus-wide event showcasing undergraduate research projects. The marketing group won first place in the Behavioral Sciences category and received a $1,000 prize for its work.
Associate Professor Lew Brown pointed out that not only did the students do an outstanding job for this semester's project, they also laid the groundwork for an ongoing relationship between the UNCG's Bryan School and the organizations. "The students recommended that the organizations use interns to help run the GC-Kids' programs and that they use Bryan School marketing classes to conduct additional research. This is the kind of ongoing community involvement UNCG and the Bryan School want to establish," Brown added. He also noted that, "My students have worked with about 85 different organizations over the last few years. I believe this was one of the most difficult projects we have undertaken because of the number of organizations involved in one project and their different objectives."
Team members were: Daniel Englebretson, Lavonda Daniels, Bethany Brown, Latasha Herring, and Cynamon Frierson. Polly Black, Chief Marketing Officer for BoldMouth, Inc., served as a Bryan Business Mentor for the group.
At UNCG's Undergraduate Honors and Awards Ceremony on May 6, Kyra Haifley, a senior marketing major, received a Student Excellence Award, UNCG's top honor for an undergraduate student. The award recognizes both academic excellence and contributions to the community.
Kyra has a 3.78 cumulative GPA and besides participating in numerous university and community activities, she has interned at Trone Advertising, VF Corporation, and Market America.
Dr. Lew Brown nominated Kyra, and Dr. Nicholas Williamson seconded the nomination. Both noted that Kyra was one of the most outstanding undergraduate students they had worked with, each having been on the Bryan School's faculty for more than 20 years.
Mike Welsh - NACRA President, Lew Brown, and David Rosenthal
The North American Case Research Association (NACRA) at its 2008 annual meeting designated Associate Professor Lew Brown to be a NACRA Fellow. NACRA bestows the title of Fellow in recognition of a member's long-standing service and his/her substantive contributions to case research and case teaching. The organization also recognized two other Fellows, Dr. Linda Swayne of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and Dr. David Hunger of Iowa State University. It has recognized 27 Fellows since 1980. NACRA has about 500 members who author field-researched, decision-focused teaching cases and work to develop their skills in case discussion leadership.
Lew has been a member of NACRA since 1987. He has held elective offices of Vice President for Publications, Vice President for Programs, and President. He has published eight cases in NACRA's Case Research Journal , and has twice won the organization's top award, The Curtis E. Tate, Jr., Award. Lew just completed serving a three-year term as Editor of the Case Research Journal , and continues as the Associate Editor for the marketing area.
Lew has lead seminars and workshops on case writing and teaching at universities in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Japan.
Welcome our New Faculty
Angelika Kausche taught MGT 309, Business Communications, part-time during Spring 2008;
she is now full-time. Angelika comes to UNCG from Elon University where she taught Business
Communication. She received her MA in Organizational Communication from Western Michigan
University. She is on the Board of Trustees of the Greensboro Montessori School and is a
volunteer instructor at the Women’s Resource Center of Greensboro.
Terrie Reeves is an Associate Professor in Health Care Administration. She received her
MBA in Finance and International Finance from New York University, Stern Graduate School
of Business and her PhD in Administration/Health Services, with a Strategy focus, from the
University of Alabama at Birmingham. She worked for years in the New York City
financial markets, dealing foreign currencies and money market instruments. Her research
focuses on the strategizing and subsequent performance of health services organizations
faced with challenges from rapidly changing legal, regulatory, political, commercial, and
moral climates. She comes to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro from
the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee.
Riikka Sarala joins us from Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration where
she will defend her PhD in October. She will teach MGT 301, International Business,
and MBA 616, Managing in a Global Environment. Her PhD research focuses on the impact of
cultural factors on the success of international mergers and acquisitions. Her other research
interests are the management of post-acquisition integration process, knowledge transfer and
development in multinational companies, and the selection of foreign entry mode.
Dianne Welsh is the Hayes Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship. A recognized
scholar in international entrepreneurship and franchising; she is co-editor of the first
comprehensive volumes on global franchising in emerging and industrialized markets. Current
research interests are social entrepreneurship, family business, international franchising,
and international entrepreneurship sustainability issues. She is the Past President for the
U.S. Association for Small Business & Entrepreneurship (USASBE) and she serves on the
executive boards of the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management and the Global
Consortium of Entrepreneurship Center Directors’ Association. In addition, she
has also owned four businesses. Dianne has successfully started programs at two previous
universities, including one that has secured a Kauffman grant. At University of Tampa, she
founded the entrepreneurship center with an active board with 20 CEO founders and faculty.
Campus Entrepreneurs
This Spring, Joe Erba has been the instructor for an innovative course at UNCG: BUS 306 – Campus Entrepreneurship.
This course focused on students creating a plan for a business and presenting that plan to a group of experts. The experts selected the best plans and those students were awarded a license to conduct business on the UNCG campus. Below are the results of the students’ assignments.
Campus Entrepreneur license awardees and their proposed businesses were Pablo Diaz: iDiaz, a multi-media presentation development company, and John Read: Student Image Photography, a photography business.
In addition, two provisional licenses will be granted to the following firms upon completion of suggested revisions to their plans; those students were Alan Buck: Southwood Media, a media advertising firm, and Matthew Cashatt: KnockoutDormz, a dorm room furniture and accessory company
The Business Plan Selection Committee was comprised of the following people:
- Ms. Kathy Elliott – Vice President of Small Business, Greensboro Chamber of Commerce
- Dr. Lew Brown – Business Administration Department, Bryan School
- Mr. Michael Byers – Assistant Vice Chancellor for Auxiliary Services, UNCG
- Mr. Tom May – Assistant to the Dean for Economic Development, Bryan School
- Mr. Bruce Michaels – Assistant Vice Chancellor, Division of Student Affairs, UNCG
- Mr. Bill Vasaly – COO, The Bank of Oak Ridge
Nir Kshetri wins the 2008 Meheroo Jussawalla Research Paper Prize
Nir Kshetri’s paper entitled “Looking at the Facts: What we Know (and Don’t Know) about the Chinese Internet Protocol TV Market” was the winning entry for the Pacific Telecommunications Council’s (PTC) Meheroo Jussawalla Research Paper Prize, which is awarded for the best overall research paper at the PTC annual conferences (http://www.ptc.org/ptc08/index.cfm). The prize comprises of a certificate and a cash award. It is named after Meheroo Jussawalla, an Emerita Senior Fellow/Economist at the East West Center in Honolulu (http://www.ptc.org/resources/researchawards.html).
The 2008 PTC conference was attended by over 1100 participants from more than 65 countries. PTC annual conferences provide a unique forum for academics and practitioners for presenting their latest research in telecommunications-related areas. Academic researchers presenting at the 2008 PTC annual conference were from Columbia Business School, Pennsylvania State University, University of Florida, University of San Francisco, University of Tokyo, Carnegie Mellon University, University of California at Berkeley, Syracuse University, University of Southern California and Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China.
News items related to the winning entry of 2008 Meheroo Jussawalla Research Paper Prizewere published in a number of outlets including:
- December 3, 2007: Forbes ( link ).
- December 3, 2007: PR Inside ( link ).
- December 3, 2007: Business Wire ( link ).
- December 3, 2007: Broadcast Newsroom ( link ).
- December 3, 2007: Yahoo! Finance ( link )
Pacific Telecommunications Council ( http://www.ptc.org/ ) is an international, non-profit, nongovernment membership organization based in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. Its mission is to promote the development, understanding, and beneficial use of telecommunications and information technology throughout the Pacific region. PTC was established in 1978.
SANG WON LEE, winner of best student research paper, University of Florida; HEATHER HUDSON, Director of Community Technology Movement Program, University of San Francisco; NIR KSHETRI, winner of Meheroo Jussawalla Research Paper Prize, Bryan School of Business and Economics, University of North Carolina-Greensboro; YALE BRAUNSTEIN, Professor, School of Information, the University of California at Berkeley; MEHEROO JUSSAWALLA, Emerita Senior Fellow/Economist, East West Center; RICHARD TAYLOR, Professor, Institute for Information Policy, Pennsylvania State University; and Bruce Drake, PTC President and Board of Governors Chair.
Two Professors Receive Best Paper Award
Dr. Holly Buttner and Dr. Kevin Lowe were recently notified that their research paper, “The Challenge of Increasing Minority Group Professional Representation: Intriguing Findings,” has been awarded “Best Paper” for the Social Issues/Ethics/ Diversity track of the Southern Management Association. The Association’s annual conference will be held in Nashville, Tennessee. Buttner and Lowe will be honored during the Association’s business meeting. A third coauthor is Lenora Billings-Harris – a multicultural-diversity consultant and an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Business Administration. The faculty of the Department congratulates them on receiving this distinguished recognition.
Undergraduate Student Presents Research Study at International Conference
Crystal Elmore (marketing) presented a paper, “The Whos and Whys of Live Golf Tournament Attendance: A Longitudinal
Study,” at the International Conference on Advances in Interdisciplinary Statistics and Combinatorics held in Greensboro,
NC (October 12-14, 2007) [http://www.uncg.edu/mat/aisc/ConferenceProgramDetails.html]. The paper was coauthored with
Business Administration faculty member Nir Kshetri and Bryan MBA alumna Andreea Schiopu.
Crystal’s presentation was based on marketing research projects sponsored by the Chrysler Classic of Greensboro in 2006 and the Wyndham Championship in 2007. Also contributing to the study were Ashley Agee, Sharon Angle, Emily Ferrell, Douglas Groover, Brantley Malone, Brandon Queen, Bridget Silvernale, and Traci Wooten (all from the MKT 422 class – Marketing Research) in the analysis for the paper. Crystal’s presentation was supported by a Young Researcher Award provided by National Science Foundation (NSF) funding.
Bryan Students Serve as Elon Law School "Clients" in Negotiation Exercise and in Upcoming Mock Mediations
MGT 330 and UNCG pre-law students acted as clients for negotiation classes at the Elon Law School. Courtney Akel, Anthony Brown, and Jonathan Moody participated in the event.
Mock mediations, using MGT 330 and UNCG pre-law students as "clients," will be held in late October and in November. The activities were arranged by Bryan School Instructor Eloise Hassell with the cooperation of Professor Don Peters of the Elon Law School. Mrs. Hassell counsels Bryan School students, and others, who are interested in entering a law school upon graduation from UNCG. Students can contact her in her office – Room 373, Bryan, or by phone at 334.4535, or send her a message at mmhassel@uncg.edu.
Student Teams Advise Local Businesses – MKT 429
The Department of Business Administration began offering Advanced Marketing Management, Marketing 429, in the
Spring semester 2004 to serve as a capstone course for marketing majors. Students spend the first half of the
semester studying marketing strategy development. For the remainder of the semester, students work in teams to
develop a marketing strategy for a local for-profit or nonprofit organization. Dr. Lew Brown, the course
instructor, solicits applications from local organizations and also recruits Bryan Business Mentors. The Mentors
are managers of local organizations or retired managers, such as SCORE members, who work with each group to advise
it in its work. At the end of the semester, students present a written report to the organization and make an oral
report to the project sponsors and the mentor.
This year, the projects kicked off on September 25 with a breakfast for the project sponsors and mentors. Following the breakfast, the sponsors and mentors met their student team and began to plan their work.
Counting the seven projects for this semester, the Marketing 429 students have worked with 59 organizations.
"The marketing faculty wanted each of our majors to have the experience of developing a real marketing
plan for a real organization before they graduated," Dr. Brown noted. "We are very appreciative of the
support that local organizations have provided and the time that our Mentors have given to our students. These
are not 'make work' projects. The organizations genuinely want the fresh eyes and insights that the students
can bring. The organizations find just going through the process with the students to be beneficial. In
addition, the students find the project to be a learning experience that is also a very valuable addition
to their resumes. It's a win-win situation for everyone involved," Brown added, "and the projects
tie in well with the University's goal of supporting economic development."
Dr. Brown concluded by noting, "Our marketing majors carry out similar experiential projects in several other marketing courses, It is our faculty's goal to help our students develop the competence and confidence to apply what they have learned."
Erba Attends Program on Tomorrow’s Entrepreneurs
Joe Erba attended the 8th Annual Experiential Classroom, conducted by the Whitman School of Business at Syracuse University on September 13-17, 2007. Entitled "Reaching and Teaching Tomorrow's Entrepreneurs, " the program provided insight into new teaching methods, advances in the information available, and an opportunity to build a network among the participants of the program. Eighty attendees from the U.S. and internationally attended the well-run event. UNCG had 5 representatives attending.
MBA Students Survey the Bryan School Faculty
As a course project for MBA695J, Intrapreneurship, student teams were required to solicit a local company to conduct a formal survey measuring the firms "entrepreneurial intensity and frequency." A team of 3 international students from our BASF program chose the Bryan School faculty as their test group. With the Dean's permission, E-surveys were set to all faculty members and the results will be interpreted as part of their course-ending presentation. Joe Erba is the instructor for this course.
Lowe Appointed As Fellow of McDowell Research Center for Global IT Management
Kevin Lowe has accepted an invitation to serve as a Fellow of the newly established McDowell Research Center (MRC) for Global IT Management. Part of his responsibilities will be to review research proposals submitted to MRC for funding, review seed proposals for grant funding, and be available for consultation as needed on matters associated with MRC.
Welcome our New Faculty Member – Dr. Merlyn A. Griffiths
Dr. Merlyn A. Griffiths received her Ph.D. in Marketing (Consumer Behavior) from the University of California
– Irvine in June 2007. In addition, she received her MBA (International Business) from Bentley College,
and a B.S. in Business Administration (Finance) from Boston University. Her research interests are in consumer
bonding relationships with places, consumer assent and dissent behaviors, and irreversible consequences of consumption
behaviors. She has taught at Bentley College in the areas of marketing management, advertising, and marketing
communications. Prior to pursuing her Ph.D., she was a Strategic Planner for Hoyts Cinema Corporation in Boston,
and Marketing Manager, Holographic Products Division, for Polaroid Corporation in Cambridge, MA. She is currently
a member of the Association for Consumer Research, American Marketing Association, Academy of Marketing Science, The
Ph.D. Project, KPMG Foundation, National Black MBA Association, Society for Marketing Advances, and Society for
Personality and Social Psychology.
Guest speaker from Australia
Dr. Sandra Kiffin-Petersen, Graduate School of Management at the University of Western Australia, will meet with the BADM faculty on August 14, 2007to present a research seminar.
Dr. Kiffin-Petersen teaches in the areas of organizational behaviour, leadership, team effectiveness, and negotiation in the MBA and Executive MBA programs.Her primary research interest lies in understanding the factors that determine work team effectiveness, in particular the role of trust. She is also currently working on research projects in the areas of emotional labour, negotiation skills training, and persuasive communication. Atlast year'sAustralian and New Zealand Academy of Management Conference, she receiveda Best Paper Award.
The faculty of the Department of Business Administration welcome such an esteemed researcher.
Nir Kshetri frequents the conference “trail” in 2007
Dr. Nir Kshetri (Marketing)has either presented or his papers have resulted in published proceedings at eleven national and international conferences andhistwelfth research endeavor will be reported in October 2007.
One of his recent papers was presented at The Cornell-McGill Conference on Institutions and Entrepreneurship, Cornell University,Ithaca, NY, in July 2007.The title of the paper was "Forces of Institutional Changes Affecting Entrepreneurship in China."
Kshetri's twelfth research paper for the year will be the presented at the Croatian Marketing Association Congress, Oct. 25-27, 2007. The title of the paper is "Barriers to Branding for Developing World-Based Firms and Some Mechanisms to Overcome Them: A Conceptual Framework."
Congratulations to Nir Kshetri for an outstanding research year!
Experience the Disney Business Culture
For summer-fall, 2007, there are approximately 80 students from U.S. and international universities participating in the Bryan School/UNCG/Disney College Program at Walt Disney World, Orlando. Students from Peru, Brazil, and Columbia are potential additions to the Program for the academic year 2007-2008. This Program is a joint effort of the Bryan School (Dr. Bud Miles is the coordinator of the Program) and the UNCG International Programs Center (Dr. Lyn Lawrance, Associate Provost, and Dr. Penelope Pynes, Director of Study Abroad and Exchange Programs).
The Bryan School/UNCG/Disney College Program is open to all UNCG majors who want to be full-time, continuing students while participating in the Walt Disney World College Program. This Program presents an opportunity for UNCG students to experience cultures from around the world. Each year, thousands of people from foreign countries are learning the Disney business culture along with U.S. students. For additional information, contact Bud Miles, 334.4527 or bemiles@uncg.edu.
Bud Miles (is at the far right) and standing next to Bud is Kristin Blanchard
(Program Assistant). Bud and Kristin were at Disney with several IPC staff members
to provide an orientation to a group of new students.
Team productivity focus for researchers
Kevin Lowe, a professor
in the Department of Business Administration in the Bryan School, is working with a member of
the University of Southern Queensland to improve the performance of teams in the workforce as
part of a three-month exchange in Australia.
Kevin’s focus is researching leadership in call center teams. He is also comparing different leadership styles across international borders as part of the research.
Fellow researcher, Ray Hingst (USQ faculty member) said, “Having more social contact means people will work better, with reduced absenteeism and reduced turnover. Call centers especially are known for their high turnover statistics.”
A number of his early suggestions from his research findings have been implemented by members of one call center network. Hingst added, “They have moved it away from an individual focus and are more team focused. If you want to get an environment that’s interdependent, you need to work in teams, not just recognizing individual performance.”
The researchers are planning a call center conference to be held in Chennai, India in December 2009.
Lowe recently received the UNC Board of Governors Teaching Excellence Award for UNCG.