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.

More than 70 freshmen in the College Park Scholars’ Business, Society & the Economy program (BSE) began their college life by completing a day of community service. On Friday, August 28, one day after having moved onto campus, the BSE students fanned out to several sites across Montgomery County dedicated to helping the homeless.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- In a much-discussed piece in The New York Times, which drew on interviews with more than 100 people, Amazon comes off as a rough place to work. Emails from bosses arrive after midnight, followed by texts demanding answers.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- Google set the business world abuzz Monday by announcing a reorganization: Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, will now head a new entity called Alphabet, a holding company whose holdings include — Google.

The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business is happy to welcome nine new faculty members for the 2015-2016 academic year. New faculty joined the Smith School in August in following areas: Accounting and Information Assurance

Professor Debra Shapiro from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business 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. Worldwide membership includes about 20,000 academics, PhD students and business leaders from 118 countries.

Improvisation and contingency planning are fundamental to business survival because challenges can appear at any turn ­— like in a zombie apocalypse, Smith School professor Oliver Schlake says.   The Smith Student Association field-tested the concept in spring 2015. With Schlake advising, the walking dead invaded the group’s second annual outdoor adventure team building and networking event at Little Bennett Campground near Washington, D.C.