Insights

The School of Management expanded its faculty by two last fall, adding to an impressive lineup of outstanding teachers and researchers.

Nicole Hunter is a clinical assistant professor of finance. Previously, she was an adjunct instructor for the school and for UB’s Economics Department. She also taught in the School of Management’s joint program with the Singapore Institute of Management.

She has a PhD and an MA in economics, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in economics and mathematics—all from UB. Hunter teaches applied economics, and her research interests lie in the areas of environmental policy, renewable energy adoption and private equity in health care.

Hunter enjoys a range of fitness activities, including boxing, CrossFit and Krav Maga, but her favorite is weightlifting. She also gets plenty of cardio and resistance training with the help of her two German shepherds.

Danielle Tussing joined the faculty as an assistant professor of organization and human resources, bringing several years of teaching experience with her after serving as an assistant professor of management in the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame.

She earned a PhD in management from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and a Bachelor of Science in psychology from Davidson College. She teaches organizational behavior and leadership, and her research interests include work motivation, leadership, interpersonal relationships and work-life boundary management.

For fun, Tussing loves to dance—tap, jazz, ballet and hip-hop. As soon as the COVID-19 situation allows, she plans to join a local dance studio. Until then, she’s enjoying dance parties around the house with her toddler.

“The challenges of pandemics and other catastrophic events demand new strategies for addressing supply chain failures that can cripple an entire world.”

— Nallan Suresh, UB Distinguished Professor of operations management and strategy, on a new framework he developed to make supply chains more resilient during a crisis like COVID-19, with Lawrence Sanders, professor of management science and systems, and Michael Braunscheidel, clinical assistant professor of operations management and strategy. The study was published in IEEE Engineering Management Journal.

From left, alumna Katie L. Badura, PhD ’19, assistant professor of organizational behavior in the Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business, and Emily Grijalva, assistant professor of organization and human resources in the UB School of Management, were honored with the top award from the journal Personnel Psychology for their research documenting the gender gap in leadership emergence.

When a corporation’s earnings are steady, its board of directors is more likely to fire their CEO after a bad earnings period, according to new School of Management research.

Published in Management Science, the study analyzed corporate earnings persistence—whether or not earnings are expected to recur or not—and how it impacts CEO turnover.

“Firms with high earnings persistence understand that the performance in the current period is likely to carry forward with the incumbent CEO, so they’re more likely to fire a CEO who yields poor earnings,” says Inho Suk, associate professor of accounting and law. “In contrast, boards of firms with low earnings persistence are less likely to fire a CEO with a poor performance because it’s likely temporary.”

The researchers analyzed data of more than 1,500 CEO turnovers from 1993-2017, measuring earnings performance by industry-adjusted return on assets (IAROA), with the three-year average of IAROA, industry-adjusted ROA changes and non-Generally Accepted Accounting Principles earnings as alternative measures.

Their results show that earnings persistence is the most direct and dominant earnings attribute in explaining CEO turnover decisions.

“Compared to CEO compensation, turnover decisions have longer-term consequences on firm performance and corporate policies,” says William Kross, professor of accounting and law. “Failure to replace a poorly performing CEO, or to retain a CEO with potential, is the costliest manifestation of agency conflicts.”

Suk and Kross collaborated on the study with Seung Won Lee, assistant professor of accounting in the Penn State Harrisburg School of Business Administration.

“When attempting to predict which solicitation will resonate with your donors, it turns out there’s no substitute for the real thing. We recommend organizations test new fundraising ideas with a small group of their own donors before full implementation, as the information you gather will far outweigh any minimal costs from the test appeal.”

— Indranil Goswami, assistant professor of marketing, on his study showing that in-context field tests better predicted how an organization’s donors would react to its charitable appeals than academic models or expert advice. The research appeared in Marketing Science.

The health care leaders of tomorrow are willing to violate privacy laws—for a price, according to new School of Management research.

Published in JMIR Medical Informatics, the study found that when people feel there’s a good chance they could get caught, they’re less likely to violate HIPAA—the federal law restricting release of medical information. But when medical treatment for their friend or family member is on the line, most will give up another person’s information regardless of the probability of getting caught.

“The health care industry has more insider breaches than any other industry,” says Lawrence Sanders, professor of management science and systems. “Soon-to-be-graduates are the trusted insiders of tomorrow, and their knowledge could be used to compromise organizational security systems.”

The researchers developed five scenarios to determine if monetary incentives could be used to convince people to illegally obtain and release health care information. A pilot study surveyed 64 medical residents and 32 Executive MBA candidates to test the constructs, while the main study surveyed 523 students with an average age of 21 who are on the cusp of entering the workforce.

In the pilot study, just 6% of those surveyed would succumb to monetary incentives to violate medical information privacy laws. But in the main study, 46% said there is an acceptable price for violating HIPAA.

When a personal context is involved, the percentages increase dramatically. In the main study, 79% of respondents said they would give a politician’s medical records to a media outlet in exchange for $100,000 to pay for an experimental treatment for their mother.

“The dark side of the abundance of personal information is that it can be compromised by insiders who know how valuable it is,” says Joana Gaia, clinical assistant professor of management science and systems. “The key to reduce privacy violations like these will be to implement organizational procedures, constantly monitor, and develop educational and training programs that encourage HIPAA compliance.”

Sanders and Gaia collaborated on the study with School of Management alumni Xunyi Wang, MS ’16, PhD ’20, assistant professor of information systems in the Baylor University Hankamer School of Business; and Chul Woo Yoo, PhD ’14, associate professor of information technology and operations management in the Florida Atlantic University College of Business.

“Government agencies have invested more than $25 billion in new ventures over the last decade, but nobody has answered the question of whether these agencies fund the most promising applicants—despite how important it is to economic growth and prosperity.”

— Supradeep Dutta, assistant professor of operations management and strategy, on his research that found the federal government can effectively implement entrepreneurial programs and select the kind of startups that make a big impact. The study was published in Academy of Management Discoveries.