Within the past three years, UM business faculty published an unprecedented 25 papers in such prestigious peer-reviewed publications as Review of Financial Studies, The Journal of Financial Economics, The Journal of Banking and Finance, The Journal of Retailing, The Journal of the Academy of Marketing Sciences and Strategic Management Journal. The total exceeds the number of articles published by faculty at both Louisiana State University and the University of Alabama, where the business school faculties are double the number at Ole Miss, in these same journals.
“The University of Mississippi has a very prolific publishing group,” said Ken Cyree, UM business dean. “Of our 42 tenured or tenure-seeking faculty, 10 were published in elite journals in a single year. Their excellent scholarship is a truly amazing performance.”
Faculty members in finance, management, marketing, marketing information systems and production operations management regularly rank journals in their respective disciplines, Cyree said. It then becomes a common goal to be published in the elite publications, which are the top six journals in these disciplines.
“High-quality scholarship means publishing articles that impact business disciplines and create new knowledge,” Cyree said. “Usually, faculty members anywhere are doing well to have one article accepted for publication in an elite journal over the course of their academic career.”
Stephanie Noble, UM associate professor of marketing, had two articles published in elite journals last year. She said what motivates her is conducting research that is useful to some stakeholder, whether that stakeholder be a retailer, a marketing manager, a service provider, a consumer or another educator.
“The faculty then present this type of high-quality research in their classes,” Noble said. “Thus, our students are being exposed to leading edge research in their chosen fields and this helps produce top-notch, desired graduates.”
Much of the research published by UM business school faculty members gets picked up by the popular press, indicating its relevance to key stakeholders, Noble said.
“One of my recent articles on Generation Y was picked up by U.S. News and World Report, and there are many more examples showing the high-quality research being conducted at the business school,” she said.
Two faculty members, Bonnie Van Ness and Robert Van Ness, are editors of The Financial Review, the official journal of the Eastern Finance Association. On a relative basis, Ole Miss is highly productive in regard to scholarship of the faculty, said Robert Van Ness, the Tom B. Scott Chair of Financial Institutions.
“Many people who stay in school long enough to obtain a Ph.D. have a high degree of intellectual curiosity,” he said. “This curiosity spurs many academics to try to solve or explain questions that are unanswered. Answering these questions leads to advances in scholarship in the various disciplines.”
Exceptional classroom teaching by the school’s faculty members is also noteworthy. Many have won UM teaching honors, including the Elsie M. Hood Outstanding Teacher Award and Faculty Achievement Award for teaching and research.
“Our professors are some of the best teachers I’ve ever had while on campus,” said Laura Beth Williamson of Florence, Ala., president of the Business School Student Body. “They’re hard, but they know their stuff.”
For more information about the School of Business Administration, call 662-915-1103 or visit http://www.bus.olemiss.edu/.