News

Two faculty members within Portland State University's School of Business Administration, Elizabeth Almer and Charla Mathwick, recently received national recognition for published research papers.

Elizabeth Almer, assistant professor of accounting, was awarded a 2005 KPMG Outstanding Published Manuscript Award from the Gender Issues and Worklife Balance Section of the American Accounting Association. The award is for her co-authored paper "Is It the Kids or the Schedule?: The Incremental Effect of Families and Flexible Scheduling on Perceived Career Success," published in the Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 54. The award was presented at the meeting of the Gender Issues and Worklife Balance Section, during the American Accounting Association's annual meeting held last month in San Francisco.

Co-authored with Jeffrey Cohen (Boston College) and Louise Single (The University of Texas at Austin), the paper examines whether documented biases against flexible work arrangement (FWA) professionals in public accounting are the result of the arrangement itself or a bias against employees with children. The findings suggest that FWA participants are perceived as making sacrifices in their careers to accommodate family needs and thus are less committed to meeting the rigorous demands of the public accounting environment.

In addition, Charla Mathwick, associate professor of marketing, co-authored the paper "Play, Flow, and the Online Search Experience" with Edward Rigdon, professor of marketing at Georgia State University. The paper, published in the Journal of Consumer Research, was one of four nominated for the American Marketing Association's Technology and Innovation Special Interest Group 2005 Best Article Award. In the online context, the compelling experiences of recreational Web users are often described as inducing an extremely gratifying state of mind referred to as 'flow'. Flow, which is an optimal experience characterized by a sense of deep concentration, creativity, and satisfaction, has been assumed to be largely beyond the reach of commercial Web sites. The results of this study indicate the opposite-that flow results from a complex interaction between the skill and involvement of the consumer, balanced against the challenge of navigating a commercial Web site.

The School of Business Administration at Portland State University is the largest business school in the Pacific Northwest, offering top-caliber programs and nationally recognized faculty to its 400 graduate and 3,000 undergraduate students. Its downtown Portland location is key to the many relationships it maintains with the local and regional business community. The SBA launched its new MBA+ curriculum in fall, 2004 centered on a unique leadership and innovation core, with emphasis on the regional economy.

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For Immediate Release (#05-129)

Source: Maureen O'Conner (503-725-4728)
School of Business Administration