Dr. Candace Deans joined the faculty of the Robins School in August 2002, transferring from a post at the top-ranked international business school, Thunderbird School of Global Management. Already, her dedication was recognized in 2006, as the Robins School awarded Dr. Deans the Outstanding Teacher award. She currently teaches undergraduate as well as MBA and Mini MBA® courses.

She describes her teaching style as fostering interaction in the classroom and activity-based learning. She assigns her students case studies, and they have to lead class discussions or make presentations. “I think it is important for students to gain experience facilitating class discussions, defending their position on a given business decision, or presenting their research on a given topic – both individually and in a team setting,” says Deans.

Her interaction with her students extends beyond the classroom - reflected in the many hours she spends advising students on independent study programs, publishing papers or participating in conferences.

Her research and teaching focuses on international information technology. Currently Dr. Deans teaches IT Essentials for Global Managers, the CIO seminar class and Emerging Technologies, Business and Society.

Working with John Shackleton, CEO of Open Text, and Tom Chapin of Network Centric, she helped institute a pilot IT internship class during Spring 2007. She plans to offer a new course, Global IT Decisions, in Fall 2007. In the future, she hopes to incorporate an optional study abroad component for this course focusing on the high tech industry in India and China.

Dr. Deans has traveled extensively in Asia, including Japan, China, India, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. She presented papers at four international conferences in Asia during this past year. In addition, she gave the keynote address at the 4th International Conference of the Association of Indian Management Scholars at the Indian Institute of Management in Indore, India in December 2006.

She has published seven books and numerous articles on a variety of topics, including global e-business, managing information technology in a global context, global information systems and technology and international business resources on the Web.

Dr. Deans hails from Wilson, NC and received several degrees from her home state, including a BS from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, M.Ed. from North Carolina State University and MBA from East Carolina University. She earned an MLS from the University of Arizona and completed her Ph.D. in Information Technology and International Business at the University of South Carolina in 1989. She also taught at the Calloway School of Business and Accountancy at Wake Forest University (1989-1993).

When you look in the mirror, do you see Fido? That’s what a team of four Robins School researchers wanted to know when they developed two studies to explore how a tendency to buy excessively for self relates to spending on one’s pet.

Dr. Nancy Ridgway, associate professor of marketing, Dr. Monika Kukar-Kinney, assistant professor of marketing, Dr. Kent Monroe, a visiting distinguished scholar, and Emily Chamberlin, a University of Richmond student conducted the qualitative and quantitative research in 2006.

Drs. Ridgway, Kukar-Kinney and Monroe will travel to Milan, a high fashion and shopping mecca, to present the team’s paper “Does Excessive Buying For Self Relate To Spending On Pets?” at the semi-annual meeting of the European Association for Consumer Research July 10-14. The study has been accepted by the Journal of Business Research for publication later this year.

Existing research on excessive buying – the tendency to be preoccupied with buying, resulting in buying relatively more and more often than others – indicated that these buyers spend primarily on themselves. And recent publicity indicated that consumers in the United States are spending more on their pets each year.

The category has grown from $17 billion in 1995 to $38.4 billion in 2005. Pet owners are showering their dogs and cats with good and services including special food, treats, clothing, toys, jeweled collars, carriers, costumes, acupuncture, massage and psychotherapy. The Robins research team wanted to see if there was a link between excessive spending on self and excessive spending on, well, Fido or Fluffy.

Dr. Ridgway, who has long wondered whether those who spend excessively on clothes, accessories and shoes for themselves also spend lavishly on their pets, does not hesitate to lavish her Jack Russell Terriers.

“My Jack Russell Terrier, Sadie, was the love of my life for 12 years. Sadie did not want for anything and had a wide variety of toys and apparel. When her very large toy box overflowed, I would wash and donate the toys to the humane society,” said Ridgway. “Unfortunately, Sadie passed away during the course of the study. Within four months I adopted two Jack Russell puppies from the same litter in Idaho, Sophie and Sam. They have started acquiring winter coats, windbreakers, toys, beds and special food, and are treated as full family members, just as Sadie was.”

Ridgway is not alone in considering pets as family. The pet superstore PetSmart is capitalizing on this very idea. And marketing researchers have been studying pet companionship and the concept of pets as family members for years. Some propose that our four-legged friends are an extension of ourselves, so that spending on one’s pet is tantamount to spending on one’s self.

“Does Excessive Buying For Self Relate To Spending On Pets?” makes three contributions to the literature on pets and marketing to pet owners: (1) it is the first to suggest and empirically test whether consumers who buy excessively for themselves also spend more heavily than others on their pet (2) it accounts for pet spending in more categories than previously examined, including food treats, special food and clothing to describe more specifically how excessive buying manifests itself (3) and it uses a multi-method research approach to examine the propositions.

The focus group participants reported a tendency to buy excessively for themselves and their pets. The underlying rationale for the relationship appears to build from an extreme version of treating the pet as one’s child and as an extension of oneself. The quantitative survey tested the significance of the relationship between buying excessively and spending for one’s pet. The results indicated that average monthly expenditures on pets for excessive buyers are nearly twice that of non-excessive buyers, and that respondents spend more, on average, on dogs than cats.

If you are the family dog, you may not have to learn a new trick to get that special treat. If you are the family cat, you may want to consider buying a pair of dog ears…and if you are Dr. Kukar-Kinney’s goldfish, well, need we say more?

The Economics Department is excited to welcome Dr. Craig Heinicke as Visiting Faculty Member in Economics for 2007-08 & 2008-09. Dr. Heinicke is a Professor of Economics at Baldwin-Wallace College and Director of their Honors Program. His research interests include economic history with a current focus on the economic history of African-American migration in the U.S., the plantation system, and the disappearance of the "Old South." At Baldwin-Wallace, he teaches American Economic History, macroeconomics at both the introductory and intermediate levels, and statistics at both the introductory and advanced levels.

Dr. Dean D. Croushore, The Rigsby Fellow in Economics and Associate Professor of Economics, published Macroeconomics, 6th edition, a textbook for courses in Intermediate Macroeconomic Theory. The book was co-written with Andrew B. Abel and Ben S. Bernanke. Dr. Croushore teaches Money and Banking, Intermediate Macroeconomics, and Advanced Macroeconomics. His research interests include real-time data analysis, forecasting, and monetary theory and policy.

Dr. Jorge Haddock, Dean and Professor of Management, authored a chapter in a nationwide book published by Aspatore Books entitled, Inside the Minds: Business School Leadership Strategies: Top Deans Offer Keys to Success. The book was released February 2007. Dr. Haddock was also recently appointed to the Community Foundation Board.

Dr. Robert Graboyes, Visiting Lecturer in Economics, was recently named Senior Fellow of the National Center for Policy Analysis, in Dallas, Texas. He was also awarded a Visiting Research Fellowship for Summer 2007 by the American Institute for Economic Research. Dr. Graboyes teaches a variety of economics courses for the Robins School. His research focuses on health economics and international economics.

Dr. Terry Weisenberger, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Business Programs and Associate Professor of Marketing, was recently initiated into Omicron Delta Kappa, the National Leadership Honor Society.

Dr. Darrell Walden, Associate Professor of Accounting, was selected by the VCU African American Alumni Council as the recipient of this year’s AAAC Alum of the Year Award. Dr. Walden was selected for his outstanding accomplishments, most notably for his work on the Virginia Freedmen Project. He was presented the award at the “Black History in the Making” event on February 15.