Center for Global Business Awards Grant to PhD Candidate

The Robert H. Smith School of Business’ Center for Global Business is pleased to announce that Viktoriya Zotova has been awarded $4,000 to support her research. Research Professor and Center for Global Business Academic Director Kislaya Prasad will present Zotova, a PhD candidate in the Department of Accounting and Information Assurance, with the award at the Smith PhD Annual Awards Banquet on May 16, 2018. The award is funded in part by CIBER, a Title VI grant provided by the U.S. Department of Education.

The research Zotova conducts determines whether the participation in and the specific terms of international agreements play an important role in how U.S. businesses engaged in foreign direct investment compete in a global market. The present study aims to shed light on a particular type of agreements, bilateral investment treaties. These aim to protect foreign direct investors from economic and political risks when investing abroad, and their importance is expected to rise given the present global political landscape. The study hopes to determine whether different combinations of transparency clauses in investing countries leads to better information and more protection, thus providing a competitive advantage.

“Given that multinational companies often invest in a number of different countries,” Zotova says, “each with a different level of institutional quality, this study will shed light on which types of transparency clauses are beneficial in which settings. Such insights would be of interest to investors seeking to expand their operations to new countries and to officials involved in treaty negotiations.”

Zotova completed her undergraduate degree in economics at St. Norbert College. Before joining the University of Maryland’s PhD program, she worked at the International Monetary Fund on issues related to regulation of capital flows and possesses a deep institutional knowledge of bilateral investment treaties.

“We are excited to award Viktoriya Zotova the PhD summer research grant,” says Prasad. “This research has the potential to have significant impact and will further our understanding of bilateral investment treaties. Now in its fifth year, the award supports PhD candidates doing research on international topics, prioritizing research that promotes the international competitiveness of U.S. business. We believe it is critical to encourage PhD candidates to do research in global business and provide this award to help offset research costs.”

Learn more about the Smith School's Center for Global Business, CIBER, and PhD Program.

- Melanie Pirchner, 2019 MBA Candidate