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Recent educational initiatives by the Obama Administration have highlighted the need for more racial and ethnic diversity in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields (The White House, 2011). While African Americans are underrepresented in faculty positions nationally, accounting for only 5.2% of all academic faculty across all disciplines (Harvey, W. B., & Anderson, E. L. (2005). Minorities in higher education: Twenty-first annual status report. Washington, DC: American Council on Education), the underrepresentation of African Americans in STEM fields such as computing science is even more severe. According to a recent Computing Research Association (CRA) Taulbee Survey, African Americans represent just 1.3% of all computing sciences faculty (CRA, 2006).

This paper examines the benefits of one program that specifically seeks to fulfill the Obama Administration’s initiatives by addressing this disparity in higher education.

The program helps prepare doctoral students for the academic job search process in an effort to increase the ranks of African American faculty in computing sciences.

The Computing Research Association (CRA) was formed in 1972 as the Computer Science Board (CSB), which provided a forum for the chairs of Ph.D.-granting computer science departments to discuss issues and share information (CRA, 2009). Since 1989, women have never accounted for more than 24% of the computer science faculty at any given rank (e.g., assistant, associate, or full professor). Currently, women represent 21.7%, 15.4%, and 11.7% of computer science faculty at the assistant, associate, and full professor ranks, respectively. Women have been as much as 24% of the Ph.D. graduates in computing in a single year. Since 1998, African Americans have never accounted for more than 2.0%, 1.4%, and 0.7% of the assistant, associate, and full professors, respectively, in computer science. Furthermore, African Americans have never accounted for more than 2% of the Ph.D. graduates in computer science in a single year over that same time period. It appears women and African Americans overall are underrepresented among the ranks of computer science faculty, but to what extent?

Increased efforts are being made by key entities (e.g., the National Science Foundation) within the United States to support various strategies aimed at broadening participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Consistent with these efforts, strategic attention has been placed on targeting African Americans in the computing sciences. Previous research on computing sciences intervention efforts (e.g., Chase & Okie, 2000; Hale, 2002) revealed that even when positive outcomes occur, they tend to vary by gender. As such, this study examined the differential gender outcomes of a computing sciences outreach effort aimed at broadening participation of African Americans in degree programs and career options at predominantly White institutions. The results of this study highlight the need to address the varying needs of targeted participants based on gender when designing and implementing similar programs.

Though STEM-related jobs have become a critical sector in the United States economy, there remains a severe employment shortage of eligible workers in these fields (Beyer, Rynes, Perrault, Hay, & Haller, 2003; National Science Foundation, 2009). The shortage of workers who possess the necessary skills to fulfill this growing sector of the economy are at a level last reached the middle of the 20th century (ACT, 2006; Jackson et al., in press). Even so, approximately 1.6 million supplementary workers with degrees in the computing sciences will be required to satisfy workforce demands according to the U. S. Department of Labor (Beyer et al., 2003; Hecker, 2001). Social misfortunes have played a significant role in the disproportioned participation rates of ethnic minorities in STEM fields. Although it could be argued that the field of computing sciences has moved to the forefront of STEM within this information-based global economy, very few African Americans productively contribute to the field (Carver, 1994; Gilbert, Jackson, George, Charleston, & Daniels, 2007).

M&A success and synergies are regularly discussed in the practical literature, but synergies are typically treated as a static concept (how do you get them?) with little discussion of financial bet acquirers create in paying an up-front premium. We describe the importance of investor reactions, the nature of the challenge, and discuss synergies as a process with five rules of the road covering M&A strategy, diligence, culture, leakage, and validation and reporting. Potential acquirers must be better prepared before they commit these major capital investments, involving multiple stakeholders throughout the process of creating the value they are promising with M&A.

We report the important results of our 24-year study on acquirer performance, the persistence of investor reactions, and the role of the acquisition premium to support our position that synergies must be trackable and defendable before and after deal announcement. From our collective author experience of advising on many hundreds of synergy programs over the years, we distilled our experience based on the common lack of understanding of what is required by executives, and when, and what we have seen greatly improve the odds of success in achieving sufficient M&A synergies.

Major findings include: 1. Initial market reactions are good predictors of the future, most deals persist, positive or negative, and there is a big spread of returns between winners and losers with losers paying the highest premiums; 2. Premiums additions to target’s growth value and may require larger performance increases than acquirers expect; 3. Synergies are a dynamic process involving multiple stakeholders from becoming a prepared acquirer in M&A strategy, building an early synergy roadmap during diligence, understanding that culture and change issues launch at announcement and preparation must begin long before, anticipating leakage, and validating and reporting post-close.

Our study is original covering three waves of mergers over 24 years; we formalize the synergy challenge created by paying a premium with respect to the already existing growth expectations for the target; we make clear that ultimately validating synergies begins with M&A strategy and diligence through to the workings of an Integration Management Office, anticipating synergy leakage, and preparing employees for change.

The purpose of this paper is two‐fold: to investigate virtual agent representational characteristics (modality, interaction style, animation, realism, embodiment, and gender) employed by agent software providers in developing commercial and non‐commercial web sites; and to examine older consumers' preferences in these agent characteristics.

Study 1 involves a content analysis of 64 sample web sites of agent providers, and study 2 consists of four focus group interviews conducted with 25 older consumers in the age group of 65‐82 years.

Findings from both studies reveal some important disconnects between agent characteristics (modality, realism, animation, and gender) offered by virtual agent software providers and those preferred by older consumers. As a result, important recommendations are provided for the development of virtual agents for e‐commerce applications to enhance accessibility for older users.

No previous studies have investigated which agent characteristics enhance web accessibility and are most preferred by older users in the context of e‐commerce applications.

Based on a single and innovative case study (Siggelkow, 2007; Yin, 2014), this research aims to identify the main issues of non-financial reporting. They are related to:

the complexity of the corporate social responsibility (Alcouffe, Berland, Dreveton, & Essid, 2010; Ancori, 2008; Antheaume, 2007; Brichard, 1996; Buritt, 2004; Chan, 2005; Gray & Bebbington, 2001; Herborn, 2005; Savall & Zardet, 2013; Vatn, 2009);

the legislator’s and stakeholders’ expectations (Ancori, 2005; Batifoulier, 2001; Caillaud & Tirole, 2007; Lewis, 1969); and

the company’s expectations (Argyris & Schön, 1978; Chiapello & Gilbert, 2013; David 1998; Grimand, 2012; Moisdon, 1997; Senge, 1992; Wood, 1991).

Symmetrically, it reveals possible pitfalls. Through the study of the way the Rémy Cointreau Group developed its reporting tool, the authors analyze how a company can take the opportunity of a legal obligation to deploy a strategy of non-financial reporting that comes to support and structure a responsible approach. Of course, these results are only replicable under certain conditions related to this singular case.

Social media is a product that is co-created by consumers and multinational enterprises, that partially manage the customer experience and that has garnered significant attention in the field of international marketing. However, international marketing scholars have yet to address the societal costs of the use of social media, even as academics in other disciplines and business leaders are raising alarm that social media has created a digital ecosystem that may harm individuals within the global market. The objective of this research is to examine the generalizability of the relationship between the use of social media and the prevalence of depression across countries.

Employing social cohesion theory and the social network approach of the strength of ties, this work examines the relationship between the use of social media and time spent on social media at the country level and the prevalence of depression. The authors examine this issue within a 28-country, eight-year, unbalanced panel dataset, accounting for cultural, economic and structural factors.

The authors find that as more people within a country use social media, the prevalence of depression in that country increases. However, the authors also find that as the average time spent on social media in a country increases the deleterious relationship between the use of social media and the prevalence of depression diminishes.

Answering the calls in the international marketing literature for a greater understanding of the externalities (i.e. consumer well-being effects) of marketing activities of multinational companies, this study demonstrates the varying relationships of the use of and time spent on social media and the prevalence of depression at the population level, across a wide variety of countries, thus also contributing to the effort to improving generalizations from multi-country comparisons in international research.

“The Computing Research Association (CRA) is an association of more than 200 North American academic departments of computer science, computer engineering, and related fields; laboratories and centers in industry, government, and academia engaging in basic computing research; and affiliated professional societies” (CRA, 2010a). Each year the CRA publishes its Taulbee Survey. “The Taulbee Survey is the principal source of information on the enrollment, production, and employment of Ph.D.s in computer science and computer engineering (CS & CE) and in providing salary and demographic data for faculty in CS & CE in North America. Statistics given include gender and ethnicity breakdowns” (Computer Research Association, CRA, 2010a).