Stanford Business

NOVEMBER 2006


Faculty News

Students Honor Three Professors

TEACHERS HONORED: Peter DeMarzo, left, Mary Barth,
and George Parker.
Photo by Saul Bromberger/Sandra Hoover Photography

Professors George Parker, Mary Barth, and Peter DeMarzo, from the finance and accounting faculty, are the 2006 recipients of awards presented by Business School students to outstanding faculty members.

MBA students selected Parker, the Dean Witter Professor of Finance and Management, Emeritus, who has taught at the School for 33 years, to receive their Distinguished Teaching Award. Doctoral students honored Barth, the Joan E. Horngren Professor of Accounting and senior associate dean for academic affairs, and fellows in the Sloan Program feted DeMarzo, the Mizuho Financial Group Professor of Finance.

Parker’s Corporate Finance “course was one of the most fun courses I have taken,” shared one student. Another wrote: “[He] was amazingly gifted at making [this subject] accessible to everyone, from the strongest quant jock to the serious poet. Although I had him in an 8 a.m. class, I looked forward to his class every day.”

In honoring Barth, who received the MBA teaching award in 1996 not long after joining the School faculty, doctoral students praised her supportive relationship with them while recognizing she also holds an influential role on the International Accounting Standards Board. “You could consider her the Michael Jordan of accounting,” one student quipped. Another student called Barth a “role model for me in my career.”

Sloan fellows honored DeMarzo, who also won the honor from 2004 Sloan fellows. Wrote one student: “He took an extremely complex course and managed brilliantly across an array of abilities [of individual students]. The class was fun, demanding, and extremely informative. I am finding subsequent finance courses easier because of the foundation he gave us.”

A Successor to ‘Built to Last’

Professor Emeritus Jerry Porras is coauthor of a new book, Success Built to Last: Creating a Life That Matters (Wharton School Publishing). The coauthor of an earlier best seller, Built to Last, which looked at corporate success, Porras now looks at successful people and creates a set of practices to transform life and work. The book draws on conversations with CEOs, national leaders, Nobel laureates—both celebrities and unsung heroes who’ve achieved lasting impact without obvious power or charisma.

Spence Heads World Bank Commission

Business School Dean Emeritus A. Michael Spence was selected to head a new independent Commission on Growth and Development created by the World Bank in conjunction with the governments of Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. “The members of this commission are all distinguished practitioners who are committed to our shared goal of closing the income gap between rich and poor countries,” said World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz. Among the commission’s 20 members is Business School alumnus John Browne, Sloan ’81, CEO of BP.

New Faces, Ideas on the Faculty

Six newcomers to the faculty this year include three in organizational behavior, and one each in accounting, leadership, and international business.

The four tenure-track faculty are Anne Beyer, Francis Flynn, Elizabeth Mullen, and Jesper Sørensen. New lecturers are Laurence C. Franklin, JD/MBA ’75, and Evelyn Williams.

Anne Beyer, assistant professor of accounting, completed her doctorate at Northwestern University in June. With academic interests in financial reporting and disclosure, incentives and contracting, and financial analysts’ earnings forecasts, she will teach Financial Accounting.

Francis Flynn, associate professor of organizational behavior, was previously an associate professor at the Columbia Business School. His research focuses on two related areas of inquiry: how people can derive social influence from episodes of cooperation, and how individual differences can serve as sources of social influence. A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, he will teach the MBA core course in organizational behavior.

Elizabeth Mullen, assistant professor of organizational behavior, was a visiting assistant professor and fellow at Northwestern’s Dispute Resolution Research Center in the Kellogg School of Management. Her research interests are distributive and procedural justice; resource allocation; affect and cognition; and negotiation and conflict resolution. She holds a doctoral degree in social psychology from the University of Chicago and will teach Conflict Management Negotiation.

Jesper Sørensen, associate professor of organizational behavior, was most recently an associate professor at the Sloan School of Management, MIT. His research at the intersection of labor market processes and macro-organizational theory looks at the role of individuals in organizations: addressing how individual characteristics impact organizational behavior, and how organizational characteristics influence organizational behavior and thus individual labor market outcomes. He holds a doctorate from Stanford’s sociology department and will teach Strategic Management and a doctoral course.

Laurence Franklin, lecturer in international business, has extensive teaching experience in law and MBA programs. His interests are investments, venture capital, investment banking, China, and business law. He will teach two courses, one each for the Business and Law schools.

Evelyn Williams, lecturer in management, is also director of the Business School’s Leadership Development Platform for MBA students and associate director of the Center for Leadership Development and Research. She was the faculty chair responsible for the University of Chicago’s LEAD program and a clinical associate professor. Her work focuses on executive leadership education, training design, group process, team dynamics, and organizational behavior.

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Faces in the News


Anne Beyer


John Browne


Francis Flynn


Laurence Franklin


Elizabeth Mullen


Jesper Sørensen


Michael Spence


Evelyn Williams