Faculty publications win praise

Edward Lazear's Personnel Economics typifies the best in business school research, says journal. Photograph by Saul Bromberger and Sandra Hoover

Edward P. Lazear, the Jack Steele Parker Professor of Human Resources Management and Economics, was selected by the editors of the Journal of Business as the recipient of the Leo Melamed Prize for outstanding scholarship. The prize, which includes a stipend of $10,000, is awarded biennially in honor of Melamed, a former chairman of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
       The editors cited Lazear's book Personnel Economics, published by the MIT Press in 1995, for illustrating the practical value of economic theory in understanding and prescribing personnel policies. "Lazear's work greatly expanded our understanding of internal labor markets, tournaments as incentive devices, and the costs and benefits of relative performance evaluation," they said. "Personnel Economics typifies the best research carried out in business schools: It is relevant, rigorous, and practical."
       Lazear is a founder of personnel economics, a growing field within labor economics, and the author of the first two books on the subject. "My intention in writing this book was to bring modern research in this area to academics who are working in related fields," he said. In a further effort to broaden the audience for personnel economics and to bring it into the classroom, Lazear published a textbook this year, Personnel Economics for Managers (John Wiley & Sons), intended for MBAs and upper division undergrads as well as practitioners, consultants, and managers.
       Lazear is Stanford Business School's second recipient of the Leo Melamed Prize, following Robert B. Wilson, the Atholl McBean Professor of Economics, who won it in 1994.

James C. Van Horne, the A. P. Giannini Professor of Banking and Finance, received the Robert T. Davis Award for extraordinary contributions to the Business School. The award, given to a current faculty member for lifetime achievement, was endowed by the family of the late Robert T. Davis, who spent 37 years at the Business School. "Jim embodies everything we want this school to represent," said Dean Michael Spence in presenting the award at a Schwab Residential Center reception in February. Van Horne, who joined the faculty in 1965, served the School as an associate dean and as director of the MBA Program. He is the only faculty member to win the MBA Distinguished Teaching Award twice, and he also won the Sloan Teaching Excellence Award last year. Van Horne is the author of Financial Management and Policy, now in its 11th edition, and Financial Market Rates and Flows, now in its 5th edition. He is coauthor of Fundamentals of Financial Management, currently in its 10th edition.

Seenu Srinivasan, the Ernest C. Arbuckle Professor of Marketing and Management Science, received the Donald R. Lehmann Award from the American Marketing Association's marketing research special interest group for his and Chan Su Park's "A Survey-Based Method for Measuring and Understanding Brand Equity and Its Extendibility." Their paper was published in the Journal of Marketing Research. Also, Stefanos Zenios, an assistant professor of operations, information, and technology, was awarded first prize in the George E. Nicholson student paper competition by the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science.

Colleagues and former students of Charles Horngren, the Edmund W. Littlefield Professor of Accounting, Emeritus, joined to honor him on the pages of a special issue of the Review of Accounting Studies. William Beaver, who holds the Joan E. Horngren Professorship in Accounting, named for Horngren's wife, led the tribute. He noted that "Chuck's books have dominated management accounting education for the last 35 years. The use of accounting data for decision-making purposes foreshadowed the informational approach that was to sweep accounting research. His contribution to financial accounting is also enormous." Concluded Beaver: "Chuck defines the term 'outstanding educator' in every sense of the word." Others who contributed papers included GSB associate professors of accounting Maureen McNichols and Mary Barth, PhD '89; Guy Weyns, PhD '93; John Christensen, PhD '79; and Eric Noreen, MBA '74, PhD '77.

The Belgian university Limburgs Universitair Centrum awarded David B. Montgomery the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa at a ceremony in May. Montgomery, who is the Sebastian S. Kresge Professor of Marketing Strategy, was recognized for his contributions to marketing science and to the development of strategic management, particularly in a global context. Montgomery has a long-standing research re-lationship with several members of the Limburgs faculty. He recently collaborated with G. Swinnen and K. Vanhoof on "Comparison of Some AI and Statistical Classification Methods for a Marketing Case," published in the European Journal of Operational Research in December.