Evan Offstein, of Frostburg, Md., a Ph.D. student in management at Virginia Tech's Pamplin College of Business and a member of the management faculty at Frostburg State University, recently received awards for two papers he co-authored.

Offstein received the Best Doctoral Student Paper Award from the Academy of Management's Human Resource Management Division at its recent annual meeting in New Orleans. He was the lead author of "It Pays to Behave: Firm Competitive Behavior as a Determinant of CEO Pay." Devi Gnyawali, of Blacksburg, Virginia Tech associate professor of management and a co-chair of Offstein's dissertation committee, was the second author.

A second paper by Offstein and Gnyawali, "A Humanistic Perspective of Firm Competitive Behavior," was selected as the Best Concept Paper by the American Society for Competitiveness. The paper examines how executive human and social capital affects the volume, complexity, and force of competitive moves that firms launch into the market. Offstein and Gnyawali argue that a firm's human and social capital, particularly at the upper echelon level, contribute to its awareness of the competitive environment and its motivation and ability to undertake numerous, complex, and strategic competitive actions, and therefore improve its competitive intensity. The co-authors advance a humanistic perspective of firm competitive behavior and outline several implications for future research.

Virginia Tech's nationally ranked Pamplin College of Business offers undergraduate and graduate programs in accounting and information systems, business information technology, economics, finance, hospitality and tourism management, management, and marketing. The college emphasizes the development of leadership skills and ethical values and the integration of technology in the academic curriculum, and prepares students for global business challenges through faculty-led study abroad programs. The college has research centers that focus on business leadership, electronic commerce, energy modeling, and wireless telecommunications. The college is committed to serving business and society through the expertise of its faculty, alumni, and students.

Founded in 1872 as a land-grant college, Virginia Tech has grown to become among the largest universities in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Today, Virginia Tech's eight colleges are dedicated to putting knowledge to work through teaching, research, and outreach activities and to fulfilling its vision to be among the top research universities in the nation. At its 2,600-acre main campus located in Blacksburg and other campus centers in Northern Virginia, Southwest Virginia, Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Roanoke, Virginia Tech enrolls more than 28,000 full- and part-time undergraduate and graduate students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries in 180 academic degree programs.

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