Business for a Better World Undergraduate Research Fellows Program

Project Mentors – Adela Chen, Department of Computer Information Systems & Hamed Qahri-Saremi, Department of Computer Information Systems

Project Description

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been advancing fast, with important implications for businesses across different sectors. These technologies can assist and augment employees’ decision-making in day-to-day tasks and improve the users’ productivity in creative works. Moreover, these technologies can also automate business processes to free employees for more critical tasks or reinforce specific decision-making rules. As such, the success of these technologies depends on users’ willingness to utilize them in their work. Prior research shows that users may develop both positive (e.g., appreciation) and negative (e.g., aversion) orientations toward AI. However, our understanding of the personal and contextual factors that lead to users’ appreciation or aversion toward AI technologies is limited. In this project, we aim to examine the dynamics between AI and human actors through a meta-analysis. This project expects to provide insights into the predictors and consequences of individuals’ positive and negative attitudes toward AI.

Student Tasks

This will be the continuation of the project that was started last year. We are seeking an Undergraduate Research Fellow to help us complete the literature search, data preparation, including but not limited to filtering relevant studies and extracting results and effect sizes (e.g., correlations) reported in the studies to be included in our meta-analysis, and preliminary data analyses.

Project Mentor – Samantha Conroy, Department of Management
Project Description

Pay practices have critical well-being effects on workers. For example, low pay is associated with poorer mental and physical health and pay-for-performance is associated with heightened cortisol among workers. In making the case for research on pay and health, we often frame well-being as a performance issue. The assumed model is: pay practices  health and well-being  firm performance; however, we have little knowledge of the actual health and performance cascade of effects of pay practice design choices. Two studies can contribute to this understanding. First, we are looking at daily health and performance effects of pay practices on employees. Second, we take a human resource costing view to model well-being into the pay and firm performance relationship through utility analysis and a simulation.

Student Tasks

The B4BW research fellow will support this research project through a literature review, developing in-depth knowledge of HR utility analysis, and helping with survey development.

Project Mentor – Chris Henle, Department of Management

Project Description

Formerly incarcerated individuals experience unemployment rates of 60% during the first year after they are released from prison and as high as 30% in general. The difficulty this population has in securing employment after release is problematic because it prevents meaningful reintegration into society and contributes to higher rates of recidivism. Even if former offenders attain employment, it is often in low-skilled, low paying jobs. I have completed a research project in this area that examines the effectiveness of different disclosures techniques of a criminal record that job applicants can use during the hiring process to increase the likelihood of a job offer. Although this knowledge is useful to job applicants with criminal records, it does not directly address the biases hiring managers have toward this population. Thus, I would like to research, design, and test possible interventions for dispelling stereotypes hiring managers may have and for encouraging them to be more open to hiring individuals with criminal records.

Student Tasks

The student working on this project will engage in the following activities:
• Find research articles examining possible interventions to reduce discrimination against former offenders
• Summarize each article
• Integrate findings from across the articles into a summary report
• Help select or design possible interventions targeting hiring managers
• Assist in designing the interventions and related survey
• Identify possible samples for data collection
• Draft IRB application
• Data collection (time permitting)
• Preliminary data analysis (time permitting)

Project Mentor – Eric Lohwasser, Department of Accounting

Project Description

Recently, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), under the direction of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), significantly increased its enforcement actions and sanctions against audit partners and firms that are breaking their rules/regulations. This has received widespread news coverage and scrutiny. They have imposed monetary penalties and stripped auditors that they find guilty of their ability to provide services to public companies. The intentions of these actions are clear, as described by their Chair Erica Williams – they are meant to be a deterrence mechanism for those not following rules in order to improve the quality of capital market information reported to the public. The actions are meant to restore and increase trust in the reliability of financial information for stakeholders, creating large-scale societal benefit.
This project intends to manually evaluate all sanctions over the last decade, documenting and summarizing the significant new actions and increase in enforcement in recent years, and provide visuals of what the regulator is doing, how they are doing it, and who it is affecting. This data is 70% collected so far. No analysis has been done. We would further use econometric models to investigate the effects of the sanctions on auditors and the public – is it deterring bad behavior? Is it changing the behavior of other similar individuals that were not sanctioned? Is it providing the claimed societal benefits that the board expresses publicly?

Student Tasks

The student (preferably an accounting major) will read financial reports and sanctions by accounting

3Project Mentor – Patricia Ryan, Department of Finance and Real Estate

Project Description

The workplace has changed for many firms via the rapid transformation to remote work for firms and employees alike. To learn how this was seen from human resource managers, information is gathered on workplace perceptions and anticipations thereafter, remote and on-site workers during the Covid pandemic, and the digital divide to assess employee relations during and post-Covid-19 pandemic. Managers perceived average employee productivity and performance decreased during the pandemic; turnover increased, and social interaction decreased. During the pandemic, remote workers had less absenteeism, worked more hours per week, had greater efficiency, less career development, less social inclusion and engagement, and greater work-life balance challenges. All workers had greater employee assistance program needs. The digital divide is present, and concerns about the less dynamic nature of meetings, participation, interaction, and internet connection issues support an increased digital divide. Human resource managers see challenges with work-life balance, collaboration and innovation at the workplace, flexibility for workers, training for remote work, and monitoring employees' productivity. Covid-19 created a paradigm shift, and employee relations will be even more important post-pandemic. Employers must take advantage of the opportunities for firms and employees to work with remote meetings effectively. At the same time, recognize that the digital divide is ever-present for some employee groups. Successful employee relations will be advantaged by offering a flexible work environment for employees of the 2020s and beyond.

Student Tasks

Support survey design, development, and implementation efforts. One of the planned surveys will entail asking graduating finance seniors about their expectations in the workforce, including the inclusion of AI. In addition to assistance with data collection, the research fellow will investigate workplace goals and expectations.

Project Mentor – Tiffany Trzebiatowski, Department of Management

Project Description

A guiding research question in this project is whether one’s physical workplace environment (e.g., tangible structural elements, spatial layout, decorative elements, and ambient characteristics) impacts diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. This project answers this research question through conducing a systematic literature review of the physical work environment and DEI literatures. Understanding the role of workplace context may aid employers in increasing diversity representation, ensuring equity, and promoting inclusion. Thus, this research will shed light on how the choices related to the physical workplace, particularly in the context of the growing trend of remote work alongside calls for a return to in-person work, impact access to opportunities and resources for all employees. The importance of this research extends to Business for a Better World because DEI efforts align with several of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development goals, including Goal 5: Gender Equality and Goal 10: Reduced Inequality. By optimizing workplace contexts, organizations can contribute to fostering gender equality, reducing inequality, and promoting a more inclusive and equitable work environment.

Student Tasks

Your potential responsibilities will include the following types of tasks:
• Summarizing recent articles pertinent to the subject
• Organizing articles into our proposed DEI framework
• Conducting in-depth searches for information aligning with our search criteria
• Crafting literature review outlines
• Creating informative tables and figures to visually present research findings
• Honing your skills in editing references and formatting documents in accordance with established journal guidelines
• Communicating with the research team on your findings

Project Mentor – Xinran Wang, Department of Computer Information Systems

Project Description

This research project aims to analyze corporate earnings conference calls for assessing earnings quality and identifying financial risks. Identifying financial risks is crucial for individuals and organizations to protect their financial well-being and essential for government to monitor regulatory compliance. To reliably determine financial risks, this project uses data of multiple modalities from corporate earnings conference calls. Public company executives hold these calls every quarter to present earnings results and corporate outlook and provide an opportunity for analysts to raise questions. These calls are typically audio recorded, transcribed, and accompanied by visualizations in presentation slides. The audio recordings, transcripts, and visualizations contain various signals of earnings quality (e.g., sentiment, uncertainty). The multiple modalities of data enable us to capture a broader range of information and facilitate a more reliable examination of financial risks. By exploring these signals, we intend to enhance investors and regulators’ decision making regarding financial risks.

Student Tasks

The research fellow will have an opportunity to learn about collecting and analyzing earnings conference calls. Specifically, the fellow will focus on the following research efforts:
• Collect audio recordings, transcripts, and visualizations of earnings conference calls
• Document data collection procedures and provide summary statistics of data collection
• Perform a literature review on earnings conference calls analysis.

Project Mentor – Wenrui Zhang, Department of Finance and Real Estate

Project Description

We intend to examine how local political corruption in the US affects firms’ CEO firing decisions. Previous literature (e.g., Smith, 2016; Boland et al., 2017; Chang et al., 2023) shows that firms in more corrupt regions are facing higher risk of expropriation by officials and thus are more likely to shield their financial resources through various financial and accounting means, which result in poor firm performance. To insulate CEOs from the impacts of these shielding strategies, firms are less likely to fire CEOs due to weaker firm performance. We also intend to show that firms in more corrupt regions may experience a larger decline in firm value after forced CEO turnovers. Moreover, we want to examine CEO mobility across more and less corrupt regions. We expect that CEOs working in firms headquartered in more corrupt regions are less likely to move. If these CEOs move, they are likely to move to more corrupt regions because of their specific skills in dealing with government officials. Finally, we would like to examine how firms in more corrupt regions adjust CEO compensation components to mitigate the adverse impacts of shielding strategies on CEO incentives.

Student Tasks

We have done some preliminary analysis and obtained some results. We need to further collect data on CEO mobility. In addition, we may need your help in collecting data related to government dependence, e.g., government procurement, and political connection, e.g., directors’ government-related experiences. Finally, if possible, we would like to collect data about the board of directors and see whether there is a similar pattern for directors as well. We expect you to be careful, patient, responsible, and hardworking. It would be a plus if you have some coding skills using Stata, SAS etc. You will gain hands-on experience about major finance databases; some coding experience and research skills that may benefit you in your future studies or work; and join a team with passion and energy.