Mendoza announces recipients of annual mission-focused research awards

The University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business announced the latest recipients of the Mendoza Mission Research Awards. These annual awards recognize Mendoza research papers published in high-quality academic journals that exemplify the College’s imperative to “Grow the Good in Business” and advance the mission of the University.

This year, five papers were chosen from nominations submitted in all of Mendoza’s major research areas:

Robert Battalio, Professor of Finance

Do (Should) Brokers Route Limit Orders to Options Exchanges That Purchase Order Flow? (Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis)

The retail broker Robinhood was paid nearly $43 million from sending their customer orders to buy and sell options in March of 2023 to options exchanges. Forty percent of this revenue was generated from selling nonmarketable limit orders, which are orders seeking to buy (sell) options at prices that are no higher (no lower) than a prespecified limit price. In this paper, the researchers begin by showing that brokers route their nonmarketable limit orders to options exchanges that pay the most for customer orders. Next, they construct horse races between seemingly identical limit orders that are routed to options exchanges that differ in the amount that they pay brokers for customer limit orders. The research presents strong evidence that routing limit orders to options exchanges that pay the most for orders results in diminished investor experiences.

John Costello, Assistant Professor of Marketing

Why Are Donors More Generous with Time than Money? The Role of Perceived Control over Donations on Charitable Giving (Journal of Consumer Research).

Donations of both time and money are key to the success of charities and other nonprofit organizations. Although these organizations typically favor receiving gifts of money, past research has found that holding all else equal, donors’ preferences are typically just the opposite. In this paper, Costello identifies a previously unexplored difference between time and money that explains this preference. Specifically, he demonstrates that potential donors feel more personal control over their time (versus money) donations, leading to greater interest in donating and donation amount. Across seven experimental studies, the researcher leverages his conceptual framework to develop and test several interventions that nonprofit organizations can use to more effectively generate donations of time and money.

Mike Crant, Mary Jo and Richard M. Kovacevich Professor of Excellence in Leadership Instruction in Management & Organization

When there is a will there is a way: The role of proactive personality in combating COVID-19 (Journal of Applied Psychology).

This study offers the first examination of proactive personality in times of immediate response to a crisis — the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic at a hospital in Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. As the crisis unfolded, the research team collected real-time data from more than 400 doctors and nurses who had to shift from their previous specialties to respiratory medicine — an area for which they were untrained. Not everyone performed at the same level or dealt with the stress equally effectively. More proactive doctors and nurses were able to effectively redesign their jobs in a way that allowed them to capitalize on their personal strengths. That, in turn, led to higher job performance and greater well-being in terms of greater resilience and thriving, and less insomnia. These findings demonstrate conditions where individuals can flourish rather than wilt when facing a new and challenging situation, and thus shed light on Growing the Good in Business. Proactivity is a valuable resource in dealing with the stress associated with a crisis.

Andy Imdieke, Assistant Professor of Accountancy

The Distraction Effect of Non-audit Services on Audit Quality (Journal of Accounting and Economics)

In recent years, audit firms have seen substantial growth in their non-audit services (NAS) revenue for non-audit clients.  This has led to regulatory concerns that an emphasis on non-audit services (NAS) could distract from the audit function. Motivated by regulator concerns that recent rapid NAS growth could impair audit quality, this study examines whether a greater emphasis on providing NAS to audit clients generally (i.e., not to a specific client) can distract from the audit function. This study finds evidence of an NAS distraction effect, where a greater emphasis on NAS at the audit office-level results in more client financial statement restatements. Further, the association exists among clients that purchase minimal NAS, suggesting that this association relates to distraction effects in addition to independence issues examined in prior research. Specifically, the study finds that a reduction in audit quality starts to occur when an audit office receives approximately one-quarter of its total fees from NAS.  This study should be of interest to audit firms, audit committees, and regulators because it provides new evidence regarding issues related to a business model that includes both audit and non-audit services.

Yang Yang, Assistant Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations

Gender-diverse teams produce more novel and higher-impact scientific ideas (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
Gender diversity plays an important role in the workplace, and this study examining 6.6 million medical papers supports that in the realm of scientific research. In particular, the publications of gender-diverse teams are more novel and impactful than those of same-gender teams of equivalent size. These patterns generalize across different medical subfields. In addition, the novelty and impact advantages persist when considering numerous controls and potentially related features, including fixed effects for individual researchers, team structures and network positioning. Notwithstanding these benefits, gender-diverse teams remain underrepresented. Future research should examine the underlying mechanisms and how those mechanisms translate into actionable practices and policy.

The Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame is a premier Catholic business school whose mission is to develop leaders who contribute to human flourishing, cooperate with others in solidarity and compete toward becoming the best version of themselves through serving others. A leader in values-based education with the imperative to Grow the Good in Business, the College offers an academic experience that integrates experiential learning, integral leadership development and a community of mutual advancement.

Mendoza degree programs include top-ranked Undergraduate Studies, which offers five majors – accountancy, finance, business analytics, management consulting and marketing. The College also offers doctoral programs in management and analytics; 11 graduate degree programs and several dual-degree graduate programs. Mendoza.nd.edu.