April 28th: - Yuan Ji of the Department of Accounting
Sanjiv and I are pleased to announce that the next presentation of the Research Incubator Seminar Series is scheduled for Wednesday, April 28 from 2:00-3:30 p.m. via Microsoft Teams. Our presenter is Yuan Ji of the Department of Accounting. The paper that she will present is titled “Higher Pay, Less Corruption Scandals? Evidence from City Manager Compensation in California.” The paper is attached.
Title: Higher Pay, Less Corruption Scandals? Evidence from City Manager Compensation in California
Presenter: Yuan Ji
When: Wednesday, April 28, 2:00–3:30 p.m.
Where: Via Microsoft Teams
Abstract: I study determinants and implications of city managers' annual salary in the state of California from 2011 to 2016. Using a large and recent dataset, I find that excess city manager annual salary is associated with a lower likelihood of having corruption-related scandals and future questioned costs. In additional analyses, I examine the impact of the city council on the relation between excess annual salary and corruption and document that a larger council constrains the potential unethical behaviors of city managers and serves as more effective monitors. Finally, I document that excess annual salary is associated with more efficient daily operations; city managers with a high annual salary also have a lower likelihood of being involuntarily terminated by the city council and have open-ended and salary reduction contractual terms in compensation agreements.
Author’s note about the paper's "warts": This is a fun project I have been working on and off for the past several months. Now I have difficulty expanding the analysis and make it a more compelling piece. The challenge is exacerbated by the difficulty in finding the available data source in the governmental sector. In addition, it is not an accounting paper per se, so I would appreciate other researchers' prospective on this paper. It is clearly incomplete and rough, any comments are welcome.
March 31st: - Alison Hall Birch of the Department of Management
Sanjiv and I are pleased to announce that the next presentation of the Research Incubator Seminar Series is scheduled for Wednesday, March 31 from 2:00–3:30 p.m. via Microsoft Teams. Our presenter is Alison Hall Birch of the Department of Management. The paper that she will present is titled “Putting Climate into Context: How State-Level Culture and Composition Shape the Effects of Diversity Climate on Performance.”
Title: Putting Climate into Context: How State-Level Culture and Composition Shape the Effects of Diversity Climate on Performance
Presenters: Alison Hall Birch
When: Wednesday, March 31, 2:00–3:30 p.m.
Where: Via Microsoft Teams
Abstract: Existing evidence demonstrates that an organization’s diversity climate can enhance its bottom line. Though some scholars have theorized potential mediators to explain these effects, two recent literature reviews and a meta-analysis concluded that much remains unknown regarding both why and how diversity climate influences outcomes. We propose that commitment inequality, or the degree of within-unit disparity in affective organizational commitment among unit members, acts as a mediator of the diversity climate-productivity relationship. We argue that unit-level diversity climate fosters more uniformly high affective commitment levels among unit members (i.e., less commitment inequality), thereby optimizing the returns on its human capital investments in the form of greater unit productivity. Data from 738 stores in 48 American states indicate a significant indirect effect of store diversity climate on productivity through commitment inequality. Moreover, we extend theory on the impact of contextual variation to determine how the external environment's culture (tightness-looseness) and composition (racioethnic variety) interactively influence this process. Our results demonstrate collective moderation by state-level context. Climates supporting diversity coincide with reduced commitment inequality, thereby prompting higher productivity when organizational practices that promote a positive diversity climate align with states’ cultures and compositions (loose/diverse or tight/homogenous). No such significant indirect effect is observed in units operating in states where pro-diversity efforts are misaligned with the external environment (loose/homogenous or tight/diverse).
Author’s note about the paper's "warts": In conceptualizing this 3-way interaction, we let the conditions where climate, composition, and culture "aligned" drive our expectations. Upon analyzing the data, that worked out for us! However, in writing the paper, it became clear that our story for one of the misaligned conditions (specifically the effects of a hospitable diversity climate in a racioethnically homogenous-loose state) is something we had glossed over. It doesn't neatly align with what we currently argue are the driving mechanisms for what's happening in the other three cells (hospitable diversity climate: tight-homogenous, loose-diverse, tight-diverse). Now we are in search of a theoretical explanation as to what's happening there. We've got a few ideas that I will be sharing during the presentation. Additionally, we are still sorting through the nomenclature of our mediator. We've semi-settled on "Commitment inequality" but it was formerly "commitment disparity" and we've also considered a few other names, so if you have thoughts there, I'm open!
February 24th: - Mahyar Vaghefi of the Department of Information Systems & Operations Management
The next presentation of the Research Incubator Seminar Series is scheduled for Wednesday, February 24th from 2:00-3:30 p.m. Via Microsoft Teams. Our presenter is Mahyar Sharif Vaghefi of the Department of the Information Systems and Operations Management. The paper that he will present is titled “Diffusion of Health Messages in Online Social Networks: A Study of Healthcare Professionals Content Generation on Twitter.”
Title: Diffusion of Health Messages in Online Social Networks: A Study of Healthcare Professionals Content Generation on Twitter
Presenters: Mahyar Sharif Vaghefi
When: Wednesday, February 24, 2:00–3:30 p.m.
Where: Via Microsoft Teams
Abstract: Online social networks have become an important venue for the search and sharing of health-related information. This has become more evident during the coronavirus outbreak. Thus, the contribution of health professionals to such platforms can reduce the spread of misleading information and add to the trustworthiness of information made available to the public. The contribution of health professionals can be made both by generating content and by facilitating the dissemination of content. In this study, we focus on the Twitter platform and study the factors that can contribute to the dissemination of information on the health professional social network. In our work, we emphasize the structure of the social network and the characteristics of health messages. We argue that the structure of the social network paves the way for the dissemination of information and that the content attributes provide fuel for it to flow through the networks and reach a wider audience. The theoretical basis of our work is the model of intellectual epidemics and the likelihood model of persuasion. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our work.
Author’s note about the paper's "warts":Our paper aims to provide a conceptual model for diffusion of health messages in online social networks. We have conceptualized our theoretical model using the intellectual epidemic model and information processing models. We used Twitter observational data to empirically test our proposed model. While the preliminary results of our study are promising, there are certainly some limitations in the paper that need to be identified and addressed prior to the submission of the paper. Our main concerns are: Is there any other theoretical model that fits into our theoretical framework that allows us to better justify our hypotheses? How well our measurements can be capturing the main variables of interest in our work? Whether the observational data collected is appropriate for testing our conceptualized model? Are there any possible sources of bias in the data that we should test for? Is there any better approach to analyze our data? Do we need to apply any specific type of robustness method to our work?
January 20th: Dhruba Banjade and David Diltz of the Finance Department
The January 20th presentation of the Research Incubator Seminar Series was scheduled for Wednesday, January 20 from 2:00-3:30 p.m. via Microsoft Teams. Our presenters are Dhruba Banjade and David Diltz of the Department of Finance. The paper that they will present is titled “Environmental, Social, and Governance Scores and Firm Value.”.
Title: Environmental, Social, and Governance Scores and Firm Value
Presenters: Dhruba Banjade and David Diltz
When: Wednesday, January 20, 2:00–3:30 p.m.
Where: Via Microsoft Teams
Abstract: Corporate social responsibility is vital to the interests of the modern corporation as investors, creditors, customers, government, and environmental agencies have placed greater emphasis on environmental protection, workplace safety, and effective governance. The ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) scores have been developed by the United Nations to address these issues. This paper examines the impact of ESG scores on firm value as indicated by Tobin's Q. We find that performance improves for those firms whose ESG scores exceed 50%, while ESG controversy scores negatively impact firm value. Moreover, we find that these relationships hold, even during the financial crisis (2007-2009) period.
Author’s note about the paper's "warts": Theoretically, many researchers claim that improvement in ESG scores improves firm performance. However, many research findings do not support this claim. Most of the research article find a negative association between ESG score and firm performance. We check the relationship between ESG score and firm performance at a different level of ESG scores. We find that firms should maintain an ESG score of more than 50% to reflect their ESG related activities into better firm performance. In most of the cases, we also find a negative association between ESG score and firm performance. We investigate the role of ESG scores in different periods. ESG controversy harm firm value.