The Thinkers 50 2005 listing in the December 1 issue of The Times [London], their 2005 global ranking of the 50 most important and influential business thinkers, included Professor Vijay Govindarajan. According to the Times, "the Thinkers 50 ranking is based on the votes of 1,200 business people, consultants, academics, MBA students and visitors to the project's website." Govindarajan ranked after Michael Dell (number 29) and ahead of Alan Greenspan (number 35). The Times also mentioned Govindarajan—a "new kid on the block" as a first-timer to the list—as coauthor of Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators, "likely to be one of the big business books of 2006."
In September, Professor Robert A. Howell again facilitated an FEI Committee on Corporate Reporting event, which brought together Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 Implementation Team Leaders from more than 30 of the largest U.S. companies to develop best-practices guidelines, based on their collective 2004–05 experiences. In October, he served as a member of the faculty, responsible for the financial analysis module, for the first National Association of Corporate Directors' Director Professionalism course, which conferred the Certificate of Director Education on 100 program participants. Howell also received the certificate and will continue as a faculty member for the next three 2006 programs. At Tuck, he led a Tuck Global Consultancy team of seven second-year students to China in December and is teaching the second-year electives in financial statement analysis. In March, he is scheduled to teach a corporate finance module for the first MBA class of the European School of Management and Technology in Berlin. He also continues as co-chairman of the Center for Corporate Excellence's 4th Annual Changing the Game (of Business) Forum, scheduled for June 8–10, 2006, in Beaver Creek, Colo.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow Jennifer Jordan was awarded the 2005 Best Dissertation Award by the Social Issues in Management Division of the Academy of Management. Her dissertation, Business Experience and Moral Awareness: When Less May Be More, examined cognitive and experiential factors that affect business practitioners' awareness and recognition of moral issues. In addition, A Handbook of Wisdom: Psychological Perspectives, which she coedited with Robert J. Sternberg, was published by Cambridge University Press in spring 2005.
With the 12th edition published in March 2005, Professor Kevin Lane Keller became the coauthor with Philip Kotler of the all-time best-selling introductory marketing textbook, Marketing Management (Prentice-Hall). Keller also gave several talks during the past year: "The Effects of Branding Strategies and Product Experience on Brand Equity," at the MSI Brand Architecture Conference and at the University of Buffalo in March; "Understanding Brand Alliances," at the Brand Alliance Research Conference, Oklahoma State University, in April; and "The Extendibility and Vulnerability of Abstract Brand Images," at the Babson College Research Colloquium in April. In September, Keller was awarded the 2005 ZIBS Distinguished Theory Award by the Zyman Institute of Brand Science, a network-based organization located at Emory University's Goizueta Business School. The award is granted to people "who have shown commendable achievement in the areas of brand management and theory...[and] recognizes scholarship, contributions, and outcomes that both impact managerial practices and further academic theory."
Professor Koen Pauwels presented his new work, "Price War: What Is It Good For?" at five universities, including Harvard and UCLA. The paper quantifies the trade-off for high-end retailers who choose to drop prices to fight hard discounters: improved price image and store traffic come at the expense of higher price sensitivity and consumer spending. At the University of California, Davis, in September, Pauwels coorganized the second annual conference on "Modeling Marketing Dynamics," which he founded in 2004 at Tuck. Meanwhile, he became the top reviewer (based on load and speed) and was invited to join the editorial board of Marketing Science.
Professor David Pyke has continued his research on pricing and operations. With Andrew Grimson T'06, he is researching the sales and operations planning process, looking at best practices across a number of companies. With colleagues at Tuck and other universities, he is developing models for profit optimization. In addition, Pyke recently completed a paper, "Shanghai or Charlotte? The Decision to Outsource to China and Other Low-Cost Countries," that will be published in a book on doing business in Asia.
