Our Approach

Faculty Publications

Kiyatkin, Reger, Baum

“The Purpose of Business: Corporations Are More Progressive than U.S. Business Schools”

Working paper presented at three conferences. Selected for inclusion in the poster session and Virtual Global Forum at the 2009 Global Forum for Business as an Agent of World Benefit: “Manage by Designing in an Era of Massive Innovation,” to be held June 2-5, 2009, in Cleveland.

We examine how leading corporations and U.S. business schools are differently characterizing the purpose of business on their organizational websites.  We find support for our hypotheses that U.S. business schools lag behind corporations in the degree to which they both express attention to social issues and the degree to which they frame social issues as salient to the purpose of business.  Next, we look to stakeholder theory, resource dependency theory, and a reputation perspective to develop propositions as to why corporations are leading U.S. business schools in this arena.  Finally, we discuss what needs to change in order for U.S. business schools to assume their proper role as thought leaders for social progress.

Vojislav Maksimovic

“How Well Do Institutional Theories Explain Firms’ Perceptions of Property Rights?”

Review of Financial Studies, 2008, 1831-1871

How do firms in different countries perceive the protection of property rights? The author examines the effect on institutions and the legal system, as well as the effect of ethnic differences on property rights.

“Financing Patterns Around the World: The Role of Institutions,”

Journal of Financial Economics, 2008, 467-487

Is small firms access to capital different than large firms, especially in developing countries? Do institutions matter?

Russell Halper & S. Raghavan

"Efficient Utilization of Mobile Facilities in Humanitarian Logistics"

The management of humanitarian relief is increasingly complex. Relief requests are diverse and varied. They occur across different sectors including: educational activities, health, disaster relief, refugee assistance, poverty eradication, etc.  Furthermore, relief agencies are under increasing pressure to manage their resources efficiently while maximizing the amount of services provided. In that sense it behooves international agencies to try to maximize their efficiencies in the process of delivering aid. Mobile facilities are often used to meet this goal.  It is common in remote areas, areas where the availability of relief personal is scarce, or areas where local infrastructure has been disabled after a disaster to use mobile facilities to provide services to a large geographical area.

In this problem we consider relief or aid that is provided via multiple mobile facilities. These mobile facilities could be mobile clinics (e.g., on immunization drives, or performing free health check-ups), mobile communication facilities (e.g. portable cellular base stations), mobile schools, or mobile warehouses. In this setting there is spatial and temporal demand. The mobile facilities can provide service while stationary, but not while traveling. The mobile facilities have a certain capacity, and can only provide aid at a specified rate. The logistics problem is then to determine the best strategies to route these mobile facilities to maximize service to the affected population. In particular, routing determines both the movement of these mobile relief facilities, and the duration of time for which they should remain stationed at the various locations on their route. Whilst this problem is simple to state, it turns out to be extremely challenging.  Our research develops algorithms for the efficient routing and utilization of mobile facilities. 

Lemma Senbet

"Bank Incentives, Economic Specialization, and Financial in Emerging Economies"

Journal of International Money and Finance, 27 (5), Sept 2008, pp. 707-732

The author models the vulnerability of an economy to a financial crisis as arising from the interaction of the degree of economic specialization and bank debt financing. The probability of a financial crisis is shown to increase in the degree of economic specialization. Bank debt financing has the beneficial effect of lowering the degree of economic specialization by increasing access to financing of investment opportunities that would not have been financed due to wealth constraints of entrepreneurs (financial access effect). However, bank debt financing induces risk-shifting incentives (leverage effect). The net effect on the probability of a financial crisis depends on which of these two effects dominates.

Robert M. Sheehan

"Mission Gap: The Missing Driver for Nonprofit Strategy"

The question of how to appropriately and effectively apply traditional for profit concepts of strategy to nonprofit organizations continues to be addressed by researchers and theoreticians. This paper looks at the differing purposes of for profits and nonprofits, and the implications of those differences for strategy development. The concept of “mission gap” is offered as a tool for translating notions of competitive strategy into the nonprofit environment.

David M. Waguespack

“Technological development and political stability: Patenting in Latin America and the Caribbean”

Research Policy, 34(10): 1570-1590

The author examines the effect of national political institutions on patent application rates. The expected future value of a patent, like any other form of property, depends at least partially on certainty about the future. In circumstances where policy stability is greatest, and hence political uncertainty least, one should expect more aggressive pursuit of intellectual property rights. The author tests these ideas using a 27-year panel of Latin American and Caribbean nations, estimating US patent applications and domestic patent applications by local inventors for each observation, and holding other economic and technological inputs to innovation constant. His principal finding is that political stability matters to patenting.

Susan White

"Sulfur Dioxide Allowances: The Price of Pollution"

Journal of Financial Education, Vol. 31, Winter 2005, pages 118-125

Louiqa Raschid

"Sahana: Overview of a Disaster Management System"

Proceedings of the International Conference on Information and Automation, December 15-17, 2006, Colombo, Sri Lanka

Ioannis Gamvros, Richard Nidel & S. Raghavan

"Investment Analysis and Budget Allocation at Catholic Relief Services"

Interfaces, Vol. 36, No. 5, September–October 2006, pp. 400–406

Catholic Relief Services, a not-for-profit agency that funds development programs and humanitarian relief efforts throughout the world, faces a challenging budget-allocation problem annually. The authors developed a mathematical model and a spreadsheet tool that allocates available funds based on the impact these investments will have in different countries. The model ensures a fair allocation to countries in need that is consistent with the agency’s priorities and is simple enough for managers to understand. The agency is using the tool to plan its spending and considers it a success that has greatly improved the planning process.

Kiyatkin, L. & Baum, J.R.

"Employee Health: A Value Creating Organizational Resource"

Presented at the 2009 Academy of Management Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, August 2009

We draw upon the resource-based view and past research on health promotion and health care cost management to examine the implications of employee health and its underlying components as organizational level constructs.  We develop a model that explains the process by which the components (health motivation, health risk, and healthy behaviors) impact organizational outcomes.  We employ structural equation modeling to test this model on a dataset regarding 152 organizational level medical cost and productivity outcomes.  Findings indicate that health motivation, low health risk, and healthy behaviors are interdependent organizational resources that promote sustainable competitive advantage.  Health motivation is a means of building overall employee health to be an important organizational resource.  Based on these findings, we argue that minimalistic cost management approaches to employee health are unwise from both organizational social and financial performance perspectives.  As such, employee healthcare may be ‘strategic’ social performance.  Implications and areas for future research are discussed.

"Performance Implications of Employees' Healthy Behaviors"

In preparation for journal submission

We draw upon the resource-based view and past research on health promotion and health care cost management to develop a model that explains how two distinct categories of employees’ healthy behaviors – ‘healthy consumption’ and ‘physical/mental fitness’ importantly and uniquely impact organizations’ medical costs and productivity.  We employ structural equation modeling to test these relationships on a dataset of 149 organizations.  We find that employees’ healthy consumption behaviors have a strong impact on costs and physical/mental fitness behaviors promote productivity.  Implications and areas for future research are discussed.