NewsBites

Below is a summary of some of the school's citations in prominent national and regional media. These media placements enhance the school's national reputation and help to brand it as one of the nation's top business schools.

Sanjukta Das Smith, associate professor and chair of management science and systems, was interviewed by The Wall Street Journal for a story about whether cloud services from such providers as Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet need closer government scrutiny. “Looking at this issue from the consumer’s side, there is a related matter to consider, which is a lot more nebulous, and that is trust,” she said. “It may be in the interest of business to collaborate with the government in coming up with future regulations so that trust in such services doesn’t become too much of an obstacle and thus affect market success.”

Michael Dambra, associate professor of accounting and law, spoke to Slate for a story about the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit against Elon Musk relating to his purchase of Twitter stock. The buyer is supposed to disclose their holding within 10 calendar days of crossing the 5% threshold. “There’s always a concern by the SEC to have an equal playing field between what we think of as mom-and-pop investors and these big institutions,” he said. “These 5% positions would be of interest to people, because it could lead to a change in the firm, could lead to change in Twitter, or a potential acquisition of Twitter.”

Dambra also was quoted in a story in The Wall Street Journal about how special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) are missing their revenue and earnings targets. Dambra’s recent research found a correlation between ambitious forecasts and poor stock performance for SPACs. “The more aggressive your revenue is, the more likely you are to underperform,” he said. (See Insights)

Kate Bezrukova, associate professor of organization and human resources, was interviewed by The Economist for a special report on mental health in the workplace. “The U.S. has seen tremendous progress in legitimizing and acknowledging that mental health is a serious issue,” she said. “We are doing pretty well compared to a lot of countries, but there is much room for improvement.”

The Wall Street Journal also spoke with Feng Gu, professor and chair of accounting and law, for a story on trends in goodwill write-downs among U.S. companies. Gu said the pandemic, inflationary pressure and supply chain disruption would likely continue to play a significant role in companies’ goodwill impairments, whether in the U.S., Europe or elsewhere. “In this environment, everybody is affected,” he said.

New research by James Lemoine, associate professor of organization and human resources, was featured in Forbes. His study challenges the notion that extroverts have an advantage when it comes to being seen as leadership material. “People with superior communication skills have a leadership advantage,” he said. “But no, it’s not extroversion that’s important since extroverts aren’t necessarily any better at interpersonal communication than introverts or ambiverts.”

Charles Lindsey, associate professor of marketing, spoke with public radio’s Marketplace for a story about whether consumers expect discounts when inflation is running hot. Two opposing forces are pulling at consumers, according to Lindsey. “We have inflation, which causes consumers to typically be more price sensitive,” he said. “But we also have scarcity due to supply chain issues and what have you, which could cause us consumers to be a little less price sensitive.”

Fox News interviewed Robert Neubert, clinical assistant professor of entrepreneurship, about how rising fuel prices are impacting delivery businesses. “Some of the data shows that as much as 50% of the money that they were making has declined because of the cost of fuels,” he said.

Popular Science quoted Aditya Vedantam, assistant professor of operations management and strategy, in an article about the need to make plastic recycling less confusing. “Many U.S. states, including New York, are considering extended producer responsibility (EPR) laws for plastic packaging,” he said. “EPR laws shift the burden of recycling to the producers and away from the consumers. Clear labeling and source separation of plastics can ensure that hard-to-recycle plastics are sorted out before they reach the material recovery facilities.”

Vedantam also was quoted by Insider in a story about how retailers are jumping on the resale bandwagon now that secondhand clothes are cool—and profitable. “The secondhand market was always looked at as competition to them, potentially cannibalizing their new sales,” he said. “Most of these brands are now starting to understand the value in selling refurbished or semi-refurbished apparel.”

The Buffalo News quoted Larry Zielinski, executive in residence for health care administration, in a report on the expansion of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center’s affiliate network through partnerships with community practices and organizations. “They’re a community jewel,” he said. “But in order to sustain themselves, especially how expensive those research arms are, they need a business strategy like this. The greater Western New York region with its 1 million or so population base is not large enough to support a cancer center like this, so they need to expand.”