Two recent additions to the College of Business faculty will strengthen the Sustainable Business Practices program at the University of Wyoming.
Jose Antonio Rosa, professor, and Melea Press, an assistant professor,
in the UW Department of Management and Marketing, are teaching a variety
of marketing and sustainable business practices-related courses to
graduate and undergraduate students.
They join Eric Arnould, who last fall accepted as position as UW's first
Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Business Practices. Arnould
conducts research now while he and his College of Business colleagues
revise the graduate curricula to emphasize sustainable business
practices.
Two years ago, the Wyoming State Legislature appropriated funds for
three new faculty positions in the area of sustainable business
practices.
"We used this funding to hire Eric, Jose and Melea," says Larry Weatherford, UW College
of Business associate dean.
Rosa received his B.S. degree in industrial administration, marketing
and organizational development from General Motors Institute, Flint,
Mich.; an M.B.A. from Amos Tuck School of Business Administration,
Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H.; and an M.A. and Ph.D. in psychology
and a Ph.D. in business administration, all from the University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor. Among his current research interests is a better
understanding of the role played by body knowledge in creative
imagination, both in the United States and among consumers in Latin
American countries.
Rosa says he conducts research "into the use of coupons by ethnic
minority groups and the life strategies applied by subsistence consumer
merchants in Asia to manage the competing demands of family, customers
and suppliers."
His research has been published in marketing and management journals,
including Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing, Journal of the
Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of
Business Research, and the Academy of Management Journal.
"Jose brings a wealth of complementary experience to bolster faculty
expertise in the department. He draws upon a deep reservoir of corporate
know-how from his years working in the automobile industry," Arnould
says. "He has great passion for his current interests in sustainability
issues that focus on what we call ‘base-of-the-pyramid markets,' that is
to say, markets in developing economies."
Press holds a B.A. degree in art history and German from Wellesley
College and recently received her Ph.D. in business administration
(marketing) from Pennsylvania State University.
Her research interests include values, communities and relationships.
Press investigates ways that individuals develop and transform through
their involvement with communities. She researches sustainable
agriculture communities -- how they are marketed to consumers and differ
from more mainstream shopping opportunities.
She plans to work with local food groups in Wyoming and was recently
elected to the Laramie Big Hollow Food Co-op board. Her research has
been presented at the Association for Consumer Research, the Society for
Macromarketing and the American Marketing Association conferences.
Press has been the co-owner of a consulting company in Seattle, Wash.,
and worked as a development coordinator/instructor for The Hope Project
in New Delhi, India.
"Melea brings fresh perspectives to the department and is close to
current theoretical debates in marketing," Arnould says. "Her focus has
been on the agricultural side of sustainability issues in business,
focusing on innovative value chains that link producers and consumers
more closely together. Melea also brings a sense of aesthetics -- a
sensitivity to the broader ethical and spiritual sides of the
sustainability push in business."
