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2 MarketingBundling content

for better sales

4 HealthcarePatient welfare vs. profit

6 Emerging MarketsThe effect of corruption

on innovation

VOL

12NO

2FALL 2011

Research@Smith

Special RepoRt: SOciaL MEdia

Research@Smith summarizes research conducted by

the faculty of the Robert H. Smith School of Business

at the University of Maryland.

dEaN

G. anandalingam

aSSOciaTE dEaN OF FacULTY & RESEaRcH

Michael Ball

EdiTOR

Rebecca Winner

cONTRiBUTiNG WRiTERS

carrie Handwerker

PHOTOGRaPHY

Tony Richards

dESiGN

Lori Newman

Research@Smith is published two times a year

by the Robert H. Smith School of Business,

University of Maryland; 3570 Van Munching Hall,

college Park, Md 20742. www.rhsmith.umd.edu

We’d like to put Research@Smith directly into the

hands of academics, executives, policymakers, and

others who are interested in learning about the latest

research conducted by Smith School faculty. To

request a copy of this publication or make an address

correction, contact Rebecca Winner via e-mail,

editor@rhsmith.umd.edu, or phone, 301.405.9465.

Learn more about Smith research:

www.rhsmith.umd.edu/smithresearch

used to think Twitter was a fad that was going to

pass, despite the constant feedback about its utility

that i was receiving from Smith students. i couldn’t

imagine why anyone would want another piece of

“keep in touch” technology. Eventually, though,

i was convinced to start my own Twitter account

(@deananand, if you’re interested). i have to admit, it

is proving to be a great way for me to stay in contact

with students, alumni and friends of the Smith School.

count me as another reluctant convert to the world of

microblogging, and another member of the vast

online community.

Social media now dominates our lives in ways we

couldn’t imagine a decade ago. We’re not just tethered

to email any longer. How many of us check our Facebook

or Linkedin accounts several times a day? My faculty

colleagues at the Smith School are trying to tease out

the challenges and pitfalls of social media, which

represents both a fascinating window into the public

hive mind and an enormous—if sometimes difficult to

collect—treasure trove of data about almost every

aspect of consumer behavior.

in this issue of Research@Smith you’ll get a glimpse

of the many different research projects and papers

underway at the Smith School dealing with social media.

Most are cross-functional, with faculty from several

different departments working together on projects that

span social listening and monitoring, network structures

and connections, and strategies to use these tools

effectively. i hope you’ll find our results useful, and you’ll

continue to follow us as we develop best practices for

the digital world.

G. “anand” anandalingam

dean, Robert H. Smith School of Business

University of Maryland

I

dean’scolumn

VOL

12NO

2Research@Smith

corruption and innovation page 2

Research by Vojislav Maksimovic

innovative firms are more victimized than other firms in emerging economies.

Multi-Format Digital content page 4

Research by P.K. Kannan and Amna Kirmani

consumers are willing to buy multiple formats of content when they can

count on consistent quality and use the formats in different ways.

profit-Driven patient Discharge practices page 6

Research by Bruce Golden

Surgeons discharge patients to ensure their future surgeries

will not be cancelled for a lack of recovery beds.

Special Report: Social Media Research at Smith page 8

Social Media Research RoundupSocial Media in GovernmentSocial Media in HealthcareNew Faculty Hires page 11

executive profile: Hart Rossman, Vice president and chief technology officer of cybersecurity Services and Solutions for Saic page 12

Research@SmithVOL

12NO

2FALL 2011

2 FaLL 2011 : VOLUME 12 : NUMBER 2

merging economies need to encourage

investment and innovation to create economic

growth and raise the standard of living for their

citizens. Unfortunately, government corruption can

hold innovation hostage. it is not uncommon for

firms to be extorted to pay bribes for routine services

such as getting their utilities connected or their phone

service turned on, or to apply for government permits

or licenses to upgrade their physical plant, open a

new store, import a new category of goods or register

a new trademark.

innovative firms are the victims of corruption

more often than other firms, according to a study

by Vojislav Maksimovic, dean’s chair Professor of

Finance, and co-authors Meghana ayyagari, Phd ’04,

and asli demirguc-Kunt of the World Bank.

Maksimovic and his co-authors used data from the

World Bank investment climate Surveys, sampling

more than 25,000 firms, 80 percent of which were

small and medium enterprises, in 57 countries. The

surveys provided information on firms’ innovation

projects, bribe payments, tax evasion, their perception

of government, and their sources of financing. about

23 percent of the firms in the sample both paid bribes

and under-reported their revenue for tax purposes,

14 percent only paid bribes, and another 23 percent

only under-report revenue. Smaller and younger firms

reported paying a larger percentage of their sales as

bribe payments. individual or family-owned firms paid

higher bribes than firms owned by a corporation,

bank, investment fund, managers/employees of the

firm, or the state.

corruption seems to act as a tax on innovation, says

Maksimovic. controlling for other variables, the

authors found that innovators had to pay more bribes

than non-innovators. and unfortunately those bribes

don’t seem to result in any better services than those

given to firms that don’t pay bribes. “They would still

spend a lot of time talking to government officials,

and they complained about getting their phones set

up or electricity set up,” says Maksimovic.

Firms that pay bribes also tend to under-report their

revenues more often—in effect retaliating against the

government for the income lost to bribe payments,

resulting in a loss of tax revenue for the country. But

innovative firms tend to be victims overall, the study

found—they both pay bribes and pay their taxes.

There are several steps that governments of emerging

economies can take to encourage rather than hamper

innovation. The more permits and restrictions there

are in general, the more corruption occurs, the

authors found, because more people have to approve

the work the firm is doing. Simplifying the regulatory

environment so that fewer people are involved can

cut down on opportunities for bribery to occur.

corruption and

innovation innovative firms are more victimized than other firms in emerging economies.

E

Financial sector reform also has an important role

to play in curbing corruption and tax evasion. Firms

that get bank financing for their new investments

and working capital are less likely to evade taxes,

and more likely to pay bribes. Firms that use informal

financing from family, friends or the local strongman

are more likely to evade both taxes and bribes.

So formal financing systems, in concert with better

regulations, could create an environment that cuts

down on extortion and is thus more conducive

to innovation.

it is often difficult to get published data about private

firms in nations with developing economies. By

partnering with the World Bank, Maksimovic had

access to data far in advance of when public records

would become available.

“Most of the research done by finance professors

used to be very U.S.-centric,” says Maksimovic,

“because that’s where the data is. But we’re finding

that more of our students now come from developing

countries, and more students are working with

companies outside the U.S. So it is important that

they understand the differences between how things

work in the U.S. and how they work elsewhere.”

“corruption and Finance: are innovative Firms Victims

or Perpetrators?” was published by the World Bank.

This research was funded in part by a grant from the

National Science Foundation. For more information,

contact vmax@rhsmith.umd.edu.

RESEARCH@SMITH 3

Simplifying the regulatory environment so that

fewer people are involved can cut down on

opportunities for bribery to occur.

Research by Vojislav Maksimovic

4 FaLL 2011 : VOLUME 12 : NUMBER 2

hen Netflix announced a corporate

restructure in September to separate its digital movie

streaming service and spin its mail-order dVd service

into a new company called Qwikster, consumers

were confused and outraged, stock-holders were

bailing, and Smith School marketing professors

P.K. Kannan and amna Kirmani were shaking their

heads. The Netflix split contradicts new research

from Kannan and Kirmani that finds consumers are

ready and willing to pay for multiple formats of the

same content. it all comes down to how the content

providers package and present it.

The key is for companies to offer consumers formats

that are equal in quality, but useful for different

reasons. This is a big shift in thinking—Kannan

and Kirmani say the content should be the focus.

For years, content producers have been focused

on targeting different groups of consumers. The

assumption has been that certain people prefer

specific formats of content—for example, some Wall

Street Journal readers want their news on their iPads

while others prefer that familiar touch and smell of

newsprint to thumb through with their morning

coffee. But those profiles easily describe the same

person who wants their content at the breakfast table

and on the go online. and that consumer is willing to

pay for both.

Kannan and Kirmani worked with Nevena Koukova,

a Smith Phd alumna now at Lehigh University, to

conduct three studies to determine what factors

could entice consumers to purchase more than

one format of content. in the first, they surveyed a

book publisher’s actual customers to measure how

they rated the quality of print and PdF versions of

the same book and whether they saw the two as

substitutes or complements to be used in different

situations. in study two, the team looked at purchase

behavior—whether consumers were likely to buy

either the digital or hard-copy products, or spring

for the bundle of both products. For study three,

the researchers designed a lab experiment with

a questionnaire to test when consumers would

purchase a bundle of dVd and online streaming

services rather than either a dVd alone or online

streaming alone.

in all three studies, the researchers found that when

consumers deemed the two formats of equal quality

and could see unique uses for each format, they

wanted to buy both formats.

Kannan likens the findings to shoe-shopping, where

many consumers wouldn’t hesitate to buy the same

pumps or loafers in both black and brown, simply

because each would match better with different

Multi-format digital

contentconsumers are willing to buy multiple formats of content when they can count on consistent quality and use the formats in different ways.

W

RESEARCH@SMITH 5

outfits. Marketers need to get consumers thinking

about the ways they can use each version of the

same product.

“The key is that the formats have to be of equal

quality on attributes a consumer cares about,” said

Kirmani. “When a consumer thinks two versions

are equal on attributes they consider important—

whether equally high quality or equally low quality

—those attributes essentially cancel each other out.

if you can get people to think about the unique

occasions in which they would use one version or the

other, then their perceived value of the bundle goes

up. That’s the trick here—make them think about

the different ways they could use each version to

get people to buy both.”

That’s why Kannan and Kirmani lamented the Netflix

decision to separate its content streams—they

contend the company should have revisited the way

they were bundling their products instead.

“Multi-Format digital Products: How design

attributes interact with Usage Situations

to determine choice,” is forthcoming in the

Journal of Marketing Research. For more

information, contact pkannan@rhsmith.umd.edu

or akirmani@rhsmith.umd.edu.

Marketers need to get consumers thinking

about the ways they can use each version of the

same product.

Research by amna Kirmaniand P.K. Kannan

(right)

urgeons have a great deal of freedom in when

they schedule surgeries, and they are also in charge

of releasing their patients. as post-operative recovery

beds fill up and there is less space available, do

surgeons release patients earlier than they otherwise

would in order to empty those beds? They do,

according to a study by Bruce Golden, France-Merrick

chair in Management Science, and his Phd student

david anderson.

a large mid-atlantic hospital center provided surgical

discharge data for more than 7,800 patients from the

2007 fiscal year who stayed overnight in the hospital,

for a total of about 35,500 overnight stays. Golden

and anderson had access to information about

patient age, surgical severity level, date and time of

surgery, and the dates when the patient was admitted

to recovery and subsequently discharged.

Statistical analysis of the data showed that when more

recovery beds were full, more patients were released

from the hospital, even when controlling for factors

like day of the week, staffing levels and surgical

volume. The results suggest that surgeons discharge

patients to ensure that their future surgeries will not

be cancelled for a lack of recovery beds.

“it could be that the doctors think If the hospital isn’t

full, I’ll keep my patient another day, it doesn’t hurt

anything,” said Golden. “Based on just this data,

we can’t say for certain whether doctors are just

keeping patients longer when the hospital is empty,

or whether they are releasing more patients when the

hospital is full.”

But further research is leading Golden and anderson

to suspect that at some level a profit-driven motive

is at work. Surgeons are paid for each operation

they perform. Hospitals also generate revenue

when surgeons perform surgery. if the hospital does

not have staffed beds available for post-operative

recovery, surgeons can’t operate, and both the

surgeon and the hospital lose income.

Releasing patients in order to empty recovery beds

may be good business, but it is also a potential public

health concern if it negatively impacts patient health.

in a second paper based on this research, Golden

and anderson tracked patients who were released

when recovery beds were near-full. They found that

a significant number of those patients returned to

the hospital within three days, suggesting that their

recovery was incomplete when they were released.

“it’s in everyone’s interest to do surgery. But it is also

in everyone’s interest to make sure that patients are

completely recovered before they return home,”

says Golden.

Hospital administrators must work with surgeons to

manage this complex logistics problem in a way that

brings a net benefit to patients, surgeons and the

Profit-drivenpatient discharge

practices S

Surgeons discharge patients to ensure that their surgeries will not be cancelled for a lack of recovery beds.

6 FaLL 2011 : VOLUME 12 : NUMBER 2

RESEARCH@SMITH 7

hospital itself. This might be as simple as instituting a

checklist when the hospital is full, says Golden.

“When the hospital is full, surgeons could go through

the checklist before discharging the patient. They

know better than we do what questions should be

asked—questions that would force the surgeon

to think about whether they were discharging the

patient for the right reason.”

careful attention to the scheduling of surgeries might

help better manage bed occupancy. increasing the

flexibility of where patients go post-surgery—

allowing patients to be placed in beds in other units

with empty beds, for example—could also lesson

early discharges.

This study may be eye-opening for policymakers,

who are increasingly concerned with issues related to

the cost and quality of healthcare. Keeping surgical

patients in recovery longer will increase costs, but

discharging patients who then quickly return to the

hospital also raises costs, as well as decreases the

quality of care.

Hospitals may also find the study helpful as a

springboard to re-examining their practices in regard

to patient releases. Hospital administrators may have

had a sense that patients were being released early,

but there is a difference between believing something

and then seeing statistical evidence of the fact based

on a large dataset at a major hospital, Golden says.

So the authors have sent this research to chief medical

officers at hospitals around the country, to draw their

attention to the issue.

“Examining the discharge practices of surgeons

at a large medical center” was published in the

journal Health Care Management Science. For more

information, contact bgolden@rhsmith.umd.edu.

Hospital administrators must work with

surgeons to manage this complex logistics

problem in a way that brings a net benefit to

patients, surgeons and the hospital itself.

Research by Bruce Golden

When a video of unhygienic behavior by a

domino’s Pizza employee went viral on Youtube

and came to the attention of bloggers nationwide,

company management turned to Twitter to address

the issue and ease its customers’ food safety concerns.

The episode was a graphic (revoltingly graphic!)

depiction of the way online communities and the

content they create have the power to boost a

company’s sales and reputation, or sink it for good.

Social media is ubiquitous, and companies are eager

to take advantage of social networks (and also to

avoid brand-killing online missteps). Smith School

faculty have a robust research agenda encompassing

a wide variety of issues related to the challenges and

opportunities inherent in the Web 2.0.

StRateGy

Some faculty research reveals better strategies for

reaching the right customers. One recent study

showed that if you’re conducting an online viral

marketing campaign, you don’t necessarily want to

reach out to the person who has the most friends on

his or her social media platform. it turns out that just

having a lot of friends doesn’t translate into having

a lot of influence. instead, companies should be

targeting people who have the most varied interests,

because their networks extend into more groups—

and results in a wider reach of potential customers.

Social tagging is also a hot research topic. Recent

studies are examining the ways that social tags

provide informational value about brand equity and

stock returns, how social tags on amazon can be used

to forecast demand for books and customize pricing

strategies for different genres, and the way social tags

reveal information about customer sentiment

on Twitter.

liSteNiNG

Other Smith research is helping to make sense of how

user-generated content affects a company’s brand

and sales. it’s important to know what people are

saying about your company or product online, but

you can’t take comments or reviews at face value. a

recent study showed that people who are very active

online—those who consider themselves “experts”—

tend to be more negative, and their activity may

scare off less active customers with more positive

opinions. a company’s social media strategy should

seek to engage these “mass market moderates,”

and companies evaluating online product reviews or

opinion sites need to account for the disproportionate

volume of highly negative voices. But the self-

avowed “experts” can bring you important positive

word-of-mouth too, a different study found—if they

are satisfied with your company or product, and if

giving a positive review lets them show off their own

knowledge and expertise.

Social media research at Smith

8 FaLL 2011 : VOLUME 12 : NUMBER 2

RESEARCH@SMITH 9

NetwoRk StRuctuReS aND coNNectioNS

corporations need to monitor online conversations

and actively engage people in a positive way.

But which community members are worth watching?

Quantitative models can be an important tool for

better decision making. Smith faculty developed

a model that identifies influential users in a social

network—those who influence the site activity of

others—to help advertisers more effectively target

their online marketing. another model helps track

the way influential users promote products, to help

companies better structure their rewards for viral

promotion. One professor developed a model that

even helps companies identify and take advantage of

the influence social networks will have on purchasers

while they are still in the design stage for the product.

The Web also offers a treasure trove of information

that companies can exploit to better understand

their customers, and to more effectively monitor their

brands. Smith faculty are working on studies that

show managers how to use social media for faster,

more immediate and more data-rich brand mapping.

content-creators like bloggers are of interest to

managers. How can companies leverage these

influencers and their networks? Smith faculty are

examining both the network and the content of blogs

to better help companies monitor

information diffusion in the context of brand

monitoring and predict which author blog channels

are worth watching.

and some of the school’s research is just plain

cool. Smith faculty are studying what social media

strategies are effective in helping rock bands grow

their audience base, how Twitter can be used to

predict where an album will debut on the

Billboard Top 200, and even how social tags can

help predict stock market returns. Stay tuned to

Smith for more results!

Turn the page for a list of current working papers

addressing social media issues. contact Smith faculty

members directly for more information about a

particular study.

10 FaLL 2011 : VOLUME 12 : NUMBER 2

Look for more big-impact

research from Smith

faculty in the area of social

media. The following

working papers are

available on SSRN.

Contact individual

faculty members for

more information

about their specific

area of study.

Working Papers

are You a Viral Star?

conceptualizing and

Modeling inter Media Virality.

Michael trusov, assistant professor

of marketing; amit Joshi

Building the B[r]and: Using Social Media

to drive customer Engagement and

Sales. yogesh Joshi assistant professor

of marketing; william Rand, assistant

professor of marketing and research

director of the center for complexity in

Business; louiqa Raschid, professor

of information systems

comparing Social Tags to Microblogs.

william Rand, Victoria Lai (University

of Maryland undergraduate student);

christopher Rajashekar, MBa’ 11

cross-country Heterogeneity of attribute

Effects in Online Product Reviews—

Empirical Evidence and implications.

Michael trusov; Reinhold decker

differential adaptive diffusion:

Understanding diversity and Learning

Whom to Trust in Viral Marketing.

william Rand, Lise Getoor,

Hossam Sharara

a dynamic competitive analysis of

content Production and Link Formation

of internet content developers. liye Ma,

assistant professor of marketing

Evolving Viral Marketing Strategies.

william Rand; Forrest Stonedahl;

Uri Wilensky

Future Link Prediction in the Blogosphere

for Recommendation. william Rand;

louiqa Raschid; Shanchan Wu

(doctoral student)

Homophily or influence? an Empirical

analysis of Purchase within a Social

Network. liye Ma; Ramayya Krishnan;

alan Montgomery

The informational Value of Social Tags

in Predicting Stock Market Returns.

Hyoryung Nam; p.k. kannan,

Ralph J. Tyser Professor of Marketing

and marketing department chair

Judging Borrowers by the company

They Keep: Social Networks and adverse

Selection in Online Peer-to-Peer Lending.

Mingfeng Lin, (doctoral student),

Nagpurnanand R. prabhala, associate

professor of finance, Siva Viswanathan,

associate professor of information systems

and co-director of diGiTS

Listening in on Online conversations:

Measuring Brand Sentiment with

Social Media. david Schweidel,

wendy Moe, associate

professor of marketing,

chris Boudreaux

Mapping Products on

Social Tagging Networks:

insights for demand

Forecast and Pricing

Strategy. Hyoryung

Nam (doctoral student),

william Rand,

p.k. kannan

Measuring the Value of

Social dynamics in Online Product

Rating Forums. wendy Moe,

Michael trusov.

Online Product Opinion: incidence,

Evaluation and Evolution. wendy Moe,

david Schweidel

Predicting author Blog channels with

High Value Future Posts for Monitoring.

william Rand; louiqa Raschid;

Shanchan Wu (doctoral student);

Tamer Elsayed

Prediction with Twitter: The Billboard

Top 200. yogesh Joshi; derek Monner

(doctoral student); william Rand

Recommendations in Social Media for

Brand Monitoring. william Rand;

louiqa Raschid; Shanchan Wu

Sequential and Temporal dynamics of

Online Opinion. David Godes, associate

professor of marketing; Jose Silva

Signaling Success: Strategically-Positive

Word of Mouth. David Godes;

andrea Wojnicki

Social Tag Maps: a New Methodology

for Building Brand associative Networks.

Hyoryung Nam; yogesh Joshi;

p.k. kannan; william Rand

Social MeDia

ReSeaRcH RouNDup

RESEARCH@SMITH 11

Social Media in Government

p.k. kannan, Ralph J. Tyser Professor

of Marketing and director of the

center for Excellence in Service, and

ai-Mei chang, professor of systems

management at UMUc, are studying

how the web affects interactions between

government agencies and the public.

They found that government agencies

should be proactive instead of reactive,

engaging their constituents on social

networking sites and other online

communities instead of waiting for

community members to reach out to

individual agencies for information

and/or assistance.

This new style of communication would

allow governments to gather feedback

from users, including criticisms on services

they offer, website design and content

distribution. a government using Web

2.0 technology can build trust and loyalty

among citizens who see different agencies

reaching out to the public in social forums.

interactions will become less formal than

before and as a result content must be

delivered in a less formal manner, allowing

users to sift though and easily find the

information they need to proceed.

Leveraging Web 2.0 in Government

is a research report published by

the iBM center for the Business of

Government and is available online at

www.businessofgovernment.org/report/

leveraging-web-20-government.

For more information, e-mail

P.K. Kannan at

pkannan@rhsmith.umd.edu.

Social Media and Healthcare

The Smith School’s center for Health

information and decision Systems (cHidS)

has several ongoing projects exploring the

challenges involved with integrating social

media into healthcare.

One recent study found that physician-

rating websites are not particularly reliable

sources of information about practitioner

quality. That’s because patients posting

opinions about their doctors online

are a lot more likely to talk about their

bad experiences and are more prone to

exaggerate their opinions. So a website

might help you weed out the truly awful

practitioners, but it’s not likely to help

you find a great one. Researchers also

pointed out a “sound of silence” effect for

many patients who don’t choose to post

anything at all about their quality of care.

cHidS is also looking at the role of online

communities in bridging the rural-urban

health divide. can social networks help

increase health literacy and better connect

geographically isolated patients with

medical information?

The center is also working with careFirst

Bluecross BlueShield, the largest health

care insurer in Maryland, to understand

the current state of social media uses and

adoption and provide recommendations

on the optimal way to incorporate social

media at careFirst.

For more information about

this research, contact

ragarwal@rhsmith.umd.edu.

New Faculty HiReS FoR 2011-2012The Smith School is happy to

welcome the following new professors

to the school:

accouNtiNG aND iNFoRMatioN aSSuRaNce

Hanna Lee

derek Johnson

DeciSioNS, opeRatioNS aND iNFoRMatioN tecHNoloGieS

Tunay Tunca

inbal Yahav

ilya O. Ryzhov

Pamela armstrong

ilchul Yoon

Rui Zhao

FiNaNce

Yajun Wang

Laurent Fresard

Rich Mathews

Karen Hallows

loGiSticS, BuSiNeSS aND puBlic policy

Stephanie Eckerd

Bennet Zelner

MaNaGeMeNt aND oRGaNizatioN

Waverly ding

Protiti dastidar

MaRketiNG

Liye Ma

Wel

co

me

Some people’s career paths advance

in a straight line. Hart Rossman,

Vice President and chief Technology

Officer of cybersecurity Services and

Solutions for Science applications

international corporation (Saic), has

a career that seems to be growing in

ever-widening circles.

Rossman is a local boy. He grew

up in columbia, Md., and was

part of the very first college Park

Scholars program at the University of

Maryland, graduating with a degree

in communication. While in college

he took an internship at Saic, a

FORTUNE 500 scientific, engineering,

and technology applications company,

and has been there ever since, helping

the company translate its “exquisite”

technology into mission-oriented

solutions.

Rossman started with the company

as a software developer for distance

learning. But the guys down the hall

were doing “cybersecurity stuff, which

sounded very cloak-and-dagger,” says

Rossman, and he quickly joined their

group. Rossman and the cybersecurity

industry grew up together. Today his

responsibilities encompass everything

from hard-core systems engineering

to governance risk and compliance.

“i have a real hunger for knowledge,”

says Rossman. “i thought i’d be doing

this job for a few years and then grow

out of it. But every organization has

a security or privacy requirement, so

i’ve gotten to work across all kinds of

industries from the U.S. government

to finance to energy to health care. it

has been a really amazing opportunity.

i’ve gained insight that’s applicable

across verticals.”

With all that industry-specific

knowledge under his belt, Rossman

began looking for an MBa program

to develop his business skills. But

he knew he didn’t want a narrowly

focused MBa—he wanted something

with a broader perspective: “a little

worldly, a little larger.” When he was

invited to apply for Saic’s custom

MBa program with the Smith School,

he got the perspective he was looking

for in a program tailored for his

company’s particular needs.

during his time in the program, that

perspective was broadened further

than he had imagined. “i got to

thinking about problems across the

supply chain—that’s the biggest

system i can think of to apply security

to. how do you do global supply chain

risk management?” Rossman

asked himself.

So now Rossman is taking on another

growing industry—the security of the

cyber supply chain. He has partnered

with Smith faculty Thomas corsi,

Michelle E. Smith Professor of

Logistics, and Sandor Boyson, research

professor, co-directors of the

center for Supply chain Research, to

explore issues related to cyber supply

chain assurance. He is now a senior

research fellow with the center, the

author of white papers and co-author

of a new book, “X-ScM: The New

Science of Extreme Supply chain

Management.”

For more information about the

Smith School’s custom programs,

contact Greg Hanifee, assistant

dean of executive programs,

ghanifee@rhsmith.umd.edu.

12 FaLL 2011 : VOLUME 12 : NUMBER 2

EXEcUTiVE PROFiLE:

Hart Rossman

UNiVERSiTY OF MaRYLaNd

The University of Maryland, college Park, is one of the nation’s top 20 public research universities. in 2007,

the University of Maryland received approximately $407 million in sponsored research and outreach activities.

The university is located on a 1,250-acre suburban campus, eight miles outside Washington, d.c., and 35 miles

from Baltimore.

ROBERT H. SMiTH ScHOOL OF BUSiNESS

The Robert H. Smith School of Business is an internationally recognized leader in management education and

research. One of 12 colleges and schools at the University of Maryland, college Park, the Smith School offers

undergraduate, full-time and part-time MBa, executive MBa, MS, Phd, and executive education programs, as well

as outreach services to the corporate community. The school offers its degree, custom and certification programs

in learning locations in North america and asia. More information about the Robert H. Smith School of Business

can be found at www.rhsmith.umd.edu.

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download this issue’s featured research articles in audio format directly to your iPod or

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www.rhsmith.umd.edu/podcast.

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iN THiS iSSUE

• Selling multi-format products

• Corruption’s effect on innovation

• Profits over patients

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