Evangelos “Evan” Katsamakas, Ph.D., associate professor and area chair of information systems at the Schools of Business, advises a pragmatic approach to the digital revolution.

With the buzz term “disruption” being bandied about by digital technology enthusiasts, “maybe moderation and finding the golden ratio would be better,” says Katsamakas. Technological advances, he says, create complexity that should be understood before being marketed to the extreme.

“There’s much more hype being created over new trends, but instead of cheerleaders we need thought leaders who can think in a deep way about the challenges and the risks being created,” he said.

Katsamakas, who received his master’s degree at the London School of Economics and his doctorate at New York University, does research into the impact of technology on business and economics. From digital strategies to network and platform strategies to open sourcing, he incorporates game theory modeling and econometrics to analyze the digitization of business.

His work has contributed to the understanding of platform design and competition and the growth of open sourcing. He has also researched the economics of e-books and the shift of industry competition from the level of individual firms, to the networks (or ecosystems) of firms. A recent study, which analyzes competition among firm networks invested in non-contractibles (such as innovation or information-sharing)—will be published later this year.

Tech complexity interests him, whether it’s through current trends like big data, social technologies, cloud computing, or mobile technology. But it’s how the trends interact with business that remains his primary focus. Katsamakas has developed a novel research stream on the dynamic complexity of digital business and the digital economy. He also co-organized a conference on the dynamics of information systems (IS) and edited a journal on that emerging theme that combines complexity and IS.

Just as healthcare and education need tech specialists that understand their “language,” so too does business. “Everywhere you need these people who are the bridges that connect interdisciplinary knowledge,” he said. “We teach our students what a business analyst, a marketer, or an economist needs so they can go in and translate expertise into designed systems.”

Katsamakas said the world is quickly being transformed into a “techno-physical” space where change operates under Moore’s law—named for Intel co-founder Gordon Moore. Moore posited that the processing power of technology doubles every 18 months. In essence, Katsamakas is preparing his students to adapt alongside the phenomenal speed of ever-progressing processors.

“We wake up every morning and fight to keep up with this law, it’s a constant challenge,” he said. “But for people who are interested, it’s very exciting. And for people who can’t keep up with this rate of change, it’s going to be a big issue.”

While Katsamakas appreciates the rate and effects of technological change, and even embraces the term “disruption,” he said that not every problem comes with a tech solution. Everything from earthquakes to political instability can lead to a critical failure.

Human foibles can also lead to critical failure, as it did in 2008 financial crisis. But Katsamakas noted that the crisis inadvertently created a boon for the city’s tech sector when the Bloomberg administration encouraged diversification of the economy so that the city would not be too reliant on finance. He said that while the financial sector still plays a huge role, the tech sector has been able to grow exponentially.

In his capacity as associate director of the Center for Digital Transformation, last fall he helped co-organize the GBA-sponsored conference titled “The ‘New’ New York City Economy: Growing and Leveraging Tech Disruption.” He said that while Silicon Valley may still develop the core technologies, New York City is the place where applications, users, and tech converge.

“If you want to change media by developing new technologies, there’s value when you are close to the media center of the world,” he said. “In New York the future is great. As the world is more globalized and interdependent it will remain a hub, especially as cities play a more central role.”

In a nod to older media, he said he still likes the look and feel of a printed newspaper, and not just for nostalgic reasons: printed text allows one to internalize information differently. In the same manner, he said, as technology begins to pull the world into uncharted territories where countries become more interdependent and global supply lines become streamlined, both human nature and Mother Nature will remain constant factors.

“You have to keep in mind what your roots are and what your values are,” he said. “These things never change what it is to be a human being, so we must consider the values of the civilization we live in.”

February represents that time of year when the post-holiday diets converge with the pre-swimsuit exercise regimen. All that discipline can wear a dieter down, says Beth Vallen, Ph.D., assistant professor of marketing in the Schools of Business. As spring approaches, passing the glazed doughnuts in the corner coffee cart becomes all the more challenging.

“It’s probably better that you hit the coffee cart in the morning, because self-control is a resource that becomes depleted with use—like a muscle,” she said.

Vallen’s latest research focuses on how environments affect consumer food consumption. She co-authored a study, published last summer in the journal Appetite, which found that people who are regularly exposed to healthy food ads were better equipped to avoid fattening foods later in the day.

Her work also builds on existing research studies that indicate both environmental factors and motivational components influence self-regulation. Everything from plate size to fork size can affect a choice. Dietary limitations, doctor’s orders, and individual regimens can color a study.

And when it comes to food, said Vallen, these external factors often trump individual restraint—or even reason.

For example, she noted that people tend to mimic the eating behaviors of their dining partners even if their personal goals differ.

“When I go to McDonald’s with other friends, it’s accepted that everyone is going to eat unhealthy food,” said Vallen. “When individuals eat with a group they tend to choose less-healthy items at less-healthy venues and more-healthy items at healthy venues.”

Even though McDonald’s offers a variety of salads that are low-calorie, healthy alternatives, the perception of the chain as unhealthy influences choice.

“We call this the halo effect: McDonald’s is bad and Subway is good,” said Vallen. “When in fact, you can get an outlandishly unhealthy meal at Subway.”

The same holds true for Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants—only in reverse. When compared to its main competitor Taco Bell, Chipotle, which promotes itself as serving “food with integrity,” takes the halo.

“At Chipotle you can get a 2,000-calorie item, but consumers don’t think of it that way,” she said. “We see ‘natural’ or we see ‘organic’ and we think ‘good,’ but in terms of fat and calories you can still have a pretty unhealthy meal.”

Vallen said there is a natural tendency to categorize a brand because it requires less effort from the consumer and reduces the consumer’s need to process or analyze. She is currently studying how the halo effect is strengthened when people are in groups.

It’s a theme that runs throughout Vallen’s work. In 2011 she co-authored another study that focused on a candy item, merely changing its name. Another experiment focused on a meat, cheese, and pasta dish, with a bit of lettuce for color. When dubbed a “salad special” it was perceived as being healthy. But when it was named “pasta special” it didn’t fare as well. Both studies showed how name changes affected consumers’ perceptions of a product’s nutritional value.
Vallen hopes her studies will help consumers better understand the variables that affect their product decision-making. However, given her findings so far, quite a bit of responsibility falls into the hands of the manufacturer and marketer.

“It’s a business, so the bottom line is going to be a factor in your decision-making process, but you do have to take an ethical standpoint too.”

And ethical considerations aren’t just an academic affair; business leaders are demanding it too. Vallen said that graduates must be able to look at marketing’s larger impacts on consumer health and what that means from a societal standpoint.

With diabetes and hypertension reaching epidemic proportions in the United States, business has an important role to play in consumer health. Vallen said that it’s not unprecedented for businesses to enter the fray before they are required to act—such as CVS’s decision on Feb. 5 to stop selling cigarettes. She noted that food marketers initiated putting trans fat information onto product labels years before the Food and Drug Administration required the information on labels.

“A lot of this has to do with market demand,” she said. “Consumers are starting to hold firms accountable.”

The Fordham Schools of Business are one of those 24—chosen from among 514 candidates.

Members of this “Champions Group” have embraced the U.N. initiative, Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), which sets out six guidelines for teaching students to conduct business in ways that benefit both humankind and the environment.

The focus is how to shift teaching away from traditional business-school models based on profit motive and maximizing shareholder wealth. The new teaching model will strive for a balance of three motivations: people, planet, and profit. It will ultimately lead, the United Nations hopes, to sustainable businesses that help serve society’s needs while not depleting natural resources for future generations.

Within the Champions Group, Fordham’s main role will be to co-lead a curriculum development effort along with representatives from ESADE in Spain and the Graduate School of Business at University of Cape Town in South Africa. Other schools will come aboard as team members.

Membership in the U.N.’s PRME initiative has been one of Dean Donna Rapaccioli’s priorities since 2009. Even before that, Fordham had, under her leadership as dean of business faculty, become part of the U.N. Global Compact, PRME’s umbrella organization.

The Global Compact now includes more than 10,000 corporations and other organizations that have signed onto 10 principles of ethical and caring leadership.

“It is an honor to work with renowned, forward-thinking schools from all over the world to change the nature of business education,” Dean Rapaccioli said.  “We have a lot to talk about with them and to learn from them.”

“Dr. Blake was a dear friend and a most distinguished colleague. I mourn his passing deeply and commend his soul to God,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham.

Blake, the University’s Joseph Keating, S.J., Distinguished Professor of Finance, had taught at Fordham since 1991, when he joined the University as a finance instructor. In that time he earned a reputation for both a down-to-earth demeanor and formidable intellect, as well as warmth and optimism that endeared him to colleagues and students alike.

“He was a very caring and involved professor who always wanted the best for the students,” said Kevin Amerio, GBA ’10, a financial advisor at UBS who took one of Blake’s classes. “He was very encouraging. He was just a wonderful man.”

Blake savored life—he traveled widely, enjoyed preparing fine food (Thai food, according to his website), and always had a ready smile and an upbeat attitude, said Donna Rapaccioli, Ph.D., dean of the Gabelli School of Business.

“I will miss him a great deal, as will his many colleagues,” she said.

Blake had a particular knack for helping students understand quantitative analysis, an area in that was his strength, Rapaccioli said. He built an impressive record of research; a former manuscript editor for The Journal of Finance, Blake frequently had articles published in top journals including The Journal of Banking and Finance, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and The Journal of Financial Intermediation.

In addition, he was co-developer of The Investment Portfolio, a Windows-based portfolio management software package, and a consultant whose clients included the government of Saudi Arabia, Orange & Rockland Utilities, John Wiley & Sons, Capital Management Associates, the Nassau Group and the Society of Actuaries.

Blake earned his undergraduate degree from William Paterson College and earned master’s degrees in business administration and philosophy, as well as his doctorate in finance, from New York University. He served part-time on the NYU faculty and continued to work with his colleagues there after coming to Fordham, providing a steady link between the two universities, Rapaccioli said.

Blake took particular pride in an innovative, popular graduate-level course in equity analysis that featured guest appearances by Wall Street’s top analysts, portfolio managers and equity strategists over the past 10 years.

“He really looked forward every year to the class. I think it was something that he felt was providing a great service to the students,” said Gerold F. L. Klauer, FCRH ’64, managing director at Green Eagle Capital. He and John Tognino, PCS ’75, originally conceived the idea for the course when both were serving on the University’s Board of Trustees (Tognino as chairman).

“He was a very dedicated teacher [and]professor who constantly strove to excel in everything that he did and to see that his students did as well,” said Klauer, who has continued to help with the course and bring in guest speakers.

Blake had a demeanor that was almost priestly, and would stay late to help students who were struggling a bit, said Charles Menges, GSB ’64, principal with Bernstein Global Wealth Management, who also helped organize the equity analysis class and brought in speakers.

“He was a very regular person,” Menges said. “A good and caring person.”

According to Vander May Wayne Colonial Funeral Home in Wayne, N.J., where Blake lived, he is survived by his wife, Lilo Blake; his stepson Rudy Riepl and his wife, Tina, of Longmont, Colo.; his stepdaughter Anita Innis, of Los Angeles; his brother Andy Blake and his wife, Kiki, of Rochester, N.Y.; his brother Ben Blake and his wife, Leena, of Cary, N.C.; and three nephews, four grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Most professors didn’t choose academia to become media stars. But personality-driven new media is here to stay, and many academics are nervously sailing into uncharted waters.

As a professor of communication and media management in the Schools of Business, John Carey, Ph.D., FCRH ’68, isn’t concerned for the profession, as he has studied similar changes for decades.

Whether it’s politicians dealing with their televised images in the 1960s, or television networks dealing with a multitude of platform choices in the 2010s, Carey’s fascination with media theory has adapted with the times, with a particular focus on behavior as it relates to new technology. Much material is analyzed in When Media Are New: Understanding the Dynamics of New Media Adoption and Use (University of Michigan, 2010), which he coauthored with Martin C.J. Elton.

After studying at Fordham with renowned media theorist Marshall McLuhan, Carey went to the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, where he wrote his dissertation on political candidates’ behavior on and off camera.

He interviewed the media staff from both the Kennedy and Nixon campaigns about the nation’s first televised presidential debate in 1960. He learned that neither Kennedy nor Nixon wanted to be seen by the press walking into the makeup room before the debate. They feared an emasculating headline like: “Kennedy/Nixon wears makeup.”

But Kennedy’s media camp understood the effects of harsh TV lights. They purchased makeup at a local drugstore and applied it to their candidate in private.

“Kennedy was no better than Nixon in understanding television,” said Carey, who suggested Kennedy owed his successful appearance to his handlers. “Politicians, then as now, are not as savvy with media as people think.”

Carey went on to study the convergence of broadcast television and telecommunications via an interactive television system that linked five senior citizen centers by two-way cable. What was initially funded as a way for the seniors to share information on social security and nutrition, via a local cable channel, became a space for seniors to meet and have fun.

One particularly popular segment featured Mary, a former recluse at the center who presented weekly bargains found at local supermarkets. Her cable segment was simple: she clipped sales news from the newspaper and then read it to the cable audience. In her own low-tech way, Mary had “gone viral” and become a local celebrity, said Carey.

“The low production quality of the show actually was very human, and that’s what made it so popular,” he said. “This was social media before it was called social media.”

Most recently, Carey completed a study for NBC that focused on the use of second and third screens by television viewers during the 2012 London Olympics. He found that, counter to what some network executives had feared, smartphones and tablets did not detract from TV viewership; rather, they whetted viewers’ appetites to watch the events later on television.

Whether they be politicians, doctors, senior citizens, or consumers, people altered their behavior alongside of evolving technology, Carey’s research has shown. Clearly, changes are coming to academia too.

“There is no question that online classes will become more prevalent,” said Carey. Whether the future of academia will focus on personality-driven lectures for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) or simply enhanced interaction on Blackboard, is fodder for debate.

Carey doubts professors will need to develop on-screen personalities, but their presentations will matter more, as will their ability to interact online. While he does not recommend an all-out plunge into the Twittersphere, he does believe that faculty should embrace the changes at least incrementally.

He suggested media newcomers begin by holding more group discussions on Blackboard. He also urged incorporating Skype and YouTube into lectures.

“That guest lecturer who you’d like to invite up to the Bronx but are reluctant because you might be imposing on their schedule, they can now can do it from their office via Skype and it’ll take no more than 20-30 minutes of their time,” he said. “You’re the expert, but now you can bring in other experts.”

Academics who believe the academy’s on-campus enrollment will drop with online delivery platforms may also be mistaken, Carey said, just as NBC executives were mistaken about TV viewership and new platforms.

“There are definite advantages to face-to-face. I don’t think universities or classrooms are going to go away,” he said. “But the mix is going to change. I don’t want to assign a number—whether it will be 10, 20, or 40 percent—but there will be a higher percentage of courses offered online.”

You may know how to use technology—for instance, which buttons to push—but do you ever stop and think about how you use technology?

Mark Silver, Ph.D., certainly does. Silver, an associate professor of information systems in the Schools of Business, studies the design of information technology (IT) systems and the consequences of how people use them. He argues that these outcomes, good and bad, intended and not, follow from the interaction of people and organizations with the design features of the technology.

“Why do we build systems? Why do we acquire systems? And why do we use systems, whether we are talking about big systems or iPhones? Ultimately we are trying to accomplish some objective,” he said. “And, at the same time, we want to do so while avoiding any negative side effects.”

Silver developed what he describes as “a lens for looking at IT.” He breaks down the topic into three pieces: the design of systems; the people who use the systems; and the consequences of the interactions between them. When it comes to systems design, he proposed two attributes that are vital to understanding the consequences of information technology: system restrictiveness and decisional guidance.

“Everyone thinks of IT as being enabling, but anytime you rely on a technology, that system also restricts and limits you,” he said. Recognizing the system’s restrictiveness may be as important, or more important, than what it enables.
The simplest example of a restriction is technology’s dependence on electricity; when power fails, a system is no longer useful. In the workplace, a company that wants to enforce hierarchy might also make it difficult for employees to e-mail someone who is five levels above them in seniority. Restrictions also arise when a developer omits a feature in order to contain costs.

Restrictions are not inherently good or bad, but they are usually consequential. When Silver started paying his credit card bill online, his bank gave him two options: pay the minimum amount due, or any amount he wanted. It did not give him the choice to simply pay the full balance back; to do that, he had to figure out the amount on his own.

“They don’t want you to pay the maximum, so I believe they deliberately make it not impossible, but difficult—with more restrictions—for me to do what I want,” he said. “When you start to look at systems in this manner, you see lots of examples where someone has designed a system to make sure you do it their way and not your way. As a consumer, you probably want to be aware of that.”

Notwithstanding the system’s restrictions on what you can do, there is the question of how the technology influences what you actually do, which Silver terms “decisional guidance.” How, for instance, do you choose a camera from Amazon.com? For that matter, how did you choose to look for a camera there in the first place?

“Ultimately there are lots of ways to make this decision and lots of parameters one has to enter. To what extent does the system deliberately or inadvertently guide the choices you make?” he asked. “Each of these attributes—restrictiveness and guidance—represents a design choice, and they are not independent of each other. But it is not clear that the vendors and designers themselves are always consciously thinking about these issues.”

Silver’s goal is to get the public to think more about the relationship between users, technology, and consequences so that people and organizations can leverage the benefits while avoiding the pitfalls of IT. Focusing on the concept of affordances, adapted from the field of ecological psychology, is one way to do that. Affordances are the possibilities for goal-oriented action afforded by an object to a specified group of users. For example, a set of stairs might be easily climbed by some people but not others; it therefore affords climbability to some, but not everyone.

This idea was the focus of “A Foundation for the Study of IT Effects: A New Look at DeSanctis and Poole’s Concepts of Structural Features and Spirit,” which Silver co-wrote with M. Lynne Markus in 2008 for the Journal of the Association for Information Systems. The article won two best-paper prizes from industry professionals.

“The affordance view helps explain why different users of IT may experience different consequences,” he said. “In business, collaboration technologies that enable groups to work together to develop corporate strategy might afford a group nothing if its leader is autocratic. On the other hand, a group that is focused on consensus and equality could be afforded much power by such tools while collaborating and arriving at a decision.”

Silver presented his ideas on “How to Think about IT” as the keynote speaker at the Sixth Annual ILAIS conference in Israel in 2012. His “IT lens” is reflected in “The IT Interaction Model,” an approach he co-authored for teaching IT to MBA students, and in a set of fundamental principles that he uses to structure his undergraduate courses.

“Students want to learn the latest and greatest technology, but it’s gone by the time they graduate,” he said. “My goal is to teach them what is more fundamental and what will be more long lasting.”

The rapidly evolving science of analytics will be the focus of a jointly sponsored Fordham University-IBM symposium, “Next Generation Advanced Analytics,” on Wednesday, Oct. 19, at the Lincoln Center campus.

In an increasingly complex world of technology-driven data, advanced analytics are helping organizations stay competitive and measure performance. Predictive analytics are helping organizations anticipate change and make informed decisions in advance of future issues.

The symposium will bring together faculty, students, practitioners and companies for a half-day event co-sponsored by the Fordham Schools of Business, around the topic of business analytics (BA).

Karen Parrish, vice president, Public Sector Industry Solutions, IBM Software Group, will present the keynote address on the future of BA: “Business Analytics for Better Business Outcomes.”

The event will coincide with the launch of Fordham’s new Center for Digital Transformation (CDT). It is free and open to the public.

TIME: 9 a.m.
DATE: Wednesday, Oct. 19
LOCATION: Lowenstein Center, 12th-floor Lounge, 113 West 60th Street
RSVP: http://fordhamcdtibmanalytics.eventbrite.com/

Fordham’s newly launched CDT is a high-impact research center dedicated to understanding the role of digital technologies in three areas:

•    transformation of the individual to create effective human capital;
•    business and industry transformation to promote competitiveness, productivity, innovation and growth; and
•    societal transformation toward a sustainable global society.

It was founded by Wullianallur “R.P.” Raghupathi, Ph.D., professor of information and communication systems at Fordham.