The COVID-19 stay-at-home orders have created a dependence on the use of videoconference platforms and telepresence. We spoke to Professor Amit Basu, who conducted an empirical study on the effectiveness of such technologies, for his insights.
In his paper “An Empirical Study of the Effectiveness of Telepresence as a Business Meeting Mode,” Information Technology and Management Journal, 2016, Professor Amit Basu reported on a large-scale empirical study of the use of various virtual meeting technologies in business meetings.
Over the last several decades, consolidation in the banking industry has created larger banks, according to new research by SMU Cox Finance Professor Erik Mayer, leading to some negative effects for low-income households.
In ambitious research, SMU Cox Accounting Professor Sean Wang and his co-authors develop a new way to measure intangible assets that has been lacking for decades.
In a new study, strategy professors Julian Kolev and Wendy Bradley analyze the link between digital piracy and innovation for technology firms in the software business.
Mystery and speculation shrouds short sellers, also known as the “smart money.” Who are they? Where do they trade and why? In new research, Finance Professor Mehrdad Samadi of SMU Cox and co-authors provide the first evidence of short sellers, or informed traders, trading venue of choice.
Vast amounts of knowledge are at our fingertips owing to the Internet. As we continually immerse ourselves in the online world of information, what are the cognitive effects of it? This fundamental question is on the mind of Marketing Professor Matthew Fisher of SMU Cox in new research about Internet learning and its consequences. According to Fisher, little research about the subject has occurred to date in understanding this phenomenon.
The mobile channel is poised to be the future of online markets, according to ITOM Professor Tom Tan of SMU Cox. And, retail operations managers should not blindly treat the mobile channel like the conventional PC channel. In a working paper, Tan and co-author Nitish Jain make important contributions to innovative retail practices and operational decisions.
Cross-border venture capital investments play an important role in the scaling up of high growth companies, according to Strategy Professor Wendy Bradley. Foreign capital, expertise, and the networks that accompany cross-border investments are welcome by start-up ventures. However, a concern is that they transfer the majority of economic activity to the investor country. In new research, Bradley of SMU Cox and her co-authors examine cross-border venture capital (VC) investments and its implications for public policy. “There is a need for cross-border investments and partnerships for the advancement of science and economic growth,” says Bradley.
Firms with strong corporate governance are like democracies, according to Finance Professor Nickolay Gantchev. Through their proposals and votes, shareholders can determine the broad direction of a company. In new research, Nickolay Gantchev of SMU Cox and Mariassunta Giannetti study the effectiveness of this low-cost form of shareholder activism. “Like a democracy, if you have more informed shareholders, when they vote, they can figure out which are good proposals, and prevent the bad ones from passing,” says Gantchev.
SMU Cox launches Supply-Chain and Operations Management concentration for MBA students.
As part of an ongoing series designed to promote our academic departments, publications like the one attached will highlight our programs’ star students, faculty, alumni, research and supporters.
For more than three years, ambiguous wording in the Texas Penal Code led to inconsistent treatment of black and white arrestees for low-value shoplifting, according to a new study by a professor at Southern Methodist University.
SMU Cox Marketing Professor Chaoqun Chen analyzes how consumers shop around various retail formats and how their behavior changed during the Great Recession. Her findings uncover truths about how consumers from different income levels adjusted to a new normal in their weekly treks.
Just when “simple" worries about the economy and the elections were on our minds, a new source of risk to the financial system emerges…
What if clinical trials could be conducted faster, required fewer patients, cost less, and led to improved health? "Our approach is good for patients, companies, and the public health at large, which would come from needed drugs being on the market sooner," states Vishal Ahuja, ITOM professor at SMU Cox.
At a time when capital has never been more mobile and available, financial protectionism is on the rise. The costs of these economic nationalistic policies are little known however. In new research, SMU Cox Finance Professor Miller and co-authors reveal the important consequences of government-related incursions in deals between foreign and domestic companies and the resulting decline in shareholder value for a wide range of industries.
The new scarce resource is attention, notes Marketing Professor Milica Mormann of SMU Cox. "We live in an attention economy, and our attention is limited." Through a multi-disciplinary approach, Mormann and co-author Cary Frydman reveal how attention is operating to influence economic choices in their novel research. "Attention is the step that leads a manager or consumer toward an action," she states. "We know we have about eight seconds to deliver a message on social media, in a TV ad, or for an investing decision or health care choice. But we do not know exactly how attention operates, in spite of the industry performing studies to gauge attention."
When it comes to corporate governance, hedge funds are the new sheriffs in town. That’s the take-away of “Do Activists Turn Bad Bidders into Good Acquirers?” Associate Professor of Finance Nickolay Gantchev and his co-authors reveal new insights about the mergers and acquisitions strategy of firms that shareholder activists target.
Getting inside the mind of the chief executive officer is a difficult research avenue. Knowledge about how CEOs process information, their cognitive style, has been relatively sparse. Strategy Professor Daniel Zyung of SMU Cox and co-authors unpack the cognitive mechanisms of CEOs in new research — and reveal how and why it matters. "Basically, this is a study about CEOs’ information processing style," Zyung says, "with many important implications, including their firm’s growth strategies."
The emergence of U.S. shale oil has expanded the global supply of oil. New research notes that the long-run impact of shale oil will depend on how much can be produced and how much it will cost. Few have good answers. In recent research, finance professor and energy expert James Smith of SMU Cox with co-author Thomas Lee determine what portion of known shale resources are economically viable at various price points and how many wells are likely to be drilled. So far, only a small portion of drilling sites have factored into the shale oil boom, according to Smith, and we have only depleted a fraction of U.S. shale resources.
The U.S. healthcare system is the most expensive system in the world. Identifying ways to lower costs and have better health outcomes is a primary goal for health care managers and providers, policymakers and consumers. In new research, ITOM Professor Vishal Ahuja of SMU Cox and co-authors show that better continuity of care lowers costs and wasted effort, reduces time to see specialists, and produces significant savings in hospital system resources. They identify how "gatekeepers" are key to a more optimal and healthier system.
As policymakers around the globe continue to debate options to incentivize retirement savings, new research uncovers some game-changing facts. The two main competing options consist of traditional tax-deferred savings vehicles like 401(k)s and IRAs, in which savers contribute pretax money and pay tax on withdrawals, or Roth-type plans, whereby savers pay taxes first and withdraw funds tax-free upon retirement. Which type of scheme is better depends on which side of the table one sits. In their paper, SMU Cox Finance Professor Mattia Landoni and co-author Zeldes discover that under a Roth-type regimen, government fares better, largely because of the investment fees that government implicitly pays in traditional tax-deferred accoun
Regulators of financial markets, including the Federal Reserve Bank and the Securities and Exchange Commission, worry about a liquidity crisis in the corporate bond market. The financial market crisis of 2008-2009 involved domino-like liquidity shocks and regulators wish to steer clear of them if they can help it. In new research, SMU Cox Finance Professors Venkataraman and Jotikasthira show that some bond mutual funds are filling the role of a liquidity supplier, alongside a decline in dealer participation in market-making activities.
Today, many crowd-sourced investment research venues and platforms co-exist on the Internet, with new competitors continuing to arrive on the scene. These new entrants are becoming a source of information for investors and capital markets that rival the incumbent sell-side analyst research model. Technological innovation is making it so, along with smart entrepreneurs identifying market opportunities. In new research, SMU Cox Accounting Professor Stanimir Markov and co-authors examine how this increased competition is shaking up the status quo.
The findings will help inform policymakers’ rulemaking to prevent future crashes and better design market structures.
The use of big data in the health care industry, the largest sector of the economy, offers many benefits for the overall economy, businesses, and the health and well-being of people. In a first-of-its-kind study, SMU Cox ITOM Professor Vishal Ahuja and co-authors show how the use of data can validate life-changing health care findings. Additionally, this new approach using big data demonstrates how regulatory agencies can advance their governance missions by monitoring public safety with more robust, real-time analytical methods.
With literally troves of corporate information available online for analysts to sift through, how can firms differentiate their message and convey complex, meaningful information to those who need it? The increasing number of analyst days, a long-form presentation by publicly-listed companies, indicate a trend toward a greater demand for face time with management. In novel research, Accounting Professor Stan Markov of SMU Cox and co-author Marcus Kirk study analyst/investor days as a disclosure medium that large firms with complex operations use to deepen stakeholders' understanding about the firm's outlook and valuation.
Are people hard-wired to reach agreement, even when a deal is less than optimal or below a bottom line? According to new research by Management Professor Robin Pinkley and co-authors, as if force of habit, when faced with an offer people are reaching agreements and sealing deals when not agreeing might be a more rational choice. This phenomenon is based on the tendency of people being averse to impasse and attracted to agreement.
The oil and gas industry has received a bad wrap about drilling for shale gas. Since late 2008, when prices collapsed owing to demand destruction from the economic crisis and an abundance of supply, prices of natural gas have remained low. From an all-time high of $14 per mcf (thousand cubic foot) they have fallen to under $3 today. Critics have charged that too many gas wells have been drilled given the low prices, and that the gas boom is unsustainable. SMU Cox Finance Professor James Smith's new research says the facts do not support that claim.
The conventional method used by the oil and gas industry to report on upstream operations and results distorts profitability and valuations. Industry practice is to use "barrels of oil equivalent" or BOE— a measure that combines oil and gas volumes based on thermal parity, or the energy content of the source. Research by Finance Professor James Smith, the Maguire Chair of Oil and Gas Management, shows why and how the BOE convention has overstated the cost of adding reserves, the principal asset held by these firms. This comes at a time when the industry can scarcely afford miscalculations to their detriment.
Companies buy back stocks for a variety of reasons. One rationale is a key motive for a new study: Managers of undervalued firms use stock repurchases as a mechanism to signal firm value. Curiously, Finance Professor Stacey Jacobsen of SMU Cox and co-author Utpal Bhattacharya find a large number of firms announce share repurchases but do not actually follow through with the buyback. The stock market tends to view repurchase announcements as good news, according to its reaction.
In the U.S., shareholder voting and activism is increasingly used to influence firm policy. New research by SMU Cox Finance Chair Darius Miller and co-authors suggests that shareholder voting can be an effective governance mechanism in countries outside the U.S. "This is important," says Miller, "since in many countries outside the U.S., the need for governance is greatest." The authors set out to test shareholder activism in global markets in a first-of-its-kind, large-scale study. Prior to this paper, there was not any evidence on whether shareholder voting in other countries was effective or not.