SMITH BRAIN TRUST — There’s no question that internet advertising is increasingly vital for business survival. The question is: Where do you start? And how can you be sure that your advertising dollars are reaching the right audience?

Gender diversity can improve a firm's performance, research shows, but consensus is fleeting as to why a lack diversity persists on corporate boards.

Investing in CRM and Analytics Key to Paradigm Shift in Product Innovation 

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Wall Street responds to surprises, but not always in intuitive ways. Share prices go up at the firm level when a company issues a stronger than expected earnings report, which makes sense. But the opposite often happens at the aggregate level when companies collectively exceed expectations. Share prices can drop instead of rise.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Uber has amassed a string of negative headlines in recent months. But Brent Goldfarb, a management and entrepreneurship professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, says the future of the ride-sharing app will hinge on something else.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Has Starbucks figured out a way to entice its devoted morning-coffee crowd to come back later in the day? The Seattle-based retail chain is rolling out a line of ice cream coffee treats — called affogatos — at 100 stores across the country, betting that a more decadent coffee treat will inspire an afternoon or evening splurge.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Company pages on social media sites like Facebook contain real-time information for brand managers hoping to gauge customer sentiment, but only if they know how to make sense of the raw data. New research from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business shows how to filter for bias, starting with a three-pronged test to identify and remove fake users.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Are Canada’s oil sands losing their luster? More than a decade ago, big multinational energy companies were flocking to the Western province of Alberta in droves, lured by a wealth of heavy crude in its bitumen-rich sands when oil was trading north of $100 a barrel.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — An abusive boss can make work miserable for anyone, prompting defiant employees to retaliate or flee. New research co-authored by Hui Liao at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business shows a third option.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Public companies — owned by shareholders with stock — have the advantage of being able to easily tap into financial markets when they need money, either by selling more equity as stock or often by issuing portions of their debt as bonds. Private companies — owned by the company’s founders, a management group or private investors such as a private equity group — can also sell off their debt as public bonds.