� Funny Business: The Securities and Exchange Commission continues to investigate potential corporate-pay scandals, hunting for executives who've switched the dates of their stock-option grants to times when the stock price was lower, reported Forbes magazine. "It's kind of like picking lottery numbers after the lottery has run," said accounting professor Charles Mulford in the article. He also was quoted recently in CFO Magazine, criticizing companies who back out all charges for stock-based compensation, even for restricted stock, from their pro forma earnings statements. "Shame on them," he said, adding that few securities analysts will be fooled by this "funny business."

� Taking Over: In a story on the $21 billion acquisition of Georgia-Pacific by Kansas-based Koch Industries, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution quoted finance professor Narayanan Jayaraman. "If you're an avid shareholder, you're excited about it," Jayaraman said. "But I'm sure that there are some negative implications for current employees in the long run, as well as in the medium run." Koch pledged to keep its new subsidiary's headquarters in Atlanta, but it's unclear what impact the acquisition will have on Georgia-Pacific's 55,000 employees, including 10,000 in Georgia. WABE-FM also interviewed Jayaraman about the acquisition.

� Attention Deficit: Schools around the country are finding that providing wireless Internet access in classrooms can distract students with laptops from paying attention to professors, reported The Wall Street Journal recently. The article quoted Jonathan Clarke, assistant professor of finance, who said he was surprised to discover two years ago that some students' use of computers in class wasn't limited to note-taking, but extended to activities such as instant messaging and Web surfing. D.J. Wu, an associate professor of information technology management, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he got tough on such behavior by banning laptop use during class discussions.

� Reality TV Triumph: WXIA-TV (Channel 11) spotlighted the victory of four College of Management undergrads on the reality-show series "Quad Squads," a new program of MTV's mtvU network. On the show, students Christin Hubbard, Jason Nelson, Vicki Rokhlin, and Matt Swanburg competed against peers from the University of Georgia to see who could devise the best marketing plan for a new mobile phone product. More info

� Beyond the Bottom Line: Information-technology executives are increasingly being asked to build business cases to justify technology initiatives, reported Computerworld. While bottom-line benefits are important, IT executives shouldn't ignore non-financial advantages to new technology, experts noted in the article. "The more progressive and innovative companies understand that maybe 80 percent of the projects have to be financially driven and the other 20 percent could have a major strategic impact on the business," said Michael Cummins, clinical professor of information technology management. "You have to go beyond what the numbers show."

� Global Impact: The Atlanta Business Chronicle, Creative Loafing, GlobalAtlanta, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution spotlighted Thomas Friedman's appearance November 7 in the College of Management's IMPACT Speaker Series. Friedman, a foreign-affairs columnist for The New York Times and best-selling author of The World Is Flat, explained how trends in globalization are affecting American workers." Georgia Tech is a school that gets what's going on," he said. More info

� Mars-Venus Marriages: Contrary to conventional wisdom, cross-border mergers and acquisitions are most successful when the cultural divide between nations is wide, according to research findings reported by the Atlanta Business Chronicle. The study, titled "Mars-Venus Marriages: Culture and Cross-Border M&A," was conducted by finance professors Rajesh Chakrabarti and Narayanan Jayaraman with doctoral student Swastika Mukherjee, who found that greater cultural diversity can be beneficial because of increased autonomy granted to acquired firms in distant cultural locations as well as diverse organizational strengths, among other reasons. More info

� Never Break the Chain: Media outlets continue to turn to Vinod Singhal, professor of operations management, for his insights on supply-chain management. In SmartMoney magazine, he explained that companies that experience major supply-chain disruptions see their shares lag behind their peers by at least a third over three years. In The Business Journal of Greensboro, N.C., Singhal explained that companies don't do enough to prepare for supply-chain disruptions and only address problems when they occur. More info

� Branding the ATL: Fred Allvine, marketing professor emeritus, discussed the launch of the Brand Atlanta campaign in the Atlanta Business Chronicle. Running a national and international campaign to make the city a major destination would take more than $10 million, Allvine estimated. Brand Atlanta, which will focus on winning over local residents in 2006, had raised $2 million in cash as of the mid-October publication date. "Two million is just a drop in the barrel in terms of what would be needed to have an impact and bring more attention to the city," Allvine said.

� The Search Is On: Maria Saporta recently discussed the status of the College of Management's search for a new dean in her business column in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, reporting that Georgia Tech has hired the Atlanta-based Baker-Parker executive search firm to find a replacement for Terry C. Blum. She is changing her post in July 2006 to head a new interdisciplinary institute on entrepreneurship and leadership. "All Georgia Tech students have potential for leadership," Blum said. "We want to provide a leadership curriculum for engineering students."

� High-Tech Home: An article on state-of-the-art business-school buildings in BizEd, the magazine of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, described Georgia Tech College of Management's many technological features and designation as a Green Building by the U.S. Green Building Council. Kurt Paquette, the school's chief administrative and finance officer, said the Management building's technology is standardized so that professors can understand the controls from any room. "That's important, because professors never know which classroom they'll be in," he said.

� On Air & In Print: Strategic management professor John McIntyre, who is executive director of the Center for International Business Education and Research, recently appeared on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (Radio Canada), discussing America's balance of trade, budget deficits, and global economic impact. In addition, a new book he edited, Business and Management Education in Transitioning and Developing Countries: A Handbook, was spotlighted in BizEd, and an article he co-authored on Chinese textile limits appeared in The Trade Remedy, an American Business Council publication.

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