Smith School professor Debra Shapiro started a one-year term as president of the Academy of Management during the professional association’s annual meeting Aug. 7-11, 2015, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Shapiro is Smith’s third faculty member to hold the position. Smith professor Kathryn Bartol served as president in 1984-85, and Smith professor emeritus Ken G. Smith led the academy in 2006-07.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- Twitter's new CEO, Jack Dorsey, is wasting no time in making changes: This week the social networking company laid off 336 people, or 8 percent of its workforce. He also recently introduced "Moments," curated edited collections of tweets intended to attract new users; and made new overtures to advertisers.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — "Core competence (as a bedrock management principle) is dead," Fast Company proclaimed in 2013. But at least one Forbes writer disagreed. "It has not died," he wrote.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- In Tokyo this week, Toyota put journalists in a modified Lexus GS equipped with self-driving technology. On its own, the car entered a highway, drove for a bit and navigated an off-ramp.

Four of the best students in the College Park Scholars Business Society and the Economy (BSE) program at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business were celebrated on Friday, Oct. 2, 2015, at the Annual Citation Awards Ceremony.

Google recently unveiled an update to its familiar colorful logo, part of the rebranding of the internet behemoth that does so much more than search these days. The logo refresh is a reminder that even the most successful can use an update from time to time.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Is the influential theory of "disruptive innovation" bunk? Or to put it in a less specific and blunt way: Are businesses — and business professors — too quick to accept as fact theories that aren't supported by rigorous data?

SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- China is poised to drive a projected global surge in wind energy, while a looming Uber stake in India could make that country’s taxi industry more carbon friendly, according to comments by Smith professor Anil K.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- Some foreign retailers in China are stumbling. Others are thriving. Count Home Depot and Best Buy among recent failures.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- After August marked the Dow’s worst month, September opened with U.S.