Buffalo Business

Number 31 • Spring 2014

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Insights...News about faculty and their research

Faculty growth key to success

An integral component of the School of Management's strategic plan is the expansion of its faculty. With the addition of eight new faculty members in fall 2013, the school marked the beginning of a plan to grow its faculty significantly-by 30 percent over the next three years.

"The growth of our faculty will be a key enabler of our success," says Arjang Assad, School of Management dean.

The new roster adds both depth and breadth to an already impressive lineup.

Juriaan de Jong, assistant professor of operations management and strategy, earned his doctorate at The Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business, and a master's from Eindhoven University of Technology in Eindhoven, Netherlands. His research interests are in health care supply chain management, remanufacturing and refurbishing, buyer-supplier relationships and outsourcing strategy. His teaching interests are operations management, supply chain management and statistics.

Supradeep Dutta, assistant professor of operations management and strategy, has a doctoral degree from Purdue University's Krannert School of Management, an MBA from the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, India, and a bachelor's from the Delhi College of Engineering in New Delhi, India. His research expertise is in entrepreneurial finance, innovation and behavioral economics. Teaching interests are strategy, entrepreneurship, innovation and new venture creation.

Feng (Jack) Jiang, assistant professor of finance and managerial economics, received his doctorate from the University of Iowa's Tippie College of Business, a master's in economics and mathematics from the University of Iowa, and a bachelor's in mathematics from Fudan University in China. Research interests include executive compensation, mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, network economics and behavioral finance. Teaching interests are investment management and corporate finance.

Timothy Maynes, assistant professor of organization and human resources, obtained his doctorate from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business, as well as a master's and bachelor's from Brigham Young University. The impact of proactivity on organizational and employee effectiveness and employee-driven innovation and change are among his research interests. Teaching interests include organizational behavior, leadership and organizational change.

Ramin Vandaie, assistant professor of operations management and strategy, received his doctorate from the University of Minnesota in addition to a master's and bachelor's degree from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran. Research interests are in the areas of innovation, alliances and firm capabilities. Teaching expertise is in business strategy and corporate strategy.

Gabby Wang, assistant professor of accounting and law, earned her doctorate from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business, as well as master's and bachelor's from Brigham Young University. Her research interests include financial disclosure quality, insider trading and financial reporting practices of distressed firms. Audit, financial accounting and financial statement analysis are among her teaching interests.

Phillip Wool, assistant professor of finance and managerial economics, has a doctorate in finance from the Anderson Graduate School of Management at the University of California at Los Angeles and a bachelor's in business administration (finance and accounting) from Washington University in St. Louis. Among his research interests are asset pricing, investments, market anomalies and prediction markets. Teaching interests include investments and behavioral finance.

Laura Amo, adjunct assistant professor of management science and systems, will earn her doctorate later this year from the University at Buffalo. She has a master's from UB and a bachelor's from Canisius College. The relationship between school leadership and organizational outcomes is one of her research interests, as well as the impact of educational policy on achievement and organizational outcomes. Teaching interests include introductory and advanced statistics for decision-making in business, multilevel statistical modeling, and research with large-scale databases.

Anderson receives teaching award

Muriel Anderson, adjunct associate professor in the School of Management, is the inaugural recipient of the Arjang A. Assad Excellence in Teaching Award.

The award, established with a personal endowment from Arjang A. Assad, dean of the School of Management, is designed to recognize, in perpetuity, the contributions of outstanding faculty in the school. It will be presented every other year, with preference given to an undergraduate professor who has demonstrated excellence in teaching and leadership and a passion for the profession. Recipients of the award will be chosen based on the recommendations of the school's teaching effectiveness committee.

According to the committee, Anderson consistently receives high evaluations while teaching the widest variety of undergraduate courses of any instructor in the School of Management. She teaches for the Accounting and Law Department and the Organization and Human Resources Department.

"Muriel has demonstrated sustained excellence in teaching over an extended period of time and in the face of a very heavy course load," says Assad. "We are delighted to present her with this well-deserved honor."

Rao to collaborate on antiphishing research

H. Raghav Rao, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Management Science and Systems at the School of Management, will collaborate to launch a research project to learn just how people fall victim to cyberphishing attacks and what tools can be used to protect them.

Phishing is the familiar scam in which Internet fraudsters send spam or pop-up messages aimed at drawing personal and financial information from unsuspecting victims. Once they acquire personal information, phishers can sometimes get into the victim's other online personal and business accounts as well.

Rao will partner with Arun Vishwanath, associate professor in the Department of Communication at UB, and other organizations, including the National Consumer League, in conducting the study. Funding is provided by a three-year $320,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.

PhD candidate lands position at Brookings Institution

Niam Yaraghi, a doctoral candidate in the school's Management Science and Systems Department, has accepted an offer to serve as a fellow at the prestigious Brookings Institution.

Brookings, a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C., is consistently ranked as the most influential, most quoted and most trusted think tank in the country. Its mission is to conduct high-quality, independent research and, based on that research, to provide innovative, practical recommendations that advance three broad goals: strengthen American democracy; foster the economic and social welfare, security and opportunity of all Americans; and secure a more open, safe, prosperous and cooperative international system.

Yaraghi visited Brookings in October for a day of extensive interviews. Less than a week later, he was offered the position and will begin his new role in July.

"They were very impressed with Niam's work on health care information technology and mentioned that his research on health information exchanges goes to the heart of current federal initiatives," says Ramaswamy Ramesh, professor and chair of Management Science and Systems. "His work, current and future, will likely be very influential in emerging and future health care IT policies."

Ramesh added that Brookings typically recruits its fellows from Ivy League institutions. "This is a source of tremendous pride to all of us in the school."

Ramesh, Rao appointed academic journal editors

Two faculty members in the School of Management have been appointed as editors of academic journals on information systems.

Ramaswamy Ramesh, professor and chair, Management Science and Systems Department, has been appointed as an area editor for INFORMS Journal on Computing for the area of knowledge and data management. The journal publishes leading academic contributions to the broad intersection of operations research and computing.

H. Raghav Rao, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor, Management Science and Systems Department, has been appointed as a senior editor for MIS Quarterly, which publishes research in the areas of management information systems and information technology.

"This is excellent news," says Dean Arjang Assad. "It's always an honor when prestigious academic journals tap our faculty to serve as editors."

Treadway named faculty affiliate to UB bullying center

Darren Treadway, associate professor of organization and human resources in the School of Management, has been named a faculty affiliate to UB's Alberti Center for Bullying Abuse Prevention.

As a faculty affiliate, Treadway will provide insight from his research on bullying, victimization and abusive supervision in the workplace, which has received international recognition.

"Obviously bullying is a reality in schools, but it is equally as prevalent and detrimental in the workplace," says Treadway. "I look forward to helping the Alberti Center in its mission to reduce bullying abuse throughout the community."

The Alberti Center was established in 2011 from the generosity of UB alumna Jean M. Alberti, PhD, a Chicago-based clinical and educational psychologist and former local elementary teacher, who in 2010 gave the UB Graduate School of Education the largest gift in its history.

The mission of the center is to reduce bullying abuse in schools and in the community by contributing knowledge and providing evidence-based tools to effectively change the language, attitudes and behaviors of educators, parents, students and society.

Corporate retail notes: a good investment for individuals?

Corporate retail notes are an attractive option for individual investors but generally provide lower returns than mainstream corporate bonds, according to a new study from the School of Management.

Recently published in the Journal of Fixed Income, the study says that individual investors face two important obstacles when investing in corporate bonds: availability and trading costs.

Retail notes, a debt security issued directly to individuals through brokers in small denominations, typically on a weekly basis, have proven to be a popular solution to these obstacles. The notes also trade over the counter; however, trading is very thin.

"Retail notes are designed for easy purchase by individual investors," says study co-author Joseph Ogden, professor of finance and managerial economics. "But they tend to be overpriced at the start, primarily because most are callable at par value with short deferment periods. That means the corporation you bought the note from can buy it back before it's fully mature, relatively soon after it was issued-and you lose out on interest."

The study analyzed the pricing and performance of 1,775 retail notes issued by industrial firms from 2005 to 2009, comparing their offering yields and prices, as well as returns, to benchmark indexes of mainstream corporate bonds matched on rating and maturity.

Results showed that yields on new callable retail notes do not typically contain a call premium, that average returns are lower for callable notes than for noncallable notes, and that the majority of callable notes are called shortly after the deferment period expires.

Ogden says there are a few reasons that the notes have been popular despite their low performance.

"Individual investors may be willing to accept lower yields and returns on new retail notes because they tend to be more readily available than mainstream bonds," says Ogden, "and because the notes allow investors to avoid the trading costs on mainstream corporate bonds, which is important in the current low interest rate environment.

"Additionally, some investors may place a high personal value on the 'death put' provision-an option included in all retail notes that allows the investor's estate to sell the bond back at par value if the investor dies."

Ogden collaborated on the study with Igor Kozhanov, financial economist in the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.