KU School of Business research highlights of 2018–19 academic year
Below is a selection of some of the prominent research by KU School of Business faculty from the 2018–19 academic year:
Jill Ellingson is the co-author of a new study titled “Political Affiliation and Employment Screening Decisions: The Role of Similarity and Identification Processes” published in the Journal of Applied Psychology. The study found that identification or non-identification with an applicant’s political party influences the hiring process. “Your political affiliation matters,” said Ellingson, a professor of human resource management and Dana Anderson Research Fellow at the School of Business. “The changing political landscape that characterizes our country now — compared to the United States maybe 10 or 15 years ago — has shifted such that we see a conversation around politics that is more adversarial and divisive. And its characterized by a more negative effect,” she said.
In his article, “The Real and Social Effects of Online Lending,” William Bazley, assistant professor of finance, examines the peer-to-peer lending industry by analyzing data that reveals why this modern method of borrowing is proliferating. “It originally developed with households that are seeking unsecured loans being financed by other households. That’s all it is: crowdsourcing consumer loans,” said Bazley. The professor recently won the award for Best Paper on FinTech at the Northern Finance Association conference in Vancouver.
Jide Wintoki, associate professor of finance, co-authored a paper that finds mutual fund managers tend to favor the stocks of companies whose executives share their political leanings. Wintoki and his co-author, Yaoyi Xi, found that both Republican and Democratic fund managers tend to weigh their portfolios with stocks run by those who align with them politically at a rate between 4 and 7 percent greater than would otherwise be expected. “Partisan Bias in Fund Portfolios” was published in the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis.
A paper co-written by Clint Chadwick, professor of strategy and human resources management, examined one reason that businesses are reluctant to use human capital, or workforce data, in their decisions: Capital markets tend not to reward businesses for workforce excellence. “Investor perspectives on workforce data” was published by the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development, or CIPD, in London.
Associate professor of finance and Dean’s Fellow Gjergji Cici co-wrote a study that found noncompete clauses do in fact influence how employees behave, and that behavior is to the benefit of employers. The study focuses on employees in the mutual fund industry who are required to sign noncompete clauses. Cici presented the study at the American Finance Association meeting in Atlanta.
Another study led by Cici found that when mutual fund managers are armed with expertise from previous careers outside the financial sector, they can use that information to generate an investment advantage. In the firms they studied, researchers found evidence of an adjusted 5 percent return per year over competition. This advantage was limited to when experienced managers picked stocks in sectors of their specialty, not when they picked stocks in other sectors. “The Investment Value of Fund Managers’ Experience Outside the Financial Sector” appeared in the October 2018 issue of the Review of Financial Studies.
Conventional wisdom deems that firms investing in research and development, or R&D, activities in countries lacking strong intellectual property rights protection are exposing themselves to unnecessary risk. According to recent research from Minyoung Kim, assistant professor of strategic management and international business, when firms operate at the regional level in their downstream commercialization activities, the complementarity between their upstream R&D activities and the downstream commercialization activities can assist in the protection of the firm’s upstream R&D activities. “Fearlessly Swimming Upstream to Risky Waters: The Role of Geographic Entry in Innovation” was published in the Journal of Management Studies.
Instead of a simple reflection of wins and losses, the ability of NBA coaches to keep their jobs is also tied to corporate world concepts like accumulating power and managing expectations, according to a study by Vincent Barker, Edmund P. Learned Professor of Business Administration and professor of strategic management, and two KU alumni. “Power, performance, and expectations in the dismissal of NBA coaches: A survival analysis study” was published in Sport Management Review, one of the top journals in the field, in August 2018.
By Meaghan Boyd
