The BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is one of the biggest corporate disaster’s of all time. The energy giant – the fourth largest company in the world – has been grappling with the fallout of April’s deadly explosion and oil spill, which has had serious impact on U.S. Gulf Coast industries and the environment.

Technology is opening the "black box" of hospital operations to researchers, while patient empowerment and groundbreaking, patient-centered and patient-powered research networks loom to tackle health challenges from obesity to rare diseases. These topics were among the focal points of the fourth annual Workshop on Health IT and Economics (WHITE) held Nov. 15-16 in Washington D.C., and presented by the Center for Health Information and Decision Systems (CHIDS) in the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business.

On Nov. 20, Cliff Rossi, Professor of the Practice at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, gave the keynote presentation, "Five Years after the Crisis: An Introspective Look at Risk Management," at PRMIA and EY's CRO Risk Summit Dinner in NYC.

Healthcare costs have been rising faster than inflation and even faster than college tuition. At the same time the quality of health care in the U.S. has been uneven at best.  Many look to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as an opportunity for information technology and other innovative approaches to improve both the efficiency and quality of health services.  What are the key elements of this transformation? What’s working? What are some significant barriers?

Common wisdom says managers set their firm’s ethical tone. But new research finds that employees are more likely to report wrongdoing in the workplace if they believe the entire firm has a zero-tolerance policy on misconduct.

First it was The New York Times. Then The Baltimore Sun. Now The Washington Post has followed suit, requiring online readers to buy a subscription.

The Smith School will launch an online MBA program in January 2014 designed to accommodate working professionals. 

“Calculating the gains associated with increased security is problematic given that cybersecurity is a cost-saving, rather than revenue-generating, project. If you do the job right, you don’t see the benefits.” — Lawrence Gordon, Ernst & Young Alumni Professor of Managerial Accounting in a Financial Times article, “Maryland Professors Weigh up Cyber Risks” / May 20, 2013 

Companies get better results from outsourcing IT operations if they also bolster their own internal IT investment and expertise, according to research by Sunil Mithas, associate professor of information systems. 

Gender equity at the top of U.S. companies is falling, partly because female executives aren’t mentoring the next generation of female leaders, according to researchers at the Smith School and Columbia Business School.