The growing crowdfunding phenomenon has exploded in the past five years with sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. With crowdfunding, startups raise the funds they need in small doses, and “investors” get returns on their small investments, or products, perks or rewards for their donation-based funding. And now recent changes to SEC rules have made it possible for crowdfunding sites to allow startups to offer qualified investors a small slice of equity.

A recent scandal in the NFL’s Miami Dolphins organization brought to light the havoc bullying can create in the workplace – whether it’s the locker room or the boardroom. Bullies classify as “difficult” co-workers, and they can have big effects on job performance.  

The BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is one of the biggest corporate disaster’s of all time. The energy giant – the fourth largest company in the world – has been grappling with the fallout of April’s deadly explosion and oil spill, which has had serious impact on U.S. Gulf Coast industries and the environment.

Air dates: Thursday, September 26, 2013, 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, September 29, 2013, 7:30 a.m. The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business has a new dean – Alexander Triantis. He took over the top position on September 1, though he’s been a finance professor at the school for 18 years.

The ways we consume information have expanded drastically in the past decade – with digital formats of everything from movies to newspapers widely available, as well as special devises like the Apple iPad and Kindle reader to view them. But these new formats haven’t yet entirely replaced the old. In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up with the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, P.K. Kannan talks about his research that explores under what conditions consumers would buy both traditional and digital formats of content.

With the economy still recovering from the burst of the housing bubble and the financial crisis, experts are combing the period before the crisis and after for all the clues that could help avoid similar economic problems in the future. According to new research, accounting numbers hold big clues to how the credit default market functions – both before and after the crisis.

The Smith School has teamed up with Maryland Public Television (MPT) to produce a regular television segment focusing on todays best business practices and other business management issues. The segment, called Smith Business Close-Up, will air as part of the weekly Business Connection program that is broadcast Thursday evenings at 7:30 p.m. on MPT. The segment will feature interviews with Smith School faculty members and other business management experts, and will originate from the business school.