Temple University's Fox School of Business Names Rajiv D. Banker as the Stanley Merves Chair of Accounting and Information Technology

Business Wire, Oct 7, 2005

PHILADELPHIA -- Temple University's Fox School of Business and Management announced today the appointment of Rajiv D. Banker as the Stanley Merves Chair of Accounting and Information Technology.

Banker will be the first Fox School professor to hold this prestigious chair, which was endowed by Stanley Merves (Fox '51), CEO of America Collex. Merves is also one of the founding shareholders of The Franklin Mint, where he introduced innovative accounting standards for accurately and fairly reporting a company's position to its investors.

In appointing Banker, Temple University President David Adamany said, "Banker's outstanding accomplishments as a teacher and accounting scholar are recognized in this named chair."

Fox School Dean M. Moshe Porat also expressed his delight in appointing a renowned scholar as the inaugural Merves Chair. "His impressive record of teaching, as well as his prolific research spanning accounting, management information systems and management science, strengthen Fox excellence in these three key areas," said Porat.

"I thank Stanley Merves for his foresight in endowing a chair in accounting and information technology. Years before accounting began to heavily rely on information technology, as it does now, he recognized the trend," added Porat.

Accounting is one of The Fox School's largest areas of specialization. Recognizing the importance of information technology in accounting, as Merves Chair, Banker will help further Fox ties between the two fields.

"I was attracted by the rapid rise in stature of The Fox School," Banker said. "As the first Merves chair, I look forward to helping the school achieve yet greater prominence." He added, "I am particularly honored because as a graduate student, I studied about Merves' policies at The Franklin Mint to ensure fair and accurate reporting of financial performance. In light of the many recent accounting problems, these policies are more relevant than ever."

An inauguration ceremony and reception introducing Professor Banker to the Philadelphia business community, and especially to the accounting and financial communities, will be held on Friday, November 11 at 3:30 PM.

Banker has been a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Minnesota and at the University of Texas at Dallas. At the latter two institutions mentioned, he held chaired professorships.

"I'm very happy to see Rajiv Banker, a top scholar in accounting and information systems, as the inaugural Merves Chair. I'm confident that Professor Banker will further contribute to the teaching and research in these areas and help prepare Temple's future graduates," said Stanley Merves.

Banker has published more than 100 articles in top-tier, refereed journals in accounting, management information systems and management science. His research interests range from analytical modeling to collecting data from different companies in order to address complex or emerging business problems.

Of the top-tier journals in which he has published, Banker has most often appeared in: Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance, Contemporary Accounting Research, Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, Management Science, Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly, Journal of Management Information Systems, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, Operations Research, European Journal of Operations Research and Econometrica.

According to the Information Sciences Institute (ISI), Banker has a total of 2,369 citations. His 1984 article "Models for Estimating Technical and Scale Inefficiencies in Data Envelopment Analysis," in Management Science, has become seminal in management and is ranked the fourth most highly cited paper in the 50-year history of Management Science. This article alone has been cited 715 times.

In 2003, ISI's Web of Science recognized him as one of the 250 most highly cited researchers in economics and business worldwide who have made fundamental contributions to the advancement of science and technology.

An excellent teacher, Banker has received numerous awards, including the Emil B. Limbach Award for excellence in teaching (1984) at Carnegie Mellon University and the Outstanding Teacher Award (1993) at the University of Minnesota.

He received his bachelor's degree in mathematics, with a minor in economics, with highest honors in 1973 from the University of Bombay. Banker then worked as an auditor for Deloitte and Touche and also at Glaxo Ltd. in India. He received his doctorate in business administration in planning, accounting and control systems from Harvard University in 1980. In India, he qualified as a cost accountant and as a chartered accountant.

The Fox School of Business and Management, at Temple University, is the largest, most comprehensive business school in the Greater Philadelphia region and among the largest in the world, with more than 5,500 students, 154 full-time faculty and 45,000 alumni. Accredited by AACSB International (The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business), The Fox School's programs are ranked internationally and nationally by leading business publications, including Financial Times, Forbes, U.S. News & World Report and Entrepreneur magazine. For more information, visit www.fox.temple.edu