Ithaca College

The School of Business is excited to announce that Assistant Professor of Management Narges Kasiri has been awarded a Fulbright Innovation Grant for summer 2017. She will be collaborating with researchers at the University of Cologne in Germany and the University of Parma in Italy on a project studying the adoption of Radio Frequency Identification by retailers.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is the next generation of technology for retailers, designed to replace barcode systems, to track products in operation in retail stores from receiving decks, when they enter stores, to POS, when they leave stores. The adoption of RFID technology is on the agenda for many retailers. While Item-level RFID projects have been implemented in pilot sites in the last few years, retailers are just starting to expand their use of the technology. Retailers realizing the benefits of this technology have been confronted with a variety of issues such as privacy, the cost, and retail process adaptation to new capabilities. Privacy issues are being studied broadly and the cost of the technology has decreased significantly over the past years and can be justified with the benefits of employing the technology. Kasiri's study in particular investigates "RFID adoption patterns in the US and the Europe to further explore retail processes adaptation to the capabilities of this new technology and standardize new processes." Professor Kasiri, who earned her PhD from Oklahoma State University, teaches Operations Management at the undergraduate level and the MBA course in Business Analytics.