College of Business Research Day

Friday, April 4, 2025
8:30 AM - 12:40 PM
Maverick Innovation Gateway

College of Business Research Day schedule:

8.30 am – 9 am: Coffee and registration.

9:00 am – 9:10 am: COB Dean Seung Bach – Welcome remarks.

9:10 am – 9:30 am: Presentation 1 - Dr. Yen Pai (Department of Marketing) “I Know I Am Ugly, But Please Listen to My Story First: An Examination of How Storytelling Can Impact Consumers'”.

9:30 am – 9:50 am: Presentation 2 – Dr. Yuhao Chen (Department of Finance) “Managerial Structure in the Hedge Fund Industry”.

9:50 am – 10:10 am: Presentation 3 – Dr. Kristin Scott, Dr. Juan Meng, Dr. Ann Kuzma (Department of Marketing) “The White Picket Fence: How Millennials and Baby Boomers View the American Dream”.

10:10 am – 10:30 am: Presentation 4 – Dr. Nguyen Nguyen (Department of Finance) " Technology and Happiness: The Association Between Online Budget Planner and Financial Satisfaction ".

**BRUNCH AND STUDENT RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM**

11:30 am – 11:50 am: Presentation 5 – Dr. Jennifer Schultz (Department of Management) “The Leaders’ Leader: A No Doubt Legacy Interview with Robert C. Liden”.

11:50 am – 12:10 pm: Presentation 6 – Dr. Ferdinand Siagian (Department of Accounting) “Does Analyst Forecast Informativeness Affect Managers' Financial Reporting Incentives?”.

12:10 pm – 12:30 pm: Presentation 7: Dr. Jidong Zhang (Department of Accounting) “Impact of Cybersecurity Disclosure Frequency on Stock Price Crash Risk”.

12:30 pm – 12.40 pm: Concluding remarks.

ABSTRACTS: 

 Pai, C. Y., Young, K. Y., Liska, L. I., & Laverie, D. (2025). I Know I Am Ugly, but Please Listen to My Story First: An Examination of How Storytelling Can Impact Consumers' Valuation of Unattractive Produce. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 24(1), 247-266.

“In a world where food insecurity and food waste coexist, rejecting aesthetically imperfect yet edible produce contributes to food waste. This study explores how storytelling can alter consumer perceptions and increase acceptance of unattractive produce, addressing a gap in food sustainability research. Study 1 examines the effect of unattractive produce on produce valuation and the mediation of perceived taste. Study 2 investigates storytelling’s moderation in enhancing consumers’ perceived taste of unattractive food. Experimental results show that combining storytelling with marketing tactics, such as coupons, significantly increases consumers’ consumption of unattractive produce. We recommend retailers utilize storytelling in marketing unattractive produce to optimize marketing effectiveness and promote sustainable food consumption. Our findings advance storytelling, visual marketing, and unattractive produce literature and offer practical insights for reducing food waste, contributing to sustainability efforts and social welfare. By employing a storytelling strategy, we support social good by encouraging the consumption of “ugly” produce.”

Chen, Y., Kuang, H., & Liang, B. (2024). Managerial structure in the hedge fund industry. Journal of Financial Intermediation, 58, 101089.

“This paper provides the first study on how management structure influences hedge fund performance and risk. We document that hedge funds less tied to traditional assets often choose solo management structures. Solo-managed funds outperform team-managed funds, exhibit better skills in market return, volatility, and crisis timing, and demonstrate greater activity in beta management, but have higher idiosyncratic and tail risks. They are also less likely to be liquidated, with fund flows less performance sensitive. Using a sample of switched funds, we find that fund performance, assets, and risk correlate with the management structure switching decision.”

Scott, K., Meng, J., & Kuzma, A. (2024). The white picket fence: how Millennials and Baby Boomers view the American Dream. Young Consumers, 25(6), 706-724.

“Purpose – The American Dream is tightly woven into the American culture and way of life. Despite the importance and ubiquitous nature of the American Dream, the topic is difficult to define and belief in the attainability of the American Dream changes over time. Because of the little academic research on the topic, this study aims to fill this gap and investigate what people think about the American Dream and what factors influence the perception that this concept is outdated among different two generations – Baby Boomers and Millennials.

Findings – Three research questions were investigated. First, the results show that Baby Boomers and Millennials define the Dream similarly in terms of a house, family, happiness, freedom and equality. Second, they differ, however, in whether they believe that the Dream is relevant and attainable. Third, the authors found similarities and differences in terms of demographics and values predicting whether the two generations believed that the Dream is outdated, and new values should be added.”

 Le, T.D., Nguyen, N. and Nguyen, Q. (2025), "Technology and happiness: the association between online budget planner and financial satisfaction", Review of Behavioral Finance, 17(1), 100-122.

“This study examines the impact of online budget planning platforms (e.g., Goodbudget, Mint) on households’ financial satisfaction. Utilizing data from the National Financial Capability Study (NFCS) for 2018 and 2021, which encompasses over 50,000 households, the authors find a substantial correlation between the adoption of financial budgeting tools and a notable improvement in households’ financial satisfaction, driven by the promotion of healthy financial behaviors and enhanced financial self-efficacy. The empirical findings underscore that the positive effects of online budget planners are more pronounced among low-income, financially illiterate, and Black households. This study is the first to examine the impact of online budget planners on household financial satisfaction. It contributes to the literature by offering valuable insights into how these tools influence household financial satisfaction.”

Schultz, J. L., & Westlin, J. A. (2025). The Leaders’ Leader: A No Doubt Legacy Interview with Robert C. Liden. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 32(1), 5-11.

“The recipient of the 2023 Midwest Academy of Management Distinguished Scholar Award, Professor Robert C. Liden, is interviewed for the Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies. The Midwest Academy of Management Distinguished Scholar Award was established to recognize and honor outstanding professional achievements and significant contributions to research in management. Wide recognition by the academic community is a key basis for the award, one based on a body of achievement rather than a particular piece of research or creative work. To this highest honor, in 2023, the Midwest Academy of Management named Professor Robert C. Liden as the Midwest Distinguished Scholar. Dr. Liden gave his distinguished scholar keynote address at the Midwest Academy of Management annual meeting breakfast on Saturday, October 14, 2023.”

Krieg, K. S., Siagian, F., & Wu, J. (2024). Does analyst forecast informativeness affect managers’ financial reporting incentives? Economics Letters, 244, 111995.

“This study investigates how the informativeness of analyst forecasts affects managers’ financial reporting incentives. Using a novel Match Index to estimate the earnings management induced by analyst forecasts, we find that when analyst forecasts are less informative, managers place less value on using them as a benchmark and thus, engage in less earnings management to meet that benchmark.”

Wu, H., Ma, M., & Zhang, J. (2024). Impact of Cybersecurity Disclosure Frequency on Stock Price Crash Risk. Journal of Corporate Accounting & Finance.

“By exploring the relationship between stock price crash risk and the frequency of cybersecurity disclosures in financial reports, we present evidence that cybersecurity disclosure does matter because its frequency increases stock price crash risk. We analyze the association between cybersecurity disclosure and stock price crash risk from the perspective of two different theoretical lenses: information asymmetry and investor sentiment. We perform textual analysis on the Chinese A-shares public companies’ cybersecurity disclosure in financial reports during 2017–2022. We find that the more cybersecurity disclosures in financial reports, the higher the stock price crash risk. Further findings reveal that the effect of the frequency of cybersecurity disclosure on stock price crash risk is more significant in non-Big-4 audit companies and companies with lower analyst coverage. These findings imply that the market presents the clear idea that cybersecurity disclosure's negative impact to stock price crashes would be greater than the positive impact under the current settings of the volunteer disclosure policies.”