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Upcoming Speakers |
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MBA Executive Speaker Series |
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Stacy J. Smith,
VP, Finance and Enterprise Services and Assistant CFO
Intel, 10/04
More info |
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Lyceum Speaker Series |
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Kirsten Simpson, Partner,
Mergers and Acquisitions,
Ernst & Young,
10/4
More info |
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Business Ethics Speaker Series |
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Scott Walsh,
Director, Environmental Defense,
10/6
More info |
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Upcoming Events |
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MBA National Energy Finance Challenge, 9/28-29
MBA International Business and
Communications Challenge, 9/28-29
Undergraduate Case Competition, 9/30
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Changing Perceptions of Frito-Lay
Products Biggest Strategic Opportunity, Says Rader
By Sandie Taylor
Ever heard that a serving of Cheerios contains more sodium than
a serving of Lay’s potato chips? Frito-Lay’s marketing
department hopes that you have. In fact, the company is on a
mission to show the public that tasty foods aren’t always as bad
for you as you might think. “There are perceptions of what’s
healthy for us, and then there are facts,” said David Rader,
executive vice president and chief financial officer of
Frito-Lay. “Sometimes they are very different.” He spoke at the
McCombs MBA Executive Speaker Series September 20.
Get the full story.
Tanriverdi Receives Best Published Paper
Award
Huseyin Tanriverdi, assistant professor of information,
risk, and operations management, won the Best Published Paper
Award from the Organizational Communication & Information
Systems (OCIS) Division of the Academy of Management. The award
is given to the authors of a paper selected as the best
published paper in the OCIS field in the previous year.
Tanriverdi won the award for his paper on “Information
Technology Relatedness, Knowledge Management Capability, and
Performance of Multi-Business Firms,” published in MIS Quarterly
in 2005. The paper tackles the link between information
technology and firm performance. It finds that information
technology contributes to financial performance of
multi-business firms by enabling firms to manage related and
complementary knowledge resources of their business units and
exploiting cross-business knowledge synergies.
Find out more about OCIS.
In the News: BBA Alum, Fifth
Richest Texan Says His Success Was Mostly Luck
Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Sept. 24, 2006
Omni hotels owner and fifth richest Texan Robert Rowling,
BBA ’76, has been “flat-out lucky” in business. The Dallas
resident says he “couldn’t repeat what’s happened to me. If you
gave me $10 million free and clear and said, ‘OK, go do that,’
there's not any chance that I could do it again.” UT Austin’s
Reese M. Rowling Hall is named after his father due to Robert
Rowling’s generous 2001 donation. Rowling limits his investments
to businesses he understands, which means he has “never made a
tech investment.” Rowling has just broken ground for an
Omni-branded Fort Worth convention center hotel that's expected
to have the look and feel of Cowtown.
Read more about Rowling.
In the News: Austin’s Use of
Utility Fees Questioned
Austin American-Statesman, Sept. 24, 2006
Austin residents may be paying for more than their electricity
when they write their monthly checks to the utility company.
According to an investigative piece in the Austin
American-Statesman, utility fees charged to customers fund
streetlights and street maintenance, child care, small-business
loans, endangered species land and many other tasks not
typically associated with electricity. Michael Granof,
accounting professor at McCombs, explains there is a political
reason for this. “You have to balance the general fund budget,”
Granof said, noting that the use of such funds to pay for
general government expenses is inappropriate. “If you can get
these expenditures out of the general fund, then so much the
better.”
Get the full story.
In the News: Granof Says
Companies Must be Held Responsible for Promises
KUT, Sept. 26, 2006
Hewlett-Packard plans to build two data centers in Austin and
could contribute $600,000 to Austin Independent School District
if it is given a $4.1 million tax break. HP promises to employ
about 140 people at each facility. Michael Granof,
accounting professor at McCombs, says any company seeking a tax
break should be held accountable for its promises. “They should
promise that they can create so many jobs and if they don’t do
that they lose their abatement.” Granof said. “I think that’s
key—that you have to have enforceable promises—and very often
you don’t have enforceable promises, the company gets the tax
abatement and then they leave within a couple of years.”
Listen to Granof on KUT.
McCombs School Job Postings:
Recent items:
See past issues of McCombs Weekly.
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