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Faculty members' research interests are listed below their names.
Accounting
Dr. Xiaoyan Cheng
Financial regulation, earnings management, executive compensation, bankruptcy prediction, and the relation between CEO power and financial reporting.
Dr. Wikil Kwak
Mathematical programming approaches in capital budgeting, transfer pricing, performance evaluation and Japanese capital market studies. Data mining applications in bankruptcy prediction studies in U.S., Japan, Korea, and China. Data mining applications in auditor change prediction studies. Ratio analysis applications to predict bankruptcy.
Economics
Dr. Ben SmithBehavioral economics, industrial organization, regional economics, and economic education.
Dr. Catherine Yap Co
Linkages among the following: trade, foreign direct investment, market structure and competitiveness, intellectual property rights, environmental policy, and migration; China’s exports, outward economic cooperation investment, and outward foreign direct investment; services trade and foreign direct investment; intra-firm international technology networks; U.S. agricultural trade; spatial and temporal evolution of innovation activities; China-Africa trade.
Dr. Dustin White
Dr. White particularly enjoys research in areas related to health economics, sports economics, and labor economics. He also enjoys finding applications of data science techniques to economic problems. In health economics, his previous work has explored the impact of sporting events on alcohol consumption and crime. In sports economics, he has studied the changes in profit for NFL franchises resulting from league expansion. In labor economics, he has focused on the way that firms permit individuals to work from home and the way that contracts for these workers have changed over time. He also studies forecasting techniques using traditional econometric methods as well as machine learning algorithms.
Dr. Jinlan Ni
International equity home bias, asymmetric information, mutual fund performance and manager turnover, capital structure and pecking order, ownership and dividend policy, finance and firm’s economic decision, environmental economics regarding energy efficiency and its determinants, greenhouse emission and rebate policy, education return and labor market in China.
Finance, Banking and Real Estate
Dr. Michael O’Hara
Generally, Dr. O'Hara researches in the areas of law and economics related to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). Specifically, his research focuses upon forensic economics (i.e., proof of damages in litigation). He has particular interests with environmental issues (e.g., sustainability) and with heath issues (e.g., optometry).
Management
Dr. Gina Scott Ligon
Leadership development, innovation, and unconventional leadership (terrorism) and organizational performance.
Dr. Erin Pleggenkuhle-Miles
Entrepreneurship/innovation/community embeddedness – with particular emphasis on the biofuel and biotech industries.
Dr. Erin Bass
Strategy – related to resource creation, development and acquisition; Entrepreneurship – related to social entrepreneurship and arts entrepreneurship; Ethics – related to organizational ethics, corporate governance and strategic leadership.
Dr. Steven Schulz
High-performance organizations, service-dominant logic, sustainability, risk management, supply chain ethics, and the supply chain for talent.
Marketing and Entrepreneurship
Dr. Yanhui ZhaoMarketing strategy, market research and customer insights, brand management, and sales management.