February 5, 2001

wo business management professors have been inducted into a prestigious international organization's Hall of Fame, after setting home run records in their academic field.

The two, Michael H. Lubatkin and John F. Veiga, management professors in the School of Business, were inducted last year by the Academy of Management into its newly created Hall of Fame.

Both Lubatkin and Veiga - who is also management department head - were among the first 34 scholars to be tapped for this award. The Academy has some 15,000 members and is considered the world's largest and most prestigious professional society for scholars in the field of management.

The award honors faculty who have published extensively in the Academy's journal, going back to its founding in 1954. At the time the award was announced, Lubatkin and Veiga had each published 10 papers. The papers, which were among 20,000 published in the journal, represent extensive scholarly research into a broad-range of business management issues.

Both UConn professors were honored during ceremonies last year in Toronto at the Academy's annual meeting.

"With the two of us being honored as inductees, UConn now has the distinction of having one of the greatest representations in the Academy of any University in the world," says Lubatkin. Although UConn's business school is relatively small, on a per faculty member basis the school scored the highest percentage in journal publications, even though Stanford and Arizona State - two schools with many more faculty - have in absolute numbers published more articles.

Love of the Game
An Ackerman Scholar of Management at UConn and the Thomas John and Bette Wolff Family Chair in Strategic Entrepreneurship, Lubatkin holds another personal distinction all his own. He was named the most prolific scholar among 3,000 professors of strategic management worldwide, in a global study conducted by researchers at Arizona State University.

Based on research published in the six most prestigious management journals Lubatkin was ranked second during the past 10 years - with one less article than the top-ranked researcher; with respect to the most recent three years, however, he ranked number one by a large margin.

"When I started in this profession, I was primarily motivated by a fear of being average," says Lubatkin. "Now, my motivation is the love of the game."

A graduate of the State University College of New York at Albany, Lubatkin also earned a master of science in elementary education from the College at Geneseo, N.Y., and a Ph.D. in business administrati on from the University of Tennessee.

He became an assistant professor at Wichita State University in 1981. Two years later, he arrived at UConn.

Lubatkin, who currently teaches management and strategy courses to undergraduates, MBA and doctoral students, says he loves the classroom.

"With the undergraduate and graduate students, we examine the strategies that companies today are pursuing and then make judgments in terms of whether or not they're doing correct things," he says.

"For example, we might look at United Technologies, how they are trying to compete in each of their business areas and the number of areas they're competing in. Then we would look to see if they are doing the right things, such that the whole is worth more than the sum of the parts."

Lubatkin says he rarely follows a mainstream approach in his research.

"I'm always looking to bring the intellectual thrust of different disciplines - everything from cognitive psychology, economics, or anthropology - to strategic issues. What excites me is to look at the interfaces between various streams of thought."

Veiga's credentials mirror those of Lubatkin in background, awards, and publishing.

Veiga arrived in Storrs in 1972, where he became a professor of management. In 1981 he was named head of the management department and Airbus Industrie International Scholar.

Last year, he was named Northeast Utilities Chair in Business Ethics.

Veiga earned both a bachelor of science and a master of arts from Gannon University, and a doctorate in business administration from Kent State University. He held senior-level industrial engineering positions at Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corp., Elgin Electronics Inc., and Lord Manufacturing, and taught at both Kent State University and Northeastern University, before joining UConn.

Co-author of half a dozen books, and author of several dozen articles, Veiga also has developed executive programs and seminars for major institutions, including the American Bankers Association, the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and the New York State Publishers Association.

Workplace Issues
He recently completed three additional research papers that will be published in Academy journals. Each of his papers has a common thread involving sensitive workplace issues.

One relates the impact of work and family conflict on careers. The data were drawn from both female and male managers in Connecticut-b ased companies.

Veiga says that as employee retention becomes a growing concern for organizations, understanding the factors that influence a manager's career satisfaction is increasingly important.

"Our research shows that career satisfaction is no longer about advancement and pay, per se, but rather today's professionals include various forms of socioemotional support that help them deal with work-family conflict - such as supportive work relationships - in determining whether or not they have a satisfying career," says Veiga.

Another paper is a theoretical piece about willingness to request what is known as an "accommodation" in the workplace.

"By law, the American Disabilities Act provides for a reasonable accommodation," he says, "but employees who need such accommodations are not requesting them."

As an example, Veiga refers to a UConn doctoral student who has lost his hearing, with whom he is working on this paper.

"On any given day that we're going to have a committee meeting, this student has to decide whether to have everyone face him or to decide whether or not it is appropriate to request a University-s upplied stenographer to come in," says Veiga.

The paper, he says, explores similar kinds of subtleties in the workplace and why a disabled individual may be unwilling to ask for an accommodation.

"The individual may worry about image and whether or not co-workers think he or she may be asking for too much," says Veiga. "Putting in a ramp or an elevator to accommodate an individual with a disability is probably less of a problem than the subtle day-to-day needs.

"Once you start opening this issue up, it is rather amazing," he says. "In a work setting, asking for help may create a dysfunctional situation with co-workers, who may think a disabled person is asking for too much too often."

The third paper involves the health practices of executives: whether or not they take care of themselves and how they care for themselves.

"Generally, executives take good care of themselves," says Veiga. "But they are loath to tell anyone if they have a health problem, because they think they'll be dead in the water and never get another promotion."

Research for the executive health paper was compiled from several hundred senior corporate executives throughout the United States, including such companies as Xerox, IBM, and Intel, and locally, United Technologies and Travelers.

Global Business
During the spring break, Veiga will travel with 20 undergraduates to Florence, Italy, to visit Italian firms and do field research on Italian culture in the workplace. The trip is part of his seminar on cross-cultural behavior.

"This is a super project for students," says Veiga. "They'll be interviewing people in companies of Italian origin and gaining an understanding of how different national cultures influence global business dealings."

The research continues.

Claudia G. Chamberlain