The study identifies the world’s leading researchers and encompasses standardized data on citations, h-index, and a wide range of bibliometric indicators. Researchers are classified into 22 scientific fields and 174 sub-fields, drawing from Scopus data provided by Elsevier through ICSR Lab.

“Our faculty are more than educators – they are pioneering thought leaders shaping industries and redefining the future of business,” shared Gareth James, John H. Harland Dean of Goizueta Business School. “They tackle today’s most pressing challenges and uncover tomorrow’s greatest opportunities, driving positive impact throughout industry and the world.”

Introducing the World’s Top 2% Scientists

EmoryBusiness.com is proud to recognize these distinguished Goizueta faculty members among the top two percent of scholars in the world:

• Anandhi Bharadwaj, Goizueta Endowed Chair in Electronic Commerce and Professor of Information Systems & Operations Management

• Tarun Chordia, R. Howard Dobbs, Jr. Chaired Professor of Finance

• Ilia Dichev, Goizueta Foundation Chair in Financial Reporting, Professor of Accounting, and Director and Associate Dean of PhD Program

• Gareth James, John H. Harland Dean of Goizueta Business School and Professor of Information Systems & Operations Management

• Sandy Jap, Sarah Beth Brown Professor of Marketing

• Narasimhan Jegadeesh, Dean’s Distinguished Chair of Finance

• Wei Jiang, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Finance and Vice Dean for Faculty and Research

• Jay Shanken, Professor Emeritus (2024) in Finance

• Jagdish Sheth, Charles H. Kellstadt Chaired Professor of Business

Insights from Goizueta’s Distinguished Faculty

As leaders in their respective fields, our distinguished faculty members bring a wealth of knowledge, experience, and passion to Goizueta. Their journeys to academic excellence and global recognition are a testament to the school’s impact on both personal and professional growth.

EmoryBusiness.com connected with these professors to discuss their motivations, experiences, and the pivotal moments that have shaped their success.

Anandhi Bharadwaj

Q: What inspired you to choose Goizueta?

A: When I joined Emory in 1994, the business school was not yet named Goizueta—it was simply Emory Business School. At that time, Professor Benn Konsynski was the only other faculty member in my field, Information Systems, and it was his invitation and vision that initially drew me here. Professor Konsynski’s forward-thinking perspective on digital technology and its transformative role in the business world deeply resonated with me. His guiding vision not only inspired me to join the school but also fostered an environment that has kept me motivated to contribute to Goizueta’s growth and evolution over the years. The school’s commitment to innovation and excellence has only solidified my decision to remain a part of this vibrant community.

Q: How did Goizueta support your journey to becoming part of the top 2% of scholars worldwide?

A: Goizueta has been an incredible source of support throughout my academic career, providing both tangible and intangible resources that have significantly contributed to my success. On a tangible level, the school’s commitment to fostering a research-driven ecosystem has been invaluable—offering resources such as summer salary support, access to specialized databases, funding for conference travel, and more. On an intangible level, the vibrant academic community at Goizueta has been a constant source of inspiration. The flourishing PhD program has allowed me to collaborate with some of the brightest doctoral students, while the broader Emory network and the research ecosystem in Atlanta, with its concentration of world-class scholars across universities, have undoubtedly enriched my research journey.

Tarun Chordia

Q: What inspired you to choose Goizueta?

A: I moved from Vanderbilt University to Emory as an assistant professor in summer 2000. At the time Tom Robertson was the Dean and Goizueta was transitioning from a teaching to a research school while still maintaining great teaching. One of Dean Robertson’s goals was to improve the reputation of the finance area. I had a ring-side seat to what was happening in the finance department and in the school in terms of increasing the research focus of the faculty (by starting a doctoral program and subscribing to all the standard datasets). With the support of the Dean as well as the leadership in the university we were able to strategically hire senior people in the finance department such that today we are amongst the top finance departments.

Ilia Dichev

Q: What inspired you to choose Goizueta?

A: It was a combination of things: great university and business school, great group of faculty in my academic area (Accounting), the attraction of Atlanta as a growing, business-oriented city, which is very green and with warm weather year-round. Being appointed to the distinguished position of the Goizueta Foundation Chair of Financial Reporting was definitely a big factor (so, big thanks to The Goizueta Foundation!). Plus, the personal involvement of some key Goizueta people made it happen. Perhaps most importantly, on some gut level it just felt right.

Q: How did Goizueta support your journey to becoming part of the top 2% of scholars worldwide?

A: My most successful research project after arriving at Goizueta relied on personal access to CFOs of top companies. The dean and the alumni office at the time made most of these contacts possible. Plus, the school has top-notch working conditions all around. I am very grateful to Goizueta for the incredible opportunities to do quality work!

Gareth James

Q: What inspired you to choose Goizueta?

A: Goizueta Business School stood out to me as a premier institution with a compelling combination of strengths. As a Top 20 business school within a Top 20 university, Goizueta offers a world-class environment for both research and teaching. The school has built an exceptional research community, where faculty members not only produce groundbreaking work but also make a tangible impact on the business world.

Beyond the intellectual vibrancy, Goizueta provides strong financial resources that support high-caliber research, including access to top-tier data acquisition, research funding, and a rigorous PhD program. This commitment to advancing knowledge and fostering innovation makes it an ideal place for scholars who seek to push the boundaries of their fields.

Sandy Jap

Q: What inspired you to choose Goizueta?

A: I came to Goizueta 24 years ago after having been on the faculty at MIT. While MIT is an amazing place in and of itself, what attracted me to Goizueta was the possibility of being in a faculty group that really valued and understood the research that I wanted to do. I’m also not a big fan of winter. 

Q: How did Goizueta support your journey to becoming part of the top 2% of scholars worldwide?

A: While I have had opportunities to leave (I visited Wharton for a year), I have remained at Goizueta because it is less bureaucratic than larger schools and provides important summer and research support that many schools do. Goizueta is an entrepreneurial environment that allows me to take on new initiatives and directions as needed to advance my research. There is also a very supportive alumni base which is always willing to speak in my classes and connect me to the decision makers in their organization who would be willing to support my research with data. 

Jegadeesh Narasimhan

Q: What inspired you to choose Goizueta?

A: I was drawn to Goizueta because of its ambitious vision to become a leader in the field. At the time I joined, the school was making strategic hires of top scholars, strengthening its focus on rigor and academic excellence. Its growing reputation was gaining well-deserved recognition, and the school’s proposed launch of the PhD program underscored a strong commitment to long-term academic leadership. These factors offered an exciting and intellectually stimulating environment—an ideal place not only to advance my research and teaching but also to contribute to Goizueta’s progress toward its ambitious vision.

Q: How did Goizueta support your journey to becoming part of the top 2% of scholars worldwide?

A: Goizueta’s strong culture of academic excellence provided an ideal environment for impactful research. I had the privilege of working alongside colleagues who are thought leaders in the profession, engaging in stimulating intellectual exchanges. The school’s regular academic seminars brought in leading scholars, fostering a dynamic and enriching research atmosphere. The launch of the PhD program further strengthened this environment, attracting bright students and promoting vibrant research activity.

Additionally, because my research focuses on rigorous empirical testing of theory, Goizueta’s generous financial support for data and research assistance was invaluable in enabling high-quality studies. Importantly, all of us—faculty and students—collectively contributed to enhancing Goizueta’s reputation as a place of excellence. At the same time, we all benefited from its growing visibility, which expanded opportunities for collaboration and increased our scholarly impact.

Wei Jiang

Q: What inspired you to choose Goizueta?

A: It was a privilege to join a finance department already with three Top 2% scholars worldwide, reflecting a strong research environment and an intellectually vibrant community. I valued the opportunity to work alongside faculty whose seminal research I had studied extensively as a PhD student and cited as foundational to my own work. Being part of a department where groundbreaking ideas are developed and advanced was both inspiring and motivating.

Jay Shanken

Q: What inspired you to choose Goizueta?

A: The school, led by Tom Robertson, was committed to taking the (already very good) finance group to the next level and Professor Jegadeesh and I were recruited at the same time. The commitment to faculty research was backed up by a low teaching load for chaired faculty and they made me an aggressive offer. I always enjoyed working with PhD students and the fact that the school would soon be starting a PhD program in finance was definitely a consideration as well. Although Rochester’s Simon School was very strong in those days, Atlanta seemed like it would be a better place to live at that point in my life. All of these factors together resulted in my decision to move to Emory and I enjoyed my many years there. 

Q: How did Goizueta support your journey to becoming part of the top 2% of scholars worldwide?

A: It was the excellent overall academic environment and colleagues. Specifics like the low teaching load mentioned above and the nice view from my office helped.

Jagdish Sheth

Q: What inspired you to choose Goizueta?

A: There were three specific reasons. First, I wanted to move to the East Coast from the West Coast and in a moderate climate. Second, I did not want commute and wanted to have housing nearby. Finally, Emory University provided opportunities to grow the marketing area with new and innovative programs and recruit young faculty. For example, we focused on Relationship Marketing and became among the top ten marketing departments in the country.

Q: How did Goizueta support your journey to becoming part of the top 2% of scholars worldwide?

A: When I joined the Goizueta in 1991, we were an “up and coming” business school. Both President James Laney and Dean John Robson were committed to invest in professional schools and their graduate programs including the MBA and the Executive MBA programs. They had already recruited senior faculty in Finance and Management and they wanted me to lead the Marketing discipline. Over the past 30 years, Goizueta gave me opportunities both at the Goizueta and the university level to be on several committees including the Personnel Committee and Emory’s inaugural Presidential Advisory Committee (PAC). My professional growth and recognition came from the silent language of Emory culture that states that you belong here. Finally, Atlanta was emerging as a global hub city and many large companies such as Coca-Cola, Delta, UPS and Home Depot were headquartered here. Atlanta is also the capital of Georgia. This allowed me to contribute to policy work especially for the telecommunications industry.

Goizueta faculty are eminent in their respective fields, advancing global knowledge and inspiring further research. Learn more about the research projects driven by our esteemed Goizueta faculty.

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It might be surprising to some that accounting is essentially the underpinning of finance. It’s also the basis for the extensive research of llia Dichev, the Goizueta Foundation Chair in Financial Reporting. It’s a dynamic area of study, he admits, given increasing regulation on investments, the growth of global markets, and new types of companies entering the marketplace. Further, a lot of work at a hedge fund, for instance, revolves around accounting, says Dichev. While the preparation of financial statements is certainly a part of an accountant’s job, accountants also deal with performance analysis and specific investment strategies that impact operations at a hedge fund.

Dichev’s research looks into hedge fund flows to explore their return experience. His analysis reveals that the industry is doing much worse than previously believed. He reasons that when the hedge fund industry was in its infancy, it did very well, with a few exceptions. But once an industry becomes large, with hundreds of billions of dollars chasing the same opportunities, many of those opportunities dry up. “The luster is off hedge funds,” Dichev says. “Many of the big investors are demanding lower fees, or they’re pulling their money.”

Another stream of Dichev’s research deals with how CFOs’ reporting decisions shape earnings, given the subjectivity involved in generally accepted accounting principles. The biggest challenge Dichev and his coauthors faced was getting CFOs to participate in the research study. He used Goizueta leadership and his coauthors to get willing participants. “CFOs are very busy people,” he says. Plus, it’s certainly not an easy process to get people to willingly admit to fudging earnings.

His research also addresses accounting accrual estimation errors. A paper he co-authored on the subject won the 2015 AAA Distinguished Contribution to Accounting Literature Award, an honor created to recognize accounting research of exceptional merit.

For a researcher like Dichev, there are always more research ideas percolating—ones to address the ever-changing nature of the markets and how accounting fits into the picture. Admittedly, some of those ideas will never pan out. “It’s always an exploratory process,” he says. “Research work is very much like entrepreneurship. You have to keep trying new things.” There’s also a high failure rate. The behind-the-scenes work is probably the most challenging part, he admits, especially if the researcher’s efforts are all for nothing.

Dichev has a rather philosophical approach to it. “There are two levels of failure—one is when you personally don’t think it’s working,” he says. “Things simply don’t gel, the project dies early, and no one sees it.” There is also the point when a researcher thinks they’re on to something. That work still has to survive a rigorous peer review process. In the best case scenario, it might take one to two years to develop research, or it could take as long as ten years for ideas to find their place. “You’re further down the line, and the work is much more involved by this point,” Dichev notes. “If your peers don’t think you have something, that can be an even tougher pill to take.”

Dichev is known for his good sense of humor, and he says it pays off when research doesn’t pan out. His jokes also keep his students interested, especially when they happen to go over some of the more tedious points of accounting. Today, he primarily teaches MBA classes, focusing on the accounting basics of financial reporting, as well as more cutting-edge topics, just as he does in his research. “I’m dealing mostly with students interested in careers in investment, so we’re looking at financial statement analysis, valuations, and pricing securities,” he says. But there are also more timely issues to address, such as cryptocurrencies. It’s the uniqueness of companies entering the marketplace that keeps Dichev searching for ways to apply his accounting research and find the value that exists in that complexity.

New economy companies are often hard to understand, and it’s essential to know how accounting can explain their financial value. He points to Tesla as an example. “They’ve been losing money in almost every year since inception, yet the company’s valuation is out of this world,” he notes. Of course, Tesla’s metrics are a bit different than other companies in their industry. “It could be irrational exuberance, of course,” says Dichev. “But their model of producing cars is different than traditional manufacturers. The fact is, they are doing something very new.”

The dynamic nature of the financial markets also provides fertile ground for his accounting research. “It isn’t like it was 30 years ago,” he says. “Markets are much more efficient. Trading is more about volume. It’s not the same players, the speed is way up, and spreads are thinner,” he adds. The change is what makes it interesting for Dichev. “It’s a pretty good gig, really,” he says. “This isn’t like physics. We’re not always studying the same reality.”

The post Scholar Spotlight: Ilia Dichev appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

Mobile advertising and crowded locations

As marketers look for new ways to target consumers on their smartphones, they are capitalizing on the ability to use location for mobile advertising. Today, retailers send mobile coupons and alert shoppers to sale items as they roam the aisles of the store. New research from Michelle Andrews, assistant professor of marketing, and coauthors Zheng Fang (Sichuan U), Anindya Ghose (NYU), and Xueming Luo (Temple U), investigates the impact of another type of location on mobile ad effectiveness. The authors studied real-time data from one of the world’s largest telecom providers, compiling responses to mobile advertising by 14,972 mobile phone users on crowded and noncrowded subway trains. Surprisingly, commuters in packed subway trains were twice as likely to respond to and make a purchase from a mobile ad than travelers in less crowded subway trains. The researchers write, “A plausible explanation is mobile immersion: As increased crowding invades one’s physical space, people adaptively turn inwards and become more susceptible to mobile ads.” The research indicates that “hyper-contextual mobile advertising” needs to be a bigger consideration for marketers looking to improve their mobile advertising. Marketing Science (2016)

CFOs & earnings misrepresentation

The quality of a company’s earnings is determined by controllable factors, such as internal controls and corporate governance, and noncontrollable factors, such as industry and economic conditions. But CFOs also have considerable influence over the communication and presentation of those earnings. In a new research study, Ilia Dichev, Goizueta Foundation Chair, professor of accounting, and coauthors John Graham (Duke U), Campbell R. Harvey (Duke U), and Shiva Rajgopal (Columbia U) note that discretion in accounting methods allows CFOs to misrepresent earnings. CFOs are motivated to misrepresent earnings in order to increase stock price and meet earnings targets, as well as boost their own compensation and career profile. The authors conducted a survey of 375 CFOs to explore their definition of earnings quality and ways to determine earnings misrepresentation. The authors concluded that “in any given period, a remarkable 20% of companies intentionally distort earnings, even while adhering to GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles).” The study found a number of red flags for earnings misrepresentation, including “a lack of correspondence between GAAP earnings and cash flows from operations, and unexplained deviations from peer and industry norms.” Financial Analysts Journal (2016)

Team leader experience in improvement teams

According to research from George Easton and Eve Rosenzweig, both associate professors of information systems & operations management, a team leader’s social capital and experience leading projects of the same type are factors in the effectiveness of an improvement team. By using six years of six sigma improvement project data from a Fortune 500 consumer products manufacturer, the researchers reached a rather surprising finding regarding a team leader’s social capital. Improvement teams do not appear to benefit from the leader’s experience working with the current team members on prior projects. What matters instead is the team leader’s experience working with a variety of people on prior improvement projects. The researchers suggest that the experience of dealing with many different individuals allows improvement team leaders to better identify suitable people to join their teams. Such a variety of experience also likely makes team leaders more politically astute when determining projects to pursue. In addition, the professors found that a team leader’s experience with the same type of project is important during the early stages of a six sigma implementation. The importance of this kind of experience declines as the system becomes more mature. The professors suggest that in a mature six sigma deployment, the organization’s cumulative body of documented learnings may well substitute for a team leader’s own prior experience leading a particular project type. Journal of Operations Management (2015)

Accounting data and volatility predictions

Generally speaking, financial research has studied how past equities and options volatility can help to predict future volatility in the markets. However, new research from Suhas Sridharan, assistant professor of accounting, investigates the impact of supplementing past volatility data with actual financial statement information to forecast future realized volatility. Sridharan used a large sample of 47,398 quarterly observations from 3,078 firms taken from 1996 to 2012. Her results indicate that incorporating accounting-based information, such as “standard deviation of the earnings yield, standard deviation of the change in premium of market value over book value, and the covariance of the two,” into forecasting models lowers forecast errors compared to models based solely on past realized volatility. She finds, “Equity returns volatility is significantly positively related to the earnings yield volatility and the volatility of the change in market to book premium. Volatility is significantly negatively related to the covariance of the earnings yield and change in market to book premium.” Sridharan also discovered that using accounting-based fundamental information in trading strategy could help to predict option returns. The Accounting Review (2015)

The impact of corporate vs. independent  foundations

Debate continues as to whether corporate or independent foundations are more impactful, despite the shared interest in supporting charitable services. In research from Justin Koushyar, doctoral candidate in organization and management (2017), Wesley Longhofer, assistant professor of organization and management, and Peter Roberts, professor of organization and management, the trio determines that the answer is mixed. They used data from a matched random sample of corporate and independent foundations that operated across the United States in 2005 and 2009. With deeper pockets, corporate foundations were able to raise more funds than their nonprofit counterparts. Company sponsorship of a philanthropic foundation also meant that they could operate with lower overhead. However, Koushyar, Longhofer, and Roberts found that corporate foundations are “more dispersed and less relational, and they tend to be governed by more ephemeral groups of officers and trustees.” Simply put, corporate foundations have fewer longterm attachments to the charitable organizations they support. Additionally, “market-based motivations” may influence how they give. Corporate foundations do tend to provide smaller individual grant amounts than independent foundations. These “stakeholder effects” are even more dramatic for the foundations linked to larger publicly traded companies. Sociological Science (2015)

Misreporting in securitized loans

Nonagency mortgage-backed securities (MBSs) and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) derived from MBSs and their role in the recent financial and housing crisis remain a subject of discussion. An MBS is an asset-backed security secured by a mortgage or grouping of mortgages. Non-agency MBSs are not guaranteed by any government-sponsored organization, such as Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae, or the federal government. According to research from Gonzalo Maturana, assistant professor of finance, and John Griffin (U of Texas), the complexity of these structured products made it difficult to learn the true value of the underlying assets. They analyzed “apparent fraud among securitized nonagency loans, looking at unreported second liens, owner occupancy misreporting, and appraisal overstatements.” The study data comes from Lewtan’s ABSNet Loan and HomeVal data sets, along with DataQuick’s Assessor and History files, for the time period between January 2002 and December 2011. The researchers discovered that “48% of loans exhibited at least one indicator of misrepresentation.” The level of misreporting was similar for low- and full-documentation loans. Also, loans with a misreporting were 51% more likely to be delinquent. Maturan and Griffin’s research points to apparent fraud by loan originators and MBS underwriters, and it also suggest that MBS underwriting banks were aware of some of the MBS representations at issuance. The Review of Financial Studies (2016)

Risk and returns for private equity and venture capital funds

The early success of some well-known private equity and venture capital funds has led to their rapid growth. According to research from Narasimhan Jegadeesh, the Dean’s Distinguished Chair in Finance, Roman Kraussl (U of Luxembourg), and Joshua M. Pollet (U of Illinois), investors should carefully evaluate the future risk and return potential of this asset class and avoid investing primarily because of past successes. Some private equity indices compiled by the industry suggest that these funds offer bigger returns than the public equity market, but prior academic studies offer mixed evidence on performance. Jegadeesh and his coauthors devised a new approach to determine the actual risk and returns by using market prices of funds that primarily invest in unlisted PE and VC funds listed on several European stock exchanges. This approach has a distinct advantage because it uses publicly available market prices rather than self-reported data, which were previously used in other academic studies. Their findings indicate that unlisted PE and VC funds as an asset class are unlikely to yield extraordinary returns as suggested by some self-reported data. They may even yield about the same return as the stock market but are illiquid. The Review of Financial Studies (2015)

The role of social networks and information  on creativity

Much of the research devoted to creativity in organizations delves into social networks and their impact on employee creativity. However, research from Jill Perry-Smith, associate professor of organization and management, investigates how types of knowledge factor into creativity in an organization. Perry-Smith conducted her research in a laboratory setting, analyzing the results of two distinct studies of undergraduate participants. The studies reference two types of knowledge content—information (facts or data) and frames (interpretations or impressions). She found that participants receiving nonredundant or unique information were significantly less creative compared to participants receiving nonredundant framing. Her research also suggests that content received from individuals with less of an emotional connection to one another—the so-called “weak tie”—boosts creativity regardless of the type of knowledge received. Strong ties to an individual aids creativity only when different frames are received. Even when team members in an organization seem to reject information from a minority opinion holder, it forces the other team members to delve more deeply into their own opinions, look at alternatives, and consequently, be more creative. Journal of Applied Psychology (2014)

Misreporting in securitized loans

Nonagency mortgage-backed securities (MBSs) and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) derived from MBSs and their role in the recent financial and housing crisis remain a subject of discussion. An MBS is an asset-backed security secured by a mortgage or grouping of mortgages. Non-agency MBSs are not guaranteed by any government-sponsored organization, such as Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae, or the federal government. According to research from Gonzalo Maturana, assistant professor of finance, and John Griffin (U of Texas), the complexity of these structured products made it difficult to learn the true value of the underlying assets. They analyzed “apparent fraud among securitized nonagency loans, looking at unreported second liens, owner occupancy misreporting, and appraisal overstatements.” The study data comes from Lewtan’s ABSNet Loan and HomeVal data sets, along with DataQuick’s Assessor and History files, for the time period between January 2002 and December 2011. The researchers discovered that “48% of loans exhibited at least one indicator of misrepresentation.” The level of misreporting was similar for low- and full-documentation loans. Also, loans with a misreporting were 51% more likely to be delinquent. Maturan and Griffin’s research points to apparent fraud by loan originators and MBS underwriters, and it also suggest that MBS underwriting banks were aware of some of the MBS representations at issuance. The Review of Financial Studies (2016)

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llia Dichev received the Notable Contributions to Accounting Literature Award. Professor Dichev’s research includes issues in equity valuation, earnings management, earnings quality, dollar-weighted returns, and market efficiency. He was previously awarded the Notable Contributions to Accounting Literature Award in 2002, and the Distinguished Contributions to Accounting Literature Award in 2015.

Grace Pownall received the Outstanding International Accounting Educator Award. Her research interests include corporate disclosure incentives and practices, and information in global capital markets. Pownall served as Vice-President of the AAA from 1999-2001, and as Director of the AAA 1999 Doctoral Consortium.

An award ceremony for all of the year’s recipients will be held during the AAA annual meetings on August 8.

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The human brain and stock earnings

In pioneering research, Jan Barton, associate professor of accounting, and Emory neuroscientists Greg Berns and Andrew Brooks examined how the human brain processes accounting information, specifically corporate earnings announcements. The study participants acted as investors, first by forecasting the earnings per share of 60 real publicly traded companies, and then by taking an investment position in the companies’ stocks. Participants’ brains were then scanned in an fMRI machine while they learned the companies’ actual earnings. Barton and colleagues found that dopamine neurons deep in the investors’ brains encoded surprises associated with the earnings announcement. They also found that activity in study participants’ brains predicted Wall Street’s reaction to the earnings news—both abnormal stock returns and trading volume around the earnings announcements were strongly correlated with the intensity of the reaction in the participants’ dopamine neurons. The researchers show that how an investor’s brain processes earnings news seems to depend on her personality traits, the investment position she holds in the company’s stock, and the predictability of the company’s earnings. The Accounting Review (2014).

Company name selection and firm value

In research from T. Clifton Green, associate professor of finance, and Russell Jame 10PhD (Gatton College of Business and Economics), the duo found that publicly traded companies with names that are easier to pronounce, a bit more familiar to investors, and shorter in length enjoy increased investor recognition and firm value. The researchers used a number of criteria for their “name fluency” test, citing the use of  English words, the appearance of the company name in the dictionary, the frequency of  letter clusters familiar to English language word patterns, and shorter company names. As name fluency increased, so too did the likelihood of retail investors and mutual fund managers owning the company’s shares. The companies with more fluent names also saw an uptick in liquidity and higher market valuations on common stock. Journal of Financial Economics (2013).

Employee commitment, trust, and fairness

Employees’ commitment to an organization is influenced by whether they believe company decision makers are being fair and whether they receive favorable outcomes. According to research from Emily Bianchi, assistant professor of organization and management, and her coauthors, the notion of fairness in the workplace and its impact on employee commitment to an organization is a bit more complicated than that. Using data from actual work experiences as well as responses to a variety of hypothetical vignettes, the researchers found that reactions to fairness information depended largely on how much employees trusted the organization. When employees had a high level of trust in an organization, commitment was low when the study participants experienced unfair outcomes and unfair procedures. However, when employee trust in the organization was low, commitment was high when the study participants experienced fair outcomes and fair procedures. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin (2015).

High trading volume and stock volatility

The dramatic increase in US trading volume has transformed the market. Given the historic jump, Ilia D. Dichev, Goizueta chaired professor of accounting, and co-authors Kelly Huang (Florida International U) and Goizueta doctoral candidate Dexin Zhou sought to investigate the impact of high trading volume on stock volatility. The trio examined several settings, including matched ETFs and dual-class stocks, the aggregate timeseries of US stocks since 1926, and the cross section of US stocks during the past 20 years. The research revealed that trading-induced volatility makes up about a quarter of total observed stock volatility today. The study draws special attention to the consequences of increasing trade-induced volatility, specifically the possibility of destabilization of the market. The researchers also ponder whether or not it might be appropriate for market makers and regulators to act proactively in dealing with the impact of high trading volume on stock volatility. Journal of Accounting, Auditing, and Finance (2014).

Communication strategies and captive centers

Technological advances have allowed companies to offshore work to emerging economies. While the practice has led to a reduction in costs, there are communication difficulties that can result between employees and superiors when they are spread across the globe and dealing with language, cultural, and time zone differences. Anandhi Bharadwaj, professor of information systems and operations management; Deepa Mani (Indian School of Business); and Kannan Srikanth (Singapore Management University) investigated more than 130 offshore captive centers owned and operated by multinational corporations to understand the technology-enabled coordination strategies needed to make captive centers work better. The trio studied two work strategies: modularization and information sharing. Modularization requires an organizer to give direct instruction to employees; there is little employee interaction. The information-sharing model requires employees to work together and communicate often with one another. The research indicated that the modularization of work is ineffective if the jobs performed are unfamiliar, less routinized, and less analyzable. Instead, information-sharing is a better option when employees are engaging in new assignments and duties. Information Systems Research (2014).

Second-guessing accounting decisions

Evaluating the appropriateness of accounting choices requires the application of greater judgment when standards are less precise. Consequently, as accounting standards become less precise, US auditors are concerned that they face the risk of increased second-guessing of their decisions and greater legal liability. Kathryn Kadous, professor of accounting, and coauthor Molly Mercer (DePaul U) investigated this possibility by designing an experiment in which participants acted as jurors in a mock auditor negligence case. Kadous and Mercer determined that less precise standards led to more second-guessing of auditor judgments when the client’s accounting choice was fairly conservative. However, when the client’s reporting was aggressive, this did not occur. In fact, jurors were overly lenient with auditors who allowed aggressive reporting under imprecise standards. The results indicate a need for tools to improve jurors’ ability to evaluate an auditor’s reporting decisions under imprecise standards. Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory (2014).

Consumer characteristics and smoking choices

Given the health risks associated with smoking, researchers are working hard to better understand the demographics of smokers and those more likely to quit. Furthering the field of study, Michael Lewis, associate professor of marketing and doctoral area coordinator; Carla J. Berg (Emory University Rollins School of Public Health); and Yanwen Wang 14PhD (U of Colorado Boulder) investigated how cigarette preferences impacted the decision to stop smoking. The trio also looked at the type of smoker more likely to quit. Using demographic data, they found that cessation rates among menthol cigarette smokers, particularly in the African-American population, were much lower than that of non-menthol smokers. Households with single men were much less likely to quit than mixed gender households. However, smokers who opted for lower nicotine cigarettes and smokers who purchased lower quality premium cigarettes were more likely to quit smoking. The researchers defined cessation of smoking as a smoker who had not purchased a pack of cigarettes for at least one year. Preventive Medicine (2014).

Informal social ties and team work

Given the ever-increasing amount of work that is accomplished by teams, understanding how teams work and figuring out ways to increase their effectiveness in organizations has become even more relevant. In new research on the subject, Jill E. Perry-Smith, associate professor of organization & management, and coauthor Christina E. Shalley (Georgia Institute of Technology) investigated informal social networks established outside of the team and how those may inform the abilities of individual team members and their work inside the team. Results of a study of 82 long-term MBA project teams suggested that when individual team members have nationality-heterogeneous outside contacts that are weak rather than strong, team creativity is higher. The two note that strong ties usually involve people who are similar in some way. Weaker outside ties are more likely to provide a differing perspective and thus facilitate creative thinking. Notably, diverse outside ties helped teams be more creative regardless of how diverse the actual team was. Organization Science (2014).

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A modest dose of contrarianism—buying when everyone else is selling, or vice versa—can help sophisticated investors, but most people are better off simply following a buy-and-hold approach. Consider a study by Ilia Dichev of Emory University of 19 major stock markets around the world from 1973 to 2004. It found that a buy-and-hold approach outperformed actual investor returns by an average of 1.5% a year. (These were estimated by weighting index returns according to amounts investors moved in and out of their portfolios, thus adjusting for their behaviour.) During volatile periods, the benefit can be much greater. For the NASDAQ market between 1973 and 2002, buy-and-hold outperformance averaged 5.3% a year, due in large part to investors jumping late on the tech bandwagon and then catching the brunt of the dot-com collapse.

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Blockshopper: Healthcare co. exec spends $1.2M in Deerfield
“[Vijay Kotte] attended Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management and Emory University Goizueta Business School.”

The Emory Wheel: Students Launch Site to Unify Emory Media
“The site, EmoryBubble.com, is ‘a place where students can find everything that organizations are producing and doing on campus,’ said Pat Shea, a Goizueta Business School senior who launched the Emory Bubble with College senior Ian McCall, College junior Giovanni Hobbins and College junior Nir Levy.'”

MyFoxATL.com: Princeton Economist to Speak at Emory University
“[Alan] Blinder, a Princeton University professor and author, will lecture during a one-day conference on macroeconomic policy presented by Emory’s Halle Institute for Global Learning and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. The conference runs 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Nov. 3 at the Goizueta Business School.”

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: The Economist praises two Ga. MBA programs
“The Economist, that in-depth magazine on business and politics from across the pond, rated the best MBA programs worldwide recently, and two Georgia schools broke the top 100: Emory University’s Goizueta Business School was No. 28 and the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business was No. 90.”

MarketWatch.com: Can a monkey pick a hedge fund?
“As Ilia Dichev at Emory University and Gwen Yu at Harvard found, after looking at hedge-fund performances over the past 30 years, the average has done worse than a stock-market index fund — and not much better than a simple basket of Treasury bonds.”

Georgia Public Broadcasting: Deciding Between Two Job Offers
“Brandon Smith teaches about leadership, communication, and workplace culture at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.”

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