Mays Impacts

An article by Dr. Leonard L. Berry, Mays Business School’s University Distinguished Professor of Marketing, and his coauthors was recognized as the Distinguished Winner of the American Marketing Association (AMA) and EBSCO Responsible Research in Marketing Award. This award, also sponsored by the Sheth Foundation and Responsible Research in Business and Management (RRBM), honors outstanding research that produces both credible and useful knowledge that will benefit society.

The AMA/EBSCO award recognizes Berry, who was the lead author in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings article, “When Patients and Families Feel Like Hostages to Health Care.” The Texas A&M University Regents Professor co-authored this article with Tracey S. Danaher of Monash University, Dan Beckham of the Beckham Company, Rana L. A. Awdish of the Henry Ford Health System, and Kedar S. Mate of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

This paper is unique in that the study was published in a journal outside of the academic marketing community. “This is a best paper award in marketing, but it’s drawn from a medical journal, which is very unusual,” said Berry, who is a Senior Fellow of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. “What’s exciting is that colleagues in the marketing community who do not read medical journals will now know of the article because it is quite relevant to marketing topics – particularly consumer behavior and service marketing – that we teach in business schools.”

The paper’s diverse group of co-authors – two marketing professors, a healthcare consultant, and two physicians – was instrumental in crafting an article on this unusual topic. Some of the journal editors were understandably wary of publishing an article on the potentially controversial topic of “patients as hostages” but the authors persevered through the review and revision process and Berry credits the journal for publishing the article. It turned out that the authors received many favorable comments from physician readers after publication, as much of the paper’s content offers guidance on how to help patients feel safe in communicating candidly with their doctors. Berry hopes that his research in healthcare may encourage other business school faculty to do more of their research in healthcare.

Berry’s prolific research into healthcare and service quality also has played a foundational role in the identification of healthcare as one of Mays’ three Grand Challenges in the school’s 2017-2021 Strategic Plan. “Len Berry’s research program in healthcare has initiated an important conversation in Mays Business School about the societal impact of our professional endeavors,” said Dr. Manjit Yadav, head of the Department of Marketing at Mays. “This conversation, over the long-term, has the potential to significantly enhance our national and international reputation. The AMA/EBSCO award is a wonderful recognition of the impact that Len is having in marketing and the medical community.”

The Responsible Research in Marketing Award recognizes studies that exemplify RRBM’s definition of responsible research, which is built on a foundation of seven principles:

• Developing knowledge that benefits both business and the broader society to create a better world.
• Contributing to fundamental theoretical knowledge as well as application to address pressing and current issues.
• Valuing interdisciplinary collaboration and diverse research approaches to reflect the multiple and complex problems facing business and society.
• Implementing sound scientific methods and processes in the research undertaken.
• Engaging stakeholders in the research process without compromising the independence of the study.
• Creating an impact on diverse stakeholders that can contribute to better business and a better world.
• Using diverse forms of knowledge dissemination that collectively advance basic knowledge and practice.

Additionally, the term “useful knowledge” recognizes that the research addresses important social challenges and offers meaningful insights that can inform policymakers and practitioners. The award winners’ findings have wider societal implications beyond a firm’s financial performance and extend beyond the particular consumer group, firm, or employee group that was studied.

More than 70 nominations were submitted for the AMA/EPSCO Award and reviewed by a diverse team of scholars, who received input from subject matter expert reviewers. To be considered, nominated studies needed to be published within 2017-2020 and exemplify the Seven Principles of Responsible Research.

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About Dr. Leonard L. Berry

Dr. Leonard L. Berry is University Distinguished Professor of Marketing, Regents Professor, and holds the M.B. Zale Chair in Retailing and Marketing Leadership in the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University. He also is a Presidential Professor for Teaching Excellence. As a Visiting Scientist at Mayo Clinic in 2001-2002, he conducted an in-depth research study of healthcare service, the basis for his book, Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic (2008). Concurrent with his faculty position in Mays Business School, Dr. Berry is a Senior Fellow of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement studying service improvement in cancer care for patients and their families.

Professor Berry has written ten books in all, including: Discovering the Soul of Service; On Great Service; Marketing Services: Competing Through Quality; and Delivering Quality Service. He is the author of numerous academic articles and an invited lecturer throughout the world. Professor Berry’s teaching and research have been widely recognized with many honors for his contributions, including The Sheth Gold Medal, The American Marketing Association (AMA) William Wilkie “Marketing for a Better World” Award, the Paul D. Converse Award, the AMA/McGraw-Hill/Irwin Distinguished Marketing Educator Award, the Career Contributions to Services Marketing Award from the AMA, and the Outstanding Marketing Educator Award from the Academy of Marketing Science. He is a Fellow of both the American Marketing Association and the Academy of Marketing Science. Texas A&M awarded him the Distinguished Achievement Award in Teaching (1990) and the Distinguished Achievement Award in Research (1996 and 2008), the highest honors bestowed upon its faculty members. In 2014, he was inducted into Arizona State University’s Carey School of Business Hall of Fame, the first doctoral graduate to be selected, and in 2015 the Mays Business School at Texas A&M awarded him the Lifetime Achievement Award for Research and Scholarship. A former national president of the American Marketing Association, Dr. Berry founded the Center for Retailing Studies at Texas A&M in 1982 and served as its director through 2000.

About Mays Business School

At Mays Business School, we strive to advance the world’s prosperity. Our mission is to be a vibrant learning organization that creates impactful knowledge and develops transformational leaders. Mays Business School educates more than 6,300 undergraduate, masters, and doctoral students in accounting, finance, management, management information systems, marketing, and supply chain management. Mays consistently ranks among the top public business schools in the country for its programs and for faculty research.

https://mays.tamu.edu

About the American Marketing Association (AMA)

As the largest chapter-based marketing association in the world, the AMA is trusted by marketing and sales professionals to help them discover what is coming next in the industry. The AMA has a community of local chapters in more than 70 cities and 350 college campuses throughout North America. The AMA is home to award-winning content, PCM® professional certification, premiere academic journals, and industry-leading training events and conferences.

https://www.ama.org

About the Sheth Foundation

Founded by Dr. Jagdish & Madhu Sheth, the Sheth Foundation supports the academic scholarship, publications, education, and research of tax-exempt, publicly supported educational organizations, primarily focusing on the discipline of marketing, by providing support to grant-awarding recipient organizations.

https://www.shethfoundation.org/

About Responsible Research in Business and Management (RRBM)

Responsible Research for Business and Management (RRBM) is dedicated to inspiring, encouraging, and supporting credible and useful research in the business and management disciplines.

https://rrbm.network/

About EBSCO

EBSCO Information Services, headquartered in Ipswich, Massachusetts, is a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., a private company headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. EBSCO provides products and services to libraries of very many types around the world.

COLLEGE STATION, Feb. 12, 2021 – The McFerrin Center for Entrepreneurship at Texas A&M University announced the Texas High School Ideas Challenge, the first ever state-wide entrepreneurship competition for high school students. Any Texas high school student between the ages of 14-18 is eligible to participate in the inaugural challenge. Participating students will compete for $15,000 in prize money in addition to in-kind gifts.

About the Texas High School Ideas Challenge

The Texas High School Ideas Challenge is based on the highly successful Raymond Ideas Challenge. For two decades the Raymond Ideas Challenge has only been available for Texas A&M Current students. Applications for the Texas High School Ideas Challenge close on March 31, are online, and do not require a formalized business, business plan, or prototype. Students are only required to submit an idea but must do so in a compelling manner that displays the idea’s viability, unique nature, and the problem that their idea attempts to address.

Student Impact

The mission of the public education system of the state of Texas is to ensure that all Texas children have access to a quality education that enables them to achieve their potential and fully participate in the social, economic, and educational opportunities of the state and nation. In 2019, Texas small businesses employed 45% of the Texas workforce, a clear indicator of the essential role that entrepreneurs play in driving the social and economic opportunities of the state. The Texas High School Ideas Challenge aligns with the mission of the Texas public education system by providing high school students with a highly accessible avenue to engage with entrepreneurship as a potential career opportunity regardless of if a student pursues higher education.

Competition Goals

In addition to supporting the mission of the Texas public education system, the Texas High School Ideas Challenge supports the Mays Business School’s grand challenge of entrepreneurship and improving economic development by cultivating and empowering the next generation of Texas entrepreneurs. Blake Petty, Executive Director of the McFerrin Center for Entrepreneurship commented, “For twenty years, our Raymond Ideas Challenge has celebrated the ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit of our Aggies here on campus. We’re excited to now expand our scope across the state, in support of these creative problem-solvers while they are still in High School. We can’t wait to see all the inventive new ideas from Texas’ next great generation of entrepreneurs!”.

Mays Business School’s FTMBA degree earns #20 U.S. public program

For the third year in a row, the Full-Time MBA program at Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School has been named a top program globally, according to the 2021 rankings released by Financial Times. The Financial Times 2021 Global Full-Time MBA Rankings placed Texas A&M’s program at #85 globally this year, advancing one spot from last year and 14 spots from 2019. Out of U.S. public programs, Mays Business School’s residential MBA program is ranked #20.

Former students (alumni) from the class of 2018 were surveyed to compile the rankings data. Of particular recognition by Financial Times this year was the #17 ranking for “FT research rank,” a weighted calculation according to the number of articles published by a school’s current full-time faculty members in 50 selected academic and practitioner journals between January 2014 and October 2016.

“The Financial Times ranking our program is an honor because besides technical competencies and business acumen, it points to the integrity, leadership, and selfless service qualities that all Aggies exhibit,” shared Arvind Mahajan, associate dean for graduate programs. “With these core values in place, our students, faculty, and staff strive for excellence, resulting in accolades that have an impact across the world.”

Texas A&M’s Full-Time MBA program in College Station, TX is 18-months in duration, beginning in August of each year with a December graduation, and the degree includes the option to extend an additional semester for extra electives to match interest areas.

“Mays Business School’s vision is to advance the world’s prosperity,” said Richard Castleberry, director of the full-time MBA program. “Through this program, I witness students discover themselves, transform into the leaders they were meant to be with the support of faculty and staff, and graduate to impact the organizations and communities where they live. It’s inspiring and fulfilling to see the program receive this attention for the third year in a row.”

Applications for the Texas A&M Full-Time MBA program are being accepted now for the class of 2023. For more information, visit: mba.tamu.edu

Mays Business School’s focus on creating high impact learning experiences has revealed an opportunity for Aggies to empower independent miners in Africa’s gemstone industry. Faculty and students in the Master of Science in Management Information Systems (MS-MIS) program are working with non-profit Virtu Gem to create a robust e-commerce website. The e-store makes it possible for independent miners from Malawi and Zambia to sell directly to gemstone markets, facilitating source country gem miners and traders in virtual sales.

This effort, which aligns with Mays vision of advancing the world’s prosperity, especially benefits African female miners, who face deep cultural biases in the mostly male-dominated African mining field. These biases restrict access to more lucrative jobs, lower prices for their gemstones, and expose the women to unfair labor practices. Without access to the larger and more profitable markets, female miners experience greater difficulties in profiting from their mining and mines in order to sustain themselves and their families.

The biases also hamper these women’s ability to earn fair prices from their discoveries. When female miners find a gemstone, they often use a male intermediary to make the sale as many brokers won’t work with women or only offer a tiny fraction of a stone’s value. The miners must pay a large commission to the intermediary for their assistance. “Female miners generally only get 10-20% of the value of the gems, strictly based on their gender,” said Dr. Dwayne Whitten, a clinical professor in Mays Department of Information and Operations Management.

The partnership with Virtu Gem is a natural progression of Dr. Jordana George’s initial research on the use of blockchain in the gemstone industry. “Blockchain is being used by diamond firms to ensure that diamonds stay out of the blood diamond conflicts,” said the Information and Operations Management clinical assistant professor, who began studying this area in 2019. “Blockchain also allows diamonds to be authenticated because lab-created diamonds are becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from naturally mined stones.”

As her research on this topic progressed, George started focusing on the societal impact of information systems by analyzing the miner’s point of view. She realized that blockchain could be used as an emancipatory technology for female miners and invited Whitten to co-author a paper on a Tanzanian venture that helped female miners retain 95% of the export price of their stones.

George and Whitten continued to explore this research topic through interviewing individuals in the industry. Those interviews eventually led to Virtu Gem’s representatives – and the creation of a MS-MIS class project that offered real-world application and implications.

Block security

During the fall semester, the Aggies helped Virtu Gem redesign its website to have a more robust e-commerce function. Students learned to work on the Squarespace website builder and make the site more flexible to serve both retailers and wholesalers as well as to satisfy African countries’ individual export requirements and taxes.

This project offered Mays students the opportunity to apply what they were learning in their MS-MIS program. “As part of the project, we made real deliverables for our coursework,” said Mahesh Thiagarjan ’22, an MS-MIS student from Belize who served as a product manager for this project. “All the assignments I did during the Advanced Systems Analysis and Design course were tailored to the Virtu Gem project. This helped me to obtain practical experience as a systems analyst.”

The students also gained valuable leadership experience. “I was able to understand my role of a project manager and it only confirmed my ever-growing desire to become an IT project manager,” said Deborah Uchegbulam ’22, an MS-MIS student from Nigeria who also served as a project manager during the fall semester. “I learned key skills such as leadership, communication, time management, understanding website designs, documentation, and so much more.”

Virtu Gem’s staff appreciate the expertise that Mays faculty and students brought to the project. “It’s been really wonderful to work with Mays faculty and students because they are listening in order to understand the challenges that we are facing in our source countries,” said Susan Wheeler, owner of Susan Wheeler Design and founder of Virtu Gem. “The Virtu Gem website improvements that the Mays students made are very important because the website directly and efficiently connects African female miners to the global market. Otherwise, these miners often have to live hand to mouth.”

U.S. News and World Report just released their annual best Online Master’s in Business Rankings (non-MBA), placing Mays Business School’s Master of Science in Analytics (MS Analytics) on the list for the first time, the very first year the program was eligible to apply for ranking.

U.S. News’ ranking included a broad range of online degrees – from education to engineering to nursing and more. Mays MS Analytics program ranks #6 program in the state of Texas and #72 overall for Best Master’s in Business.

MS Analytics is the most recent addition to Mays Business School’s MS programs, having moved from the College of Science to the business school in 2018. Shortly after the change, Arvind Mahajan, associate dean for graduate programs, appointed a committee chaired by Bala Shetty, professor in the Department of Information and Operations Management, and comprised of faculty and practitioners. This committee analyzed the program’s content, benchmarked against other programs, and recommended changes in the curriculum. Most recommendations that surfaced have already been implemented.

“Our current MS Analytics program content, while remaining rigorous in the data analytics, now has the classical business school flavor, including a focus on leadership, managerial effectiveness, and influential communication,” shared Mahajan.

MS Analytics program director Myra Gonzalez added, “As a young, quickly-growing industry and just joining the Mays family of MS program two years ago, we are committed to the mission of our college: to be a vibrant learning organization that creates impactful knowledge and develops transformational leaders. We designed our program to be an inclusive learning environment and focus on excellent customer service through our cohort model. Those efforts have enabled a 90% graduation rate.”

With over 300+ data science/analytics programs in the nation, students have many options. Texas A&M’s MS Analytics offers a formal education led by prestigious faculty with terminal degrees or strong ties to industry. Each year, the program enrolls 65 students from all backgrounds. Faculty and students build off each other in the program. “Our faculty members capability, paired with our students’ persistence and thirst for excellence, enable the quality and the success of the MS Analytics program,” shared Gonzalez.

The MS Analytics program is offered at Mays Houston CityCentre campus as a dual delivery program. About half of the participants are spread throughout the U.S., allowing for the flexibility to get a world-class education on student’s terms. “Hybrid delivery merges both distance and face-to-face students into the same classroom, ensuring those outside the classroom have the same experience,” shared program manager Javier Adalpe. “We were doing this before the pandemic, so we’re used to the challenges. Digital learning has always been a top priority. Support staff monitor distance students in case they have any questions, and we utilize state of the art technology at our Houston CityCentre classrooms. We go to great lengths to ensure all students feel included which is reflected in our ranking.”

The program is currently accepting application for the fall 2021 cohort. To request more information, contact Javier Aldape, Program Manager at 979-845-2149 or jaldape@mays.tamu.edu