College Park, Md. April 17, 2006 For anyone who uses just half the buttons on their cell phone, or has spent hours poring over a new users manual only to give up in frustration, recent research from the University of Marylands Robert H. Smith School of Business explains why too many product features result in a phenomenon called feature fatigue.

The information revolution has not only introduced new technologies, but has changed the way business is conducted. Economic transactions increasingly take place via digital electronic activities focused primarily on the interconnectivity obtained via the Internet. A critical part of this interconnectivity is the way organizations have integrated their accounting and financial management systems with Internet based applications. The importance of the Internet to private and public organizations is well known.

The Business Ethics Lecture Series, sponsored by the Smith School, hosted its final speaker, Mark H. Taylor, on April 19. Taylor, who holds the John P. Begley Endowed Chair in Accounting at Creighton University, has a PhD and a CPA and is an Academic Fellow in the Office of the Chief Accountant at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In his hour-long talk, Taylor focused on the state of the accounting profession, occupational fraud, financial statement fraud, the psychology of fraud, and finally the role of the SEC.

The Computer Security Institute (CSI) has established the Gordon, Loeb and Lucyshyn Cybersecurity Economics Luncheon Series in recognition of the important research being conducted by Lawrence A. Gordon, Martin P. Loeb and William Lucyshyn related to the "economic aspects of cyber and computer security." Gordon and Loeb are professors in the Smith School of Business' accounting and information assurance department, and the authors of the highly acclaimed new book from McGraw-Hill entitledManaging Cybersecurity Resources: A Cost-Benefit Analysis.

Roland Rust, Holder of the David Bruce Smith Chair of Marketing, was interviewed by National Public Radio′s Weekend Edition (March 11) about his research -- co-authored by Rebecca Hamilton, assistant professor, and Debora Viana Thompson, doctoral student -- on feature fatigue. Rust gives examples of products suffering from feature fatigue and explains to listeners what they can do to avoid getting caught in the feature fatigue trap. Listen Now!

On March 8, 2006, WUSA-TV, Channel 9 in Washington, D.C., showcased research by Roland Rust, Holder of the David Bruce Smith Chair of Marketing; Rebecca Hamilton, assistant professor; and Debora Viana Thompson, doctoral student; on feature fatigue, or the phenomena of too many product features turning consumers off. Television news anchor Bruce Leshan interviewed Rust at his office in Van Munching Hall where Rust showed examples of products suffering from feature overload as well as those that offer a better experience for users because of their simplicity.

Larry Gordon, Ernst & Young Alumni Professor of Managerial Accounting and Information Assurance and director of the Ph.D. Program, will be the plenary speaker at the London School of Economics' Management Accounting Research Group (MARG) Conference on April 6, 2006. The conference is sponsored by the Department of Accounting and Finance at LSE, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), with a theme of Risk Management & Financial Control."

For the past 20 years, the Smith School has been honoring and rewarding outstanding faculty members, instructors and PhD students for their teaching excellence. The Smith School community submitted 124 nominations for 58 teachers for the 2005-06 Krowe/Legg Mason Teaching Awards and 10 emerged as winners. (see list below)

College Park, Md. – February 21, 2006 – Today the University of Marylands Robert H. Smith School of Business announced that Dilip Madan, professor of finance, has been selected to receive a 2006 Alexander von Humboldt Research Award in mathematics. Humboldt Awards are considered among the highest honors given to internationally recognized scholars. Forty past recipients have received the Nobel Prize in their fields, including five of the 2005 Nobel Laureates. Madan will receive his award from the President of the Humboldt Foundation this July in Berlin, Germany.

Debra L. Shapiro, PhD, a renowned scholar in organizational behavior, has been appointed Clarice Smith Professor of Management and Organization. Her research generally focuses on the various ways to effectively manage conflict or disputes in organizations, including perceptions of organizational injustice, misunderstandings and frustrations that are inevitable in internationally-diverse and crossfunctional teams, and resistance to organizational change in general or the transition to self-managing workteams in particular.