Mendoza mission awards 2019: Business research that contributes to the greater good

The University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business just announced its third annual Office of the Dean Research Mission Awards, which recognizes faculty research that contributes to the greater good in society. The award was inaugurated in 2017.

The awards are in keeping with Mendoza’s mission: “to build a premier Catholic business school that fosters academic excellence, professional effectiveness and personal accountability in a context that strives to be faithful to the ideals of community, human development and individual integrity.”

Winners include:

Accountancy professors Brad Badertscher, Jeff Burks and Peter Easton; “The Market Reaction to Bank Regulatory Filings,” published in The Review of Accounting Studies (2018). Every quarter U.S. banks release detailed financial reports called Call Reports. The researchers find that some investors trade on information in these reports, but they point out that many investors may be at a disadvantage because the report release process is relatively opaque. No readily accessible public notice is provided when a given report is released. The researchers found that more investors started to trade on information in the reports after their study received media coverage, providing evidence of a general lack of investor awareness.

Finance professor Paul Gao (with C. Dougal, W. J. Mayew, & C. A. Parsons); “What’s in a (School) Name? Racial Discrimination in Higher Education Bond Markets,” in press in The Journal of Financial Economics. Gao and co-authors examined the fact that Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) pay higher underwriting fees to issue tax-exempt bonds compared to similar non-HBCUs and the resulting implications. The study discovers implicit bias in the financial decisions by investment managers. This study was referenced in the House Financial Services Committee (of the United States Congress) on April 10, 2019.

IT, Analytics, and Operations (ITAO) professors Robert F. Easley and Hong Guo (with J. Krämer); “Research commentary—From Net Neutrality to Data Neutrality: A techno-economic framework and research agenda,” published in Information Systems Research (2018). Net Neutrality refers to whether a last-mile ISP can charge content providers, say Netflix, a fee to prioritize delivery to consumers, rather than treating all data neutrally. A potential negative effect of removing net neutrality is to raise barriers to entry for new content services, thus reducing innovation. Similarly, a search engine may prioritize some search results over others, or an app store to favor certain apps over others, forming a general class of data neutrality issues.

Management & Organization (M&O) Viva Bartkus (with former Mendoza colleague Emily Block); “Learning to Serve: Delivering Partner Value through Service Learning Projects,” in press in Academy of Management Learning & Education. Bartkus and her co-author consider both direct and indirect values for partner organizations based on a sample of 30 international service learning projects. The researchers discuss how partner readiness, project design and project execution are associated with the creation of direct value for partner organizations. The research contributes knowledge on how student service learning projects can contribute to common good and provides practical insights for instructors looking to improve service learning offerings.

A committee made up of the chairs from each of the College’s five academic departments — Accountancy; Finance; IT, Analytics, and Operations; Management & Organization; and Marketing — along with the associate dean for faculty and research, select research papers that advance the mission. The authors each receive nominal cash awards.

For more information about the Office of the Dean Mission Awards or the Mendoza Faculty Mission Project, contact Anne Tsui, adjunct distinguished professor of Management & Organization, at Anne.Tsui.7@nd.edu.