SUGAR LAND – The University of Houston-Victoria School of Business Administration combined a night of awards Wednesday with some valuable lessons from a data management expert.
Richard Davis, chief operating officer of Katalyst Data Management, opened the 2015-2016 UHV School of Business Administration Distinguished Speaker Series with a speech at UH Sugar Land. Katalyst Data Management is a Houston-based subsurface data management firm serving energy industry customers in the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
“Mr. Davis shared his insights about the nature of business and decision-making from his rich working experience in oil and gas industries in different countries,” said Shengsheng Huang, a UHV assistant management professor. “Those insights offer a great supplement to the knowledge students learned from the classroom, and it definitely helps our students better understand what they got from our BBA and MBA programs.”
The evening started with a reception honoring students, alumni and faculty. The winners of the Bloomberg Businessweek Teaching and Research Awards were announced along with the 2015-2016 Partnership Professors.
The award-winning professors were:
- Xiaobo Dong, assistant professor – Partnership Professor of Accounting
- Linda Hayes, professor – Partnership Professor of Marketing
- Ziad Swaidan, professor of marketing – Bloomberg Fall 2014 Teaching Award
- Kaveh Moghaddam, assistant professor of management – Bloomberg Spring 2015 Teaching Award
- Stephanie Solansky, associate professor of management – Bloomberg 2014-2015 Research Award
Bloomberg Businessweek award winners are chosen based on professors’ use of the publication’s teaching materials in the classroom. The publication puts out teaching notes on particular industry topics or scenarios that professors can use in class. The topics usually involve recent events from different areas of the business industry to help generate relevant discussion. Swaidan and Moghaddam each received $2,000 from Bloomberg Businessweek, and Solansky received $2,500.
Swaidan teaches a number of marketing classes, including “Marketing Management,” “International Marketing” and “Marketing Research.” His research focuses on cross-cultural marketing and consumer ethics. He was the Partnership Professor of Marketing for 2014-2015.
Moghaddam teaches “Principles of Management,” “Strategic Management” and “International Business Strategy.” Earlier this year, he won a $10,000 summer grant from UHV to advance research about immigrant entrepreneurs. The project compared the survival and profitability of immigrant entrepreneurs with entrepreneurs native to the country where they operate.
Solansky’s research interests include leadership, teamwork and complexity theory through both qualitative and quantitative data analysis. She is an active member of the Academy of Management and is an award-winning author. She has presented her research at the premier management conferences and has published in some of the top journals in her field such as The Academy of Management Journal, Human Relations, Journal of Business Ethics, Leadership Quarterly and Management Learning.
Partnership Professors are nominated by School of Business Administration department chairs. Nominees are those who have done exceptional work in research, teaching or service for the school. Each will have access to a $3,000 stipend to be used for research projects and faculty development. The school launched the Partnership Professor awards in 2012 to recognize the exceptional achievements of faculty and facilitate ongoing research and other scholarly efforts.
Dong’s research focuses on financial intermediaries, especially financial statement analyst forecast, management forecast and equity valuation. Her teaching interests are in advanced and intermediate-level financial accounting and managerial accounting.
Hayes has taught graduate and undergraduate marketing courses at UHV since joining the university as a visiting professor in 1998. Her research interests include strategy, assurance of learning, and perceptions, judgment and choice. She relates her research to teaching in multiple areas such as global market strategies, trust, ethical stewardship and program assessment.
Also honored at Wednesday’s reception were winners of the MBA and BBA case competitions for fall 2014 and spring 2015 and students who were inducted to Beta Gamma Sigma international business honor society.
“It was terrific to see all the award winners and honor society members honored during our reception,” said Farhang Niroomand, dean of the UHV School of Business Administration. “It’s important to take an evening to celebrate our successes. Our faculty members and students have accomplished a tremendous amount during the past year.”
The speaker, Davis, has worked in several places around the world. As a geophysicist and operations manager, he managed operations in Libya, Brunei, Tunisia and Oman. He later managed an Illinois site that became a National Wildlife Reserve.
“He generously shared with us his life story, which I found to be really motivating,” Huang said. “It reminds me that working hard always pays off.”
Since 2011, the UHV School of Business Administration Distinguished Speaker Series has brought in area executives to discuss contemporary business issues. Past speakers have included executives in the health care, oil and gas, real estate, technology, transportation and staffing industries.
The Distinguished Speaker Series continues Oct. 21 with a speech by Heber Lacerda, president and CEO of Regency Post-Acute Healthcare System Inc, from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Kay and Ron Walker Auditorium at UHV University North, 3007 N. Ben Wilson St. in Victoria.