Research

Research @ Mason Archive

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Information Technology		 Organizational Behavior Business Law

Professor Denise Jones

Are R&D Intensive Firms Willing to Share Potentially Proprietary Information?
R&D intensive companies, such as pharmaceutical companies, operate in highly competitive environments and, therefore, you would expect that managers of these types of companies would disclose very little information about their operations. This could potentially harm investors and creditors ability to value these types of companies. In fact, one factor contributing to the "stock market bubble" is investors overestimating the future profitability of high technology firms. In addition, research has shown that analysts and other market participants often have difficulty predicting how R&D activities will benefit a company in the future.
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Denise Jones' Faculty Profile

 

jim irving
 

 

Are All Material Weakness Disclosures Created Equal?

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act imposed numerous regulatory conditions on publicly-traded companies, not the least of which was mandating periodic reporting on internal controls.  Companies discovering deficiencies in their internal control systems must highlight these imperfections in their periodic public filings.

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Professor Gjergji Cici
 
Professor Scott Gibson		 Does Motivation Matter When Assessing Trade Performance? An Analysis of Mutual Funds
Managers of actively-managed open-end mutual funds buy and sell stocks for different reasons. Chief among their motivations is to generate trading profits based on valuation beliefs. However, the structure of open-end funds also leads them to trade for other reasons. In particular, unanticipated investor flows force managers to continually rebalance their portfolios in order to control liquidity. Professors Gjergji Cici and Scott Gibson, working with Gordon Alexander, examine how the performance of mutual fund trades is related to their motivation.
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Gjergji Cici's Faculty Profile
Scott Gibson's Faculty Profile

 
 Do Firms that Manage Mutual Funds Side-by-Side Hedge Funds Show Favoritism?
Delegated portfolio management firms have a fiduciary duty to treat each investor equitably. This fiduciary duty is put to the test, however, when management firms can benefit by transferring performance from one group of investors to another. Conflicts of interest involving performance transfers across investors have recently attracted increased attention, particularly since the mutual fund scandals broke in 2003. Professors Gjergji Cici and Scott Gibson, working with Rabih Moussawi, examine a setting in which structural differences in fees create conflicts of interest: firms that engage in the simultaneous, or "side-by-side", management of mutual funds and hedge funds. In contrast to mutual funds that charge fees based on a fixed percentage of assets under management, hedge funds typically levy additional performance-based fees equal to 20% or more of realized capital gains and capital appreciation. The resulting incentives for management firms to strategically transfer performance to hedge funds from mutual funds has come under scrutiny by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which has expressed concern about the welfare of mutual fund investors in side-by-side arrangements with hedge funds.
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Gjergji Cici's Faculty Profile
Scott Gibson's Faculty Profile

 

Vlad Atanasov
 

Is there shareholder expropriation in the U.S.? An analysis of publicly traded subsidiaries
The value of controlling shareholders has been widely debated.  On the one hand, a large shareholder can help ameliorate the standard owner-manager agency problem by providing valuable monitoring activities.  On the other hand, controlling shareholders can extract private benefits at the expense of minority (non-controlling) shareholders.  Whether the existence of a controlling shareholder increases or reduces firm value has been the subject of many studies and remains an open question.

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Vladimir Atanasov's Faculty Profile


 

Managing the Skies: Public Policy, Organization and Financing of Air Navigation

(forthcoming January 2008 by Ashgate Publishing, UK)

With the forecast growth in air traffic, the air navigation service providers (ANSPs) throughout the world face challenges of handling an increasing number of flights in a safe and efficient manner.  Within the airspace they control, there also are an increasing number of international flights which will require them to interact more frequently with other ANSPs.  The natural question that emerges is whether there are some approaches to organizing, funding, and operating ANSPs that are more effective and better suited to these challenges than others. 

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John Strong's Faculty Profile


Professor Scott Swan
 Design Orientation: Measurement, Antecedents, and Outcomes
One of the more actively studied topics in the marketing and strategy literatures over the past twenty years has been that of a firm’s strategic orientation. We suggest that past strategic orientation work has not effectively captured the essence of companies such as Apple, Bang & Olufsen, or Dyson which are driven by products that are not always derived from an assessment of consumer preferences, i.e., market orientation, or from research leading to technological innovations, i.e., product orientation. As an alternative to past perspectives, we explore the value of Design Orientation, as an innovative and cross-disciplinary approach to satisfying customers.
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Nicole Montgomery

The Effects of Imagery, False Memory, and Experience on Attitude Strength The effects of imagery on persuasion have been widely examined in the consumer behavior literature. Much of this research demonstrates that vivid (i.e., imagery-evoking) information more heavily influences memory, attitudes and behaviors than does pallid (non-imagery-evoking) information. While research on imagery has focused on some consequences of imagery-evoking information, two key variables that have been little considered in the marketing literature on imagery are the creation of false memories and attitude strength. A false memory may consist of a mistaken belief that a fictitious event occurred (e.g., being lost in a mall as a child) or a distortion of an event that actually did occur (e.g., meeting Bugs Bunny at Disneyland instead of Mickey Mouse). Our research focuses on the former (i.e., the creation of an event in memory). Recent research in psychology has suggested that imagery can lead to the development of false memories. Thus, imagery can make respondents incorrectly believe that an event was actually experienced by them.
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Nicole Montgomery's Faculty Profile


How intrusive are online ads? Do online ads lead users to not return to the site hosting the ads?
Are some forms of online ads more intrusive than others? Does it make a difference if the ads are not related to the subject matter of the site? Do online ads interfere with users’ ability to remember site content? Which types of ads provide the most interference? These are just some of the research questions driving a recent project undertaken by Scott McCoy at the Mason School of Business, and his colleagues, Andrea Everard from the University of Delaware, Peter Polak from the University of Miami, and Dennis Galletta from the University of Pittsburgh.
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Professor Chon Abraham
 Mobile Information Communication Technologies and Healthcare
An increasing number of hospitals are responding by implementing mobile computer systems to resolve problems resulting from antiquated manual methods of documenting information regarding patient care. Such systems can help reduce caregiver error, streamline convoluted processes and ease hospital staff workloads by providing ready access to current, comprehensive patient information. At the same time, mobile units — which interface with a central medical database — enable hospital staff to record test results, diagnoses, medications and treatments quickly and easily as they are providing care. In contrast, caretakers typically have been required to handwrite notes quickly or enter information into a computer later on, both error-prone and labor-intensive procedures.
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Chon Abraham's Faculty Profile

Information technology investments and not-for-profit firm value:
A Tobin’s q assessment in healthcare
The continued interest in assessing the role of information technology (IT) in a firm's performance is evident by the increasing number of published studies and discussion in the trade press. By understanding the impact of IT investment, firms can make better decisions about how IT affects performance as well as how it contributes to the future value of the firm. Selecting and investing in IT can be vital in sustaining corporate viability and prosperity and can lead to increased value of the firm as reflected in their stock price.
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Rajiv Kohli's Faculty Profile

 

Jeanne Wilson2

Is it harder to develop trust in virtual teams? Does trust develop differently if teams meet face-to-face before working virtually?
Virtual teams are now used by over 90% of Fortune 500 firms. These teams have become prevalent but are often poorly understood and managed. Professor Jeanne Wilson’s research examines the dynamics of virtual team performance over time. Several of her studies focus on trust because it has been identified as one of the most critical issues in virtual groups. Although trust is critical to the functioning of all groups because it enables open communication, effective problem-solving and group learning, the conventional wisdom is that it is harder to develop trust when you can’t see your fellow team members (as is the case in virtual teams).
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Ned Waxman

Judicial Follies: Ignoring the Plain Meaning of Bankruptcy Code § 109(g)(2)”

Bankruptcy Code § 109(g)(2) is an eligibility provision that is intended to prevent debtors from abusing the bankruptcy laws by filing repetitive petitions. It provides that an individual (or family farmer) who has been a debtor in a bankruptcy case in the preceding 180 days is ineligible for bankruptcy relief if he requested and obtained a voluntary dismissal of his case following the filing of a request for relief from the automatic stay.
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Ned Waxman's Faculty Profile