COBA February 2021 Newsletter

COBA Newsletter February 2021 Edition

COBA HOLDS SUSTAINABILITY and ENTREPRENEURSHIP WEBINAR

COBA in collaboration with Vice President of Research Prof Marwan Al-Akaidi and Research Office held a successful Webinar on Sustainability and Entrepreneurship challenges in a post-Covid World on February 4th, 2021. The distinguished speakers of the webinar were Mr. Salman Dawood Abdulla Executive Vice President at EGA EHSSQ and Business Transformation Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hab. Andrzej Raszkowski Wroclaw from University of Economics and Business, Poland, and Dr. Marek Seretny Marketing Specialization Coordinator at COBA. Prof. Marwan and Prof. Assem gave the opening remarks, and the webinar was moderated by Prof. Asma.

COBA CONDUCTS STUDENTS' ORIENTATION AND MBA VIVA

To welcome and orient the MBA and MSM students, orientation sessions were conducted, where students participated by asking questions. The concerned faculty, program director and Deans orientated the students about the program competitiveness and expectations from the students. Rashid Ibrahim, an MBA student has successfully defended his thesis entitled “Road Accidents: Cause and Concerns for Traffic Jams: A Study in Dubai” under the supervision of Professor Assem Tharwat. The examiners’ panel included internal and external experts including; Prof. AbdulSattar Al Alusi, Prof. Salaheddin Abosedra, and Prof. Tareq Shareef Y. Alalwash.

PROMOTION ANNOUNCEMENT: PROF. ASMA SALMAN

COBA Faculty Member, Dr. Asma Salman has been promoted from the Academic Rank of Associate Professor to the Academic Rank of Full Professor of Finance at the American University in the Emirates, effective March 21st, 2019. Prof. Asma has achieved high levels of excellence in the areas of research, teaching and service. As a dedicated faculty member since 2011, COBA and AUE congratulates her on this milestone while wishing a successful career ahead.

4TH AUE STUDENT RESEARCH COMPETITION 2021

In line with enhancing the career opportunities of students in the undergraduate and the graduate level and kick-starting their research journey, representatives from COBA participated in the first meeting of the conference preparation that was led by the Vice President for Research Prof. Marwan Al-Akaidi. The members of the organizing group shed light on the importance of this competition, as it allows students to explore new frontiers in their field of study and enhances their research abilities. The topics identified to be of interest for this competition are, but not limited to: Covid-19 impact on markets, digitalization, and sustainability. Further details about the registration will be shared with students.

COBA VIRTUAL OPEN DAY

Representatives from COBA joined the virtual open day held for the Applied Technologies High School students throughout Feb 1st- 4th, 2021 via Zoom. The College representatives welcomed the high school students and introduced to them the COBA BBA program and its eight specializations. They answered questions raised by the students about the specializations offered in the college. This event was organized in collaboration with Department of Student Services.

AACSB UPDATES

COBA has been a member of AACSB International – The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) since April 2013 and has been working toward its initial AACSB accreditation since 2014. COBA submitted its initial Self Evaluation Report (iSER) in June 2016, followed by revised second and third versions in December 2016 and June 2017. A fourth revised iSER was submitted in December 2017 and accepted by the AACSB Initial Accreditation Committee (IAC) in February 2018. COBA submitted its First Progress Report on December 18, 2018. The IAC received the report and requested a Second Progress Report in a letter dated March 21, 2019. The report was submitted on December 1, 2019 and was accepted on March 17th 2020 with a recommendation to begin the process of preparing for a peer review team (PRT) visit. COBA filed an application for initial accreditation visit (Business) in May 2020. Under the guidance of the AACSB designated Team Chair, COBA is currently engaged in writing its Self-Evaluation Report (SER). College will submit SER by July 2021, and is expecting a mock visit by July -August 2021, followed by the on-site Peer Review Team (PRT) visit during November 2021.

COBA FACULTY PARTICIPATES IN MESM'20 CONFERENCE

The MESM’2020 is version 16th of the Eurosis – MESM conference. Due to COVID-19 the MESM20 was held virtually in Amman-Philadelphia University on Dec 16-17, 2020 and sponsored by Eurosis and SPC-IEEE UK & Ireland. The American University in the Emirates and Philadelphia University in Amman-Jordan organized the 16th version of the MESM20 successfully. Prof. Assem Tharwat and Prof. Asma Salman were part of the organizing committee, while Prof Asma also a chaired session and presented a paper in the conference. COBA Faculty members attended various sessions during this virtual conference. MESM 20 attracted researchers, scientists, engineers, and technologists, from universities, government agencies, and industry from all around the world while being an ideal platform of knowledge transfer.

COBA FACULTY ENGAGEMENT AND HIGHLIGHTS

COBA Faculty continues to engage in various activities both at regional and international level.Prof. Asma Salman was a speaker on Gender, Policy and Financial Inclusion – Leapfrogging Women’s access to Capital; panel discussion alongside First Lady of Paraguay, First Lady of Brazil, and First Lady of Columbia on issues of Women’s Economic and Social Empowerment at the 8th South America-Africa-Middle East-Asia Women Summit. Dr. Asli Milla was invited to speak at a webinar on Future of E-Sports at Denmark high school: Sydøstsjællands Idrætsefterskole.

COBA RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

COBA Faculty continues to excel at research with regular publications in Scopus indexed and highly reputable journals. This month’s research highlights are as follows: Prof. Asma Salman: Ali Q., Salman A., Parveen S., Zaini Z. Green Behavior and Financial Performance: Impact on the Malaysian Fashion Industry 2020 SAGE Open. Dr. Asli Milla: Milla, Asli ., Mataruna Dos-Santos, Leonardo.,Munoz,Hussein. Content Strategy and Fan Engagement in Social Media: The Case of PyeongChang Winter Olympic And Paralympic Games. 2020 Annals of Sports Science 8 (S1). Prof. Asma Salman Ozili P.K., Salman A., Ali Q. The impact of foreign direct investment inflows on nonperforming loans: The case of UAE 2020 Investment Management and Financial Innovations Dr. Tahir Masood; Dr. Asli Milla; Dr. Nikolina Ljepava; Dr. Marija Rustic Ristic M.R., Ljepava N., Qureshi T.M., Milla A.C. A cross-cultural comparison of conflict management styles in multinational organisations: Empirical evidence from Serbia 2020 Journal of East European Management Studies . Prof. Salaheddin Abosedra Shahbaz M., Mateev M., Abosedra S., Nasir M.A., Jiao Z. Determinants of FDI in France: Role of transport infrastructure, education, financial development and energy consumption 2020 International Journal of Finance and Economics Prof. Salaheddin Abosedra Tang C.F., Abosedra S. Does Financial Development Moderate the Effects on Growth Volatility? The Experience of Malaysia 2020 Margin. Dr. Rania Itani Itani R., Azeem M., Mirza N. Arab Spring and COVID-19: Ex post facto examination of the Lebanese banking sector (the contemporary stakeholder analysis) 2020 Banks and Bank Systems. Prof. Abhilasha Singh Singh A., Al Marri., S. S., AlMarri., H. An Effect of Culture on Managing Knowledge: A Case Study 2020 Organizational Cultures: An International Journal. Prof. Salaheddin Abosedra Tang C.F., Abosedra S., Naghavi N. Does the quality of institutions and education strengthen the quality of the environment? Evidence from a global perspective 2021 Energy. Prof. Assem Tharwat El-Demerdash B.E., Tharwat A.A., El-Khodary I.A.A. A Unified Mathematical Model for Stochastic Data Envelopment Analysis 2021 International Journal of Service Science, Management, Engineering, and Technology. Dr. Noura Metawa Noura Metawa, Irina V. Pustokhina, Denis A. Pustokhin, K. Shankar, and Mohamed Elhoseny Computational Intelligence-Based Financial Crisis Prediction Model Using Feature Subset Selection with Optimal Deep Belief Network 2021 Big Data.