The 2010 edition of The Princeton Review once again has ranked the UTPA College of Business Administration MBA program among the 301 Best Business Schools.  To compile the rankings, Princeton Review examined a number of factors about each program, such as financial aid, admissions and student life.  

Three CoBA students were recently selected as UTPA Students of the Week as a part of the University’s Profiles in Excellence program.  This honor recognizes students who have made an outstanding contribution to UTPA and are nominated because of achievements in academics, community service, leadership, and attitude.  The profile of selected students appears on the University Web site, the students get a reserved parking pass for a week and are recognized at a special luncheon in April.  

Flor Martinez

CoBA students Felix Garcia and Flor Martinez were among five campus-wide students selected to receive Student Leader of the Year awards. Martinez was nominated by the Dean of Students Office and Garcia was nominated by the dean’s office.

Feliz Garcia

The nomination letter for Garcia listed many of his accomplishments as a reason for his nomination. For example, Felix “embodies the characteristics of a leader: he is honorable, professional, takes initiative, is concerned about others and is dependable.”  “The College will greatly miss Felix when he graduates,” said Dr. Penny Simpson, Associate Dean of the College. The leadership awards are given by Office of Student Development.

Mohammadali Zolfagharian, an assistant professor of marketing, has had five of his papers accepted for publication or presentation. One paper, co-authored with Audhesh Paswan and Derrick D’Souza is titled “Toward a Contextually Anchored Service Innovation Typology” and has been conditionally accepted for publication in the prestigious Decision Sciences Journal.

This paper provides a blueprint that enables strategic decision makers to determine the service innovation strategy that is most suitable for the firm. The blueprint includes a service innovation typology anchored by environmental uncertainty, strategic orientation, and market orientation. The proposed typology provides a new direction for theory building in the field of service innovation that moves away from the traditional goods-versus-services perspective and may lead to for future investigations on services innovation.

An application of the proposed Service Innovation Typology in the context of franchising sector has been accepted for presentation at the International Society of Franchising Annual Conference, San Diego, CA in February. This research was also conducted with Paswan and D’Souza.

A third paper by Zolfagharian is forthcoming in the Journal of Consumer Marketing. The paper examines personality and cultural characteristics of multicultural consumers that differentiate them from other consumer segments. This solo-authored article shows how biculturals compare to monoculturals in terms of urge for acceptability within pertinent reference groups and society at large, need for uniqueness, art enthusiasm, and consumption of artwork, with artwork a means of (ethnic) identity.

A fourth paper co-authored with Qin Sun was presented in late February at the American Marketing Association Winter Conference, in Tampa. This paper also focused on multicultural consumers, this time investigating their degree of consumer ethnocentrism and the extent to which country-of-origin (COO) effect applied to them. This is the first study in the COO literature to theoretically and empirically investigate multicultural identity.

Finally, a fifth paper, co-authored with Audhesh Paswan, has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. This research examines the ways in which consumers’ perception of service innovativeness (CPSI) influence purchase and repeat purchase decisions within two very different service industries.

CoBA faculty recently celebrated the recognition of the American Society of Hispanic Economists (ASHE) by the American Economic Association (AEA).  Dr. Marie Mora, CoBA economics professor and president of the organization said the recognition means that ASHE will now have the rights and privileges of the organizations that are part of the Allied Social Science Association (ASSA).   ASHE is now guaranteed to have its own sessions at the ASSA annual meetings—the annual conference hosted by the AEA in conjunction with the other ASSA groups.

The requirements for AEA official recognition are tough.   To be recognized, an organization must have at least 300 members and the AEA reviews the bylaws and mission of the organization.   Mora noted that in her application letter, she also provided the AEA with a list of ASHE’s accomplishments and activities during the past few years to show that the organization is active and contributes to the economics discipline.

Dr. José Pagán, CoBA economics professor, received the 2009 Service Award to ASHE by an Individual, announced Dr. Marie Mora, president of the American Society of Hispanic Economists (ASHE). Pagán was selected because of his membership recruitment efforts during the past two years. This was the first time the award was given, and it will be given biennially.

CoBA student Mercy Renteria was one of just a few students profiled in a recent Harvard publication about Harvard Summer School 2009. Renteria is a senior majoring in Management and attended the Harvard program that offers more than different 300 courses to visiting students. Renteria took a class in International Marketing while in the program. Her Harvard story appears at the Harvard Summer School 2009 Web site.

Jaime Parada, the CEO and President of the Monterrey International City of Knowledge (MTYCIC) initiative, will be speaking to CoBA and friends as part of the Entrepreneurship Speaker Series on April 15. According to the coordinator of the speaker series, Management Professor John Sargent, “MTYCIC is a major effort bringing together government, educational institutions, and the private sector in Monterrey with the goal of creating a knowledge- based regional economy." The organization is working on activities ranging from nanotechnology, to biotechnology to collaborations with UT Austin and IC2. Parada is also the former head of CONACYT, Mexico’s National Center for Science and Technology.

Dr. Olivier C. Wenker will be the featured speaker on April 9th. Wenker is the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center’s Director of Technology Discover and is involved with technology commercialization not only at MD Anderson but also within the UT System and nationally. According to his biography, Winker identifies “promising new technologies, he creates multidisciplinary project teams (Biotech SWAT teams) and guides the faculty toward commercialization.”

Both speaking events will be held in MAGC 1.202 at 7:10p.m.