IN THIS ISSUE 
 Hall of Fame Inductees
Cooper Awarded 2006 Impact Prize

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December Graduation Delivers 232 to the Real World
McCombs graduated 232 of its best and brightest undergraduates Dec. 10 at the Frank Erwin Center. Speakers included Dean George Gau, William O’Hara, accounting lecturer, former Accenture COO Stephan A. James and marketing student Sara Melanie Bartlett.
Read the text of James’ speech.
Read the text of O’Hara’s speech.

McCombs School Honors Hall of Fame Inductees
The McCombs School of Business Hall of Fame inducted three prominent alumni Nov. 3 at a ceremony at the Driskill Hotel in Austin. The 2006 inductees represent success in an array of industries, from oil and gas to investment banking to food service. The 2006 honorees are H. Scott Caven, Jr., managing director and Texas regional manager of Atlantic Trust Private Wealth Management; B. M. “Mack” Rankin, Jr., private investor and consultant; and William E. “Billy” Rosenthal, chairman of Penrose Group, LLC.  
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Cooper Awarded 2006 Impact Prize from INFORMS
William Cooper, information, risk, and operations management professor emeritus, was awarded the prestigious 2006 Impact Prize by The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), the largest professional society in the world for the field of operations research. Cooper and his colleague Abraham Charnes were given the award for their seminal work in Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), which was first described in the article “Measuring the efficiency of decision-making units,” in the European Journal of Operational Research. It was selected as one of the 30 most influential papers published in the first 30 years of that journal.
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Edward Cundiff, Past Chair of Marketing, Advertising Departments, Dies
Edward W. Cundiff, professor emeritus in marketing, passed away Nov. 7 in Austin at the age of 87. Cundiff served the university and the business school with great distinction for many years and was inducted into the McCombs Hall of Fame in 1993-94. He served two terms as chair of the Department of Marketing (1958-1964 and 1967-71) and was chair of the Department of Advertising from 1987-1991. From 1973 to 1975, Cundiff was associate dean of the Graduate School of Business responsible for the Ph.D. program.
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McCOMBS In the News
Financial Times Ranks McCombs Executive MBA Program No. 9 in the U.S.
The Financial Times, Oct. 23, 2006
The McCombs Executive MBA Program was ranked ninth in the country and 30th in the world by the Financial Times. Other U.S. programs on the list included the University of Pennsylvania, Duke, Northwestern, Columbia, New York University, Cornell, University of California at Irvine, and Emory. The McCombs program is the No. 2 public university and No. 1 in Texas.
Get the full story.

Companies with Large Profit Gaps Pay More in Back-Taxes, Mills’ Research Shows
The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 27, 2006
Company profits reported to investors are usually higher than those reported to the IRS, so in 2004 companies were required to start detailing the reasons behind the disparity. Depreciation and equipment-related tax write-offs were two of the culprits behind the accounting gap. According to research by Lillian Mills, associate professor of accounting, companies being audited by the IRS with book income much higher than their taxable income were more likely to pay bigger back-tax bills. Get the full story (subscription required).

Whinston Predicts Bartering Sites Will Not Gain eBay Fame
The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 14, 2006
Bartering sites such as SwapThing.com and U-Exchange.com that facilitate the direct exchange of goods and services for other goods and services are gaining in popularity. But not everyone is convinced these sites will be as popular as other e-commerce sites. Andrew Whinston, director of the Center for Research on Electronic Commerce and IROM professor, expects bartering sites to catch on with small businesses, though he believes retailer and auction sites like eBay will remain preferred. “Historically in economies, you argue for the creation of money to avoid the inefficiencies of having to have this double coincidence of wants,” he says. “That’s never going to change.”
Get the full story (subscription required).

Sarbanes-Oxley Drives Down Costs, Kinney’s Research Shows
Forbes, Nov. 9, 2006
Sarbanes-Oxley has helped lower costs for some firms, reports an online story from Forbes about investor security and investor confidence in the face of tighter corporate regulations. Citing research coauthored by Accounting Professor William Kinney, the story concludes, “The New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ are still powering ahead. Moreover, an extensive joint study of internal controls at 667 companies by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Iowa and the MIT Sloan School of Management found that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act helped lower the cost of equity capital by 50 to 150 basis points.”
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Raghunathan Finds Unhealthy Products Perceived to be Tastier
New York Times, Nov. 6, 2006
Food thought to be unhealthy is perceived as more delicious, according to research by Raj Raghunathan, which recently appeared in the New York Times. In his study, Raghunathan, assistant professor of marketing, invited 40 people to a housewarming party where they drank mango lassi, an Indian yogurt drink resembling a milkshake. Those who had been told it was “generally considered unhealthy” liked the drink almost two points better than those who believed it was healthy.

Corporate Spin-offs Provide Ample Investment Opportunities
New York Times, Nov. 5, 2006
When corporations split from parent companies, the best time to purchase spin-off shares may be just after the company goes public, according to a study by Finance Professor Keith Brown cited in a recent New York Times article. According to Brown’s study, stock prices are often lower at this time due to investors dumping spin-offs that don’t meet portfolio criteria but are perfectly viable.
Get the full story.

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