IABD Abbass Alkhafaji Lifetime Achievement Award

 Robert (Rob) Page has been a tenured faculty member at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) since 1999. He has served at SCSU as Commissioner, the University Commission on Research and Scholarly Activity; General Education Review Task Force (co-chair); Faculty Senate; Faculty Academic Strategic Planning Committee; Undergraduate Program Review Committee; and Curriculum-Related Activities Committee, as well as others. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Business Management and Change. Rob has been a member of IABD since 2003. He has served IABD in the capacity as a reviewer, discussant, and session chair. Additionally, he has held the position of Track Chair of Entrepreneurship, Spirituality in Organizations, and Sustainability. He has also been the Strategy Committee Chair and Managing Editor of the Journal of International Business Disciplines between 2006 and 2008. Rob has always been willing to lend a hand or help in any way possible, but most of all Rob has spread the word about IABD. He has brought many members into IABD, including Margaret Goralski, Chulguen (Charlie) Yang, and Greg Robbins among others. Rob Page has truly been an advocate of the International Academy of Business Disciplines in every capacity. 

 Joseph “Joe” Horton has been a Professor of Economics at the University of Central Arkansas since 1994. He has served as the Dean of the College of Business from 1996 – 2001. Dr. Horton received his BA in History from New Mexico State University and his PhD in Economics from Southern Methodist University. He received a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship and a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship. He was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Harvard University. He is the author of more than one hundred scholarly articles published in journals such as The Journal of Private Enterprise, The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, The Journal of Commerce and Management, The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, and The American Economist. Dr. Horton’s colleagues from around the nation and the world have elected him to numerous offices in professional associations including President of the International Academy of Business Disciplines, President of the Congress of Political Economists International, President of the Pennsylvania Economic Association, President of Arkansas College Teachers of Economics and Business, and many more. He is currently Secretary of the Academy of Business Economics and a member of the Boards of the American Society for Competitiveness, the International Academy of Business Disciplines, and the Congress of Political Economists. 

Abbas J. Ali, Ph.D., is a distinguished University Professor and Professor of Management, Director, the School of International Management, Eberly College of Business, at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He serves as the Executive Director of the American Society for Competitiveness. Ali has served as a visiting professor at King Saud University, the University of Sharjah, and as a senior Fulbright Scholar at the University of Jordan. His current research interests include global business leadership, strategy, foreign policy, comparative management, competitiveness issues, organizational politics, and international management. He has published more than one hundred sixty scholarly journal articles and more than 20 chapters in scholarly books. His articles were published in such journals as Academy of Management Executives, Business Horizon, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Psychology, Journal of Social Psychology, International Studies of Management & Organization, Journal of Small Business Management, Organization Studies, and Personnel Review, among others. In addition, he delivered more than 500 presentations at professional and academic meetings. He has authored or co-authored nine books, including, Handbook of Research on Islamic Business Ethics(ed) (2015), Edward Elgar Publishing; Business Ethics in Islam (2014), Edward Elgar Publishing; Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases (2011), Pearson Education; Islamic Perspectives on Management and Organization (2005), Edward Elgar Publishing; and Business and Management Environment in Saudi Arabia: challenges and opportunities for multinational corporations (2008), Routledge Publisher.

Ali is a recipient of several research awards and grants. He conducted several workshops and training sessions in the U.S. and abroad. Likewise, he delivered keynote addresses at several international seminars and conferences. Previously, he served as editor–in–chief of the International Journal of Commerce and Management, Advances in Competitiveness Research, Competitiveness Review and is currently editor of the Journal of Competitiveness Studies and Competition Forum. In addition, he serves on the editorial board of more than twelve academic journals. His commentaries on international events appear in various newspapers and on line media outlets. 

  Margaret A. Goralski received her PhD from the International School of Management in Paris France which included study at Temple University in Tokyo Japan and Fudan University in Shanghai China. Doctoral students from twenty-six different countries attended and participated in these international experiences as part of this immersive international education. Goralski is a full-time faculty member in the Entrepreneurship/Strategy Department in the Quinnipiac University (QU) School of Business and the newly appointed Coordinator of the Capstone Business Experience. She has taught courses in International Business, Management, Strategy, and Organizational Leadership, and in the MBA program, on campus and online. 

In addition to being Vice President of Publications for the International Academy of Business Disciplines; and editor-in-chief of the Quarterly Review of Business Disciplines, she is a Board Member and Senior Fellow of the American Society for Competitiveness; Treasurer of the Academy of International Business – US – Northeast Chapter; and a member of the UN PRME (Principles for Responsible Management Education) working group on the sustainability mindset. She has published in numerous academic journals worldwide and continues to write and publish on a vast array of topics. Goralski is currently a Faculty Senator, a member of the Senate Faculty Policy Committee, and a member of the Capstone Assessment Plan committee at Quinnipiac.

Prior to teaching at QU, Goralski traveled the world as an international businesswoman and co-founder of Global Markets India. She has spoken at numerous international business conferences and taught senior executives of multinational corporations about the cultural differences of doing business in India. In addition, she has written a small book entitled A Passbook to India, which was used by Loctite, Coca-Cola, et al. to train executives before sending them to India. On an entirely different topic, she has published a book entitled Death: A Practical Guide to the Choices that Lie Beyond with two co-authors. Goralski is currently co-writing a book chapter on ethics and artificial intelligence and is presenting at this conference a paper titled Uncovering the Workings of our Mind: Mindful Perceptions, Decisions, and Strategies and an All Session Panel with Ahmad Tootoonchi and Louis K. Falk entitled Teaching Online: The Pleasures and The Pitfalls. 

Greg is Chair of Communication Studies at Emerson College in Boston, and Co-Director of the Emerson Blanquerna Center for Global Communication. He also has taught at Tufts, Yale, and Blanquerna School of Communication and International Relations – Barcelona. As Chair, he and colleagues initiated MA Programs in Public Relations, Political Communication and Sports Communication, Global Marketing Communication, a joint Health Communication program with Tufts School of Medicine, collaborative global programs in Barcelona, and Rosarito, Mexico, and presently establishing immersive academic programs in Australia, Hong Kong, India and Chile. 

He received his B.A, M.A., and Ph D at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he was Phi Beta Kappa, an NDEA Fellow, and a participant in the Big Ten Traveling Scholar Program with graduate work at Illinois, Wisconsin, and the University of Southern California. He has an MPA from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. 

His dissertation “A Rhetorical Analysis of Selected Interpretations of the May 1970 Kent State Incident.,” spawned further creative projects, including a play Kent State: A Requiem, a book Mayday: Kent State, NBC’s Emmy Award-winning “Kent State”, VH1’s Behind the Music, five documentaries and over a hundred speaking appearances globally. He is the co-author of Tom Bradley: The Impossible Dream and has been the editor of the American Behavioral Scientist’s election issues for every presidential election since 1988.

Payne has authored academic and popular articles, book chapters and proceedings and has participated in forums, conferences and conventions internationally on topics related to political communication, crisis communication, strategic diplomacy, health communication, and sports communication. He is on the Advisory board of the Journal of Health Communication, Media Ethics, Public Relations Journal, Journal of Promotional Management. 

Payne has served as speechwriter for political leaders in the U.S. and abroad, including Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Robert Dole, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, Boston Mayor Ray Flynn, Queen Noor of Jordan, Prince Faisal of Saudi Arabia, numerous CEO’s and heads of international organizations and UNICEF. He has consulted with the U.S. State Department, Department of Defense, Department of Treasury, City of Boston, City of Los Angeles, National Republican Institute, National Institute of Health, Atomic Energy Commission, Center for Disease Control, Bechtel, Fidelity Investments, Formula One, among others.  

This year's Abbas Alkafaji IABD Lifetime Achievement award goes to Reza Eftekharzadeh. Reza is the 6th winner of IABD's most prestigious award. Past winners include, in order: Robert Page, Joseph Horton, Margaret Goralski, Abbas Ali, and Gregory Payne. 

Reza was born in 1954 and is married with three children. He received his MBA from St. John's University and his doctorate from City University of New York in 1985. He is currently a Professor at his Alma mater, St. John’s University. Reza is a consultant in the financial area, has published numerous articles, and is an invited guest speaker at many international events. 

Reza has served the International Academy of International Business as both a Track Chair and Treasurer for 30 years. He has been ethical, reliable, and an incredible moral compass for this organization. Reza has maintained the fiscal health of IABD and has established himself as a trustworthy individual who is beyond reproach. Reza has earned the respect and admiration of everyone he has come in contact with over the past 30 years, and he has served numerous past Presidents with distinction, including Abbas Alkafaji himself. 

I have been lucky enough to have had Reza by my side for the last 8 years. I wish him well, and I thank him for his loyal service and dedication to IABD. 

   Charles (Chuck) Lubbers, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Media & Journalism at the University of South Dakota. He moved to USD in 2005 and served as the Department Chair through 2010. Prior to USD, he was on the faculty of the A. Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Kansas State University. Dr. Lubbers started as an instructor in the fall of 1991 and moved up through the professorial ranks to a full professor in 2002. He served as the coordinator of the public relations sequence and when he departed K-State, he was serving as the Assistant Director of the A. Q. Miller School and was in charge of the graduate program and research activities. 

                Lubbers has attended the IABD conferences for three decades, since being introduced to the conference by the late Dr. Richard Nelson, his mentor at Kansas State University and a past president of IABD. Lubbers has served as the Associate Editor of the Quarterly Review of Business Disciplines since its founding in 2013 and has been an issue editor several times. From 2008-2014 Lubbers served as the editor of Teaching Public Relations Monographs and led the conversion of TPRM to the Journal of Public Relations Education in 2014. He currently serves on the editorial boards of Journalism & Mass Communication Educator and Journalism and Communication Monographs. 

                Dr. Lubbers is the past chair/head of the Public Relations Division of the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) and the Public Relations Division of the National Communication Association (NCA), the two largest groups of public relations educators in the US. Dr. Lubbers has approximately 100 academic publications, with two-thirds of these selected after peer review.  He also has over 125 convention presentations at national and international conferences.  His primary research interests are in the areas of pedagogy, as well as advertising, public relations and marketing communications for the entertainment sector, especially travel and tourism, motion pictures and sports.

                Dr. Lubbers has been an instructor at the university level for three decades. His primary teaching areas in recent years include a wide variety of courses in the public relations, advertising and marketing communication specializations.  He also teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in mass communication research methods, event marketing and management, as well as tourism marketing and management. Professor in the Department of Media & Journalism at the University of South Dakota. He moved to USD in 2005 and served as the Department Chair through 2010. Prior to USD, he was on the faculty of the A. Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Kansas State University. Dr. Lubbers started as an instructor in the fall of 1991 and moved up through the professorial ranks to a full professor in 2002. He served as the coordinator of the public relations sequence and when he departed K-State, he was serving as the Assistant Director of the A. Q. Miller School and was in charge of the graduate program and research activities. 

Lubbers has attended the IABD conferences for three decades, since being introduced to the conference by the late Dr. Richard Nelson, his mentor at Kansas State University and a past president of IABD. Lubbers has served as the Associate Editor of the Quarterly Review of Business Disciplines since its founding in 2013 and has been an issue editor several times. From 2008 to 2014 Lubbers served as the editor of Teaching Public Relations Monographs and led the conversion of TPRM to the Journal of Public Relations Education in 2014. In 2017, he ended his three-year term as the inaugural editor of the Journal of Public Relations Education and took on the role of associate editor for reviews for a three-year term. He also serves on the editorial boards of Journalism & Mass Communication Educator and Journalism and Communication Monographs. 

In 2023, Lubbers joined the Commission on Public Relations Education (CPRE) and chaired the CPRE committee that wrote the chapter on the future of the PR workplace for the report, "Navigating Change: Recommendations for Advancing Undergraduate Public Relations Education.” Dr. Lubbers is the past chair/head of the Public Relations Division of the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) and the Public Relations Division of the National Communication Association (NCA), the two largest groups of public relations educators in the US. 

Dr. Lubbers has approximately 100 academic publications, with two-thirds of these selected after peer review. He also has over 125 convention presentations at national and international conferences. His primary research interests are in the areas of pedagogy, as well as advertising, public relations, and marketing communications for the entertainment sector, especially travel and tourism, motion pictures, and sports. 

Dr. Lubbers has been an instructor at the university level for three decades. His primary teaching areas in recent years include a wide variety of courses in the public relations, advertising, and marketing communication specializations. He also teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in mass communication research methods, event marketing and management, as well as tourism marketing and management.