NewsBites

Below is a summary of some of the school's citations in prominent national and regional media. These media placements enhance the school's national reputation and help to brand it as one of the nation's top business schools.

U.S. News & World Report has again ranked the School of Management as one of the country’s “Best Undergraduate Business Programs” in the 2021 edition of “America’s Best Colleges.” The school was ranked No. 81, higher than any other B-school in the State University of New York system or in the Buffalo Niagara region.

More than 100 outlets worldwide—including The Washington Post, Yahoo! Finance and MarketWatch—carried an Associated Press/NerdWallet article about changing consumer habits during the pandemic. Charles Lindsey, associate professor of marketing, advised shoppers to search beyond traditional stores, consult with others and use apps to score deals on hard-to-find items. “Diversify your consideration set in terms of the stores where you shop,” Lindsey said.

Kate Bezrukova, associate professor of organization and human resources, was quoted in an article by The Lily, part of The Washington Post, about a report showing women now hold 23% of board seats in Russell 3000 companies, a 6.5% increase over four years. Bezrukova said research shows women leaders may face gender bias as they ascend to powerful roles, but can positively impact a company’s bottom line in those positions. “Women tend to be less narcissistic than men and are driven by collective interests instead of individual ones,” she said.

After the death of George Floyd, Bezrukova co-wrote an article for Psychology Today about her research into diversity and policing. Her findings showed the African American arrest rate was lowest in diverse communities with diverse police, and higher when the police and community were not racially diverse. “It seems undeniable that the makeup of police and the community they serve, taken together, are associated with real (and pretty dramatic) differences in arrest patterns between cities,” Bezrukova wrote.

Michael Dambra, associate professor of accounting and law, was interviewed by Business Insider for an article about President Trump’s tax returns and nearly $750,000 in “consulting fees” the Trump Organization appeared to pay Ivanka Trump. “I would say for family companies it’s a typical tax-avoidance strategy,” Dambra said. “What the Trump Organization would have to prove is that these consulting fees served a valid business purpose and that the prices were reasonable.” Yahoo! News and other outlets also picked up the story.

U.S. News & World Report cited on research by Debabrata Talukdar, professor of marketing, who found that as a country’s per capita income increased, so did its obesity rates in both women and men. “As most people currently live in low- and middle-income countries with rising incomes, our findings underscore the urgent need for effective policies to break—or at least weaken—the relationship between income growth and obesity,” he said.

Forbes cited insights from James Lemoine, assistant professor of organization and human resources, in an article about organizational decision-making during times of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA). “If VUCA is seen as general, unavoidable and unsolvable, leaders will take no action and fail to solve an actual problem,” Lemoine said, instead recommending leaders reach out “to partners, customers, researchers, trade groups and perhaps even competitors” during uncertain times. The article first appeared in Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge.

Lemoine also co-wrote an article about how academic leaders should respond to VUCA situations for BizEd, which is published by AACSB International, the accrediting body for business schools. The article described how the School of Management has embraced an agile approach by launching more dual-degree programs, additional STEM programming and partnerships with global institutions. “When leaders break down each situation into its VUCA components, they will have a clearer path to strategic planning,” the authors noted.

Natalie Simpson, associate professor and chair of operations management and strategy, was quoted in a story by Heart.org and U.S. News & World Report about hurricane season and the coronavirus pandemic occurring simultaneously. Simpson said fear of catching the virus may make some people hesitant to follow evacuation orders. But she advised: “There’s a hierarchy of safety. If you’re in immediate danger from a hurricane, you need to get out of harm’s way.”

Simpson was also interviewed for a Buffalo News article about shortages of laptops and tablets at the start of the school year. “It’s worse than in other cases of simpler commodities, like paper towels, because a functioning tablet or laptop is actually hundreds of different component parts that are often made by other companies,” she said. “As a manufacturer, if you have 99% of the materials and you’re missing one, you’re still not shipping. So, the supply chain is a lot more vulnerable.”

Nallan Suresh, UB Distinguished Professor of operations management and strategy, was quoted by The Buffalo News in a story about consumers stocking up on essentials as COVID-19 cases began spiking again in Western New York last fall. “With both the supply side well-prepared and lower demand surge from consumers, we should be able to cope with this extended crisis better than before,” Suresh said.