AVERTING DISASTER OSU’s Corey Baham devises a plan to help businesses weather tech tragedies
2018
OSU Spears School of Business Dean Ken Eastman Vice Dean, Graduate Programs and Research Ramesh Sharda Associate Deans Marlys Mason Carol Johnson Spears School Marketing and Communications Terry Tush Editor Dorothy L. Pugh Art Director Paul V. Fleming Writer John Helsley Photography Jordan Benson Blake Brasor Lance Shaw Gary Lawson Phil Shockley Spears School Department Heads Lee Adkins, Economics and Legal Studies in Business Bruce Barringer, School of Entrepreneurship Tom Brown, School of Marketing and International Business Audrey Gramling, School of Accounting Jim Pappas, Management Betty Simkins, Finance Rick L. Wilson, Management Science and Information Systems Contact Spears School of Business Oklahoma State University 370 Business Building Stillwater, OK 74078-4011 405-744-5064 business.okstate.edu
GREETINGS, We are pleased to present another edition of Discover@Spears, which highlights the research achievements of our scholars. Spears School of Business faculty had an outstanding year in terms of research productivity with over 200 papers published in professional research journals. Many of these were in top-rated journals. A couple of years ago, we began our aspirational journal program to encourage faculty to target more of their work in top tier journals. This program has been successful with 14 papers published in aspirational journals. Inside you will read about some of our recent, top-tier journal publications, and I highlight a few of these here: • Dr. Lex Smith Washington’s research focusing on the very relevant topic of black female executives. Harvard Business Review • Dr. Corey Baham’s work addressing the issue of managing technology and recovery after a disaster. Journal of Management Information Systems • Dr. Taha Havakhor’s work investigating the issues related to technology investment. Information Systems Research • Dr. Michael Schuster’s timely publication examining the issue of patents in artificial intelligence. Washington and Lee Law Review Our Management Department faculty are actively publishing in top scholarly journals and being recognized for their accomplishments. We discuss how the department now ranks among the very best nationwide on the basis of top-tier journal publications. In addition to these stories, we include a list of our faculty members who are serving in leading journal editorial positions. We are proud of the scholarly achievements of our faculty and their dedication to serving their respective professions. We believe that our scholars are having a significant effect nationally and internationally, and their work is helping us better understand a number of relevant business issues. We hope you enjoy this edition. For more information on their outstanding efforts, visit the Faculty Research website: business.okstate.edu/research.
Oklahoma State University, in compliance with Title VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Executive Order 11246 as amended, and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Higher Education Act), the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and other federal and state laws and regulations, does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, genetic information, sex, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, or status as a veteran, in any of its policies, practices or procedures. This provision includes, but is not limited to admissions, employment, financial aid, and educational services. The Director of Equal Opportunity, 408 Whitehurst, OSU, Stillwater, OK 74078-1035; Phone 405-744-5371; email: eeo@okstate.edu has been designated to handle inquiries regarding non-discrimination policies. Any person (student, faculty, or staff) who believes that discriminatory practices have been engaged in based on gender may discuss his or her concerns and file informal or formal complaints of possible violations of Title IX with OSU’s Title IX Coordinator 405-744-9154. / This publication, issued by Oklahoma State University as authorized by Vice Dean for Graduate Programs and Research, was printed by ModernLitho Printing Company at a cost of $2,745.69. 4M / 2018 07 #7481.
All the best,
Ken Eastman, Ph.D. DEAN, SPEARS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
Ramesh Sharda, Ph.D. VICE DEAN, G R A D UAT E P R O G R A M S AND RESEARCH WAT S O N G R A D UAT E S C H O O L O F M A N AG E M E N T
A publication of Oklahoma State University Spears School of Business • Vol. 3 , No. 1 , Fall 2018
ON THE COVER
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MSIS assistant professor Corey Baham has devised a system that can help companies successfully recover from the loss of IT systems. (Cover photo illustration by iStock)
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Diversity at the Top
Giving AI Its Due
Spending Smartly
Assistant professor Lex Smith Washington has noticed a definite lack of diversity in the uppermost echelons of most businesses. She’s done research to discover how the few black women at the top got there.
Even now, many inventions have felt the impact of artificial intelligence. But professor Mike Schuster is questioning how the U.S. Patent Office might credit AI’s impact.
Technology can be expensive, no doubt — especially in business. So what happens when the Next Big Thing comes along? Assistant professor Taha Havakhor looks into how companies might weigh benefits versus costs.
INDEX
9 New faculty chairs & professorships
14 Spears Business editorial input
16 Spears Business publications
Baham to the Rescue Research project guides company back on IT track from a disaster S TO RY BY J O H N H E L S L E Y | P H OTO BY B L A K E B R A S O R
Corey Baham stood before a room full of IT managers, not quite prepared for the outburst that would follow his presentation. A standing ovation. Baham, an Oklahoma State University assistant professor of management science and information systems, delivered his report on a project he’d led for the company, a major
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Methodology for the Disaster Recovery of Information Systems Under Catastrophic Scenarios,” earned publication in the Journal of Management Information Systems. “Corey’s work is an example of the practical yet groundbreaking research being done in the MSIS department,”
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health care provider, on rapid IT recovery in the wake of a disaster. That’s when the 30 or so toplevel managers rose in applause, acknowledging Baham and the man who brought him in, the on-site disaster recovery specialist at the company (not identified for industry confidentiality). “We probably held back from doing a chest bump,” Baham said, “but that was validation if we ever needed it.” The success of the project was only the beginning. Baham’s research paper, “An Agile
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commented Rick Wilson, head of the MSIS department. “We pride ourselves on our rigor and our relevance, and a publication in one of the top journals in the field like JMIS is a great start for Dr. Baham’s career. We are very proud of his successes.”
Technology risks Baham’s work was special on multiple fronts. Disaster recovery and business continuity planning is one of the top concerns for IT executives. IT downtime can have a huge, detrimental impact on a company, from potentially harming its reputation to limiting its ability to
conduct business to even threatening its ability to survive. Companies of all kinds rely heavily on technology, which puts them at risk when systems go down. “Unfortunately, we’ve seen companies that have had some breaks in (IT) service and how consequential it has been for those companies, even to the extent of going out of business,” Baham said. “So we see that it’s very, very important for companies to be running on all cylinders at all times. They need to have some solutions in place so if the worst scenario happens, they can still get back operating, at least at a minimal level, very quickly.” That’s why Baham was brought in, to help develop a plan for the worst of times. When systems go down amid disasters such as floods, hurricanes and tornadoes, they aren’t always easy to restore, with the resulting challenges often forcing technicians to work remotely. So companies frequently plan ahead to consider possible solutions in handling such disasters. In this case, Baham was sought out for the project for his
“ U N FO R T U N AT E LY, W E ’ V E S E E N CO M PA N I E S T H AT H AV E H A D S O M E B R E A K S I N ( I T ) S E RV I C E A N D H OW CO N S E Q U E N T I A L I T H AS B E E N FO R T H O S E CO M PA N I E S , E V E N TO THE EXTENT OF GOING O U T O F B U S I N E S S .” — CO R E Y B A H A M
familiarity with Agile Methodology, which reflects a team’s ability to adjust to conditions and challenges it incurs during a project, rather than follow rigid preset guidelines. “We wanted to see, what are some Agile principles we could use that would marry well to the problems the disaster recovery specialist was having?” Baham said. “We tried to establish a parallel. What are the problems you are having, and how can Agile help solve those problems?” To address the challenges of technicians working remotely from potentially multiple locations, Baham adapted Kanban, a scheduling system developed by Toyota to improve manufacturing efficiency. Baham’s project utilized Kanban principles with a video board that allowed everyone involved to monitor the recovery progress and adjust as necessary. A live chat feature allowed even more connection with communication that could combat bottlenecks in the process and enhance the flexibility to move around occurring problems. And all they needed to pull it off was one simple requirement: a good internet connection. “Disasters happen randomly, leaving some key people offsite, so it could be a coffee shop or home or any place with wi-fi,” Baham said. “Kanban allows flexibility to be mobile and still stay engaged.” CONTINUES
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A real-life test Baham’s work wasn’t just theoretical, it was put to the test through “Action Research,” the participation of an actual intervention, where results can be recorded and analyzed and, if necessary, tweaked. Twice — once unexpectedly — the plan was thrust into action. The first test came when the health care provider suffered an actual power outage while Baham’s research team was still immersed in the project. With nothing to lose, the plan was thrown into action, successfully, as the system was restored with help from a Kanban video board vital to the recovery. “We just turned it on and went for it,” Baham said. “And it went well. “There’s not a lot of case studies like this where somebody’s waiting around and then an event happens and they capture it perfectly. We had some fortune with this paper, but also we were ready. That in essence is what the paper is about.” Later, a planned outage again confirmed the research and the method as effective. And soon Baham’s paper gained attention. “On the research end, we’re trying to bring more awareness to this particular paper, because it’s a little bit different than the typical academic work,” Baham said. “Where this paper was published, in one of the top journals in our field, it was in a special issue on Action Research, because the journal wanted to shed some light on what Action Research is, some of the advances in Action Research, and sort of signal to
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the field some of the opportunities that are there with doing this type of research.” The project also provided validation for the company’s disaster recovery manager, as well as Baham, to the point of tempting a chest bump. Today, the health care provider utilizes the Kanban-adapted plan, which — after initially being met with some hesitancy — received a strong endorsement from the company’s vice president of enterprise infrastructure. “I have been with this company for 25 years,” the man said during Baham’s presentation, “and I can say that this was the smoothest process we have ever had during an outage.” For Baham, a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the project was both professional and personal. He’d experienced the impact of hurricanes Katrina and Gustav, which brought flooding and massive damage to his home state. In Oklahoma, tornadoes and supercell thunderstorms pose significant threats that could result in emergencies. “So it was definitely a personal touch for this project, because being from Baton Rouge, it was something I knew could have very tangible results,” Baham said. “And the implementation of this is far-reaching, because it affects a lot of people. “For this particular company, instead of not having access to some of their health care information for days, now if something like this happens, within the same day, they can trust they can call and have access to their records.”
Expanding dreams Baham hopes the research can be shared and molded to provide an even greater impact on a grander scale. “Hopefully, having had this published, we can follow up with the model and expand it to handle larger DR (disaster recovery) events,” Baham said. “Right now, the model can handle a DR effort for a large company, but we’d like to develop one that can handle more of distributed effort, where teams are globally separated, geographically separated, across different sites and that sort of thing. “We want to see if we can take what we have and scale it to handle companies that may not even be in the same building or same region or same part of the world.” Already, the project is perceived as a resounding success. The company implemented the plan and encouraged its sister companies to do the same. Publishing his research in a highly respected journal was among the items on his list of career goals — and ranks as quite an accomplishment. “I checked a really big box with this one,” Baham said, “because there’s nothing better than working hand in hand with a company, solving a problem that they are really wrestling with and have been wrestling with for years.” @
Read the Research Baham’s research paper, “An Agile Methodology for the Disaster Recovery of Information Systems Under Catastrophic Scenarios,” was published in the Journal of Management Information Systems (Volume 34, No. 3, 2017). Read it at okla.st/Baham.
Simkins appointed to federal market panel PHIL SHOCKLEY
Longtime Oklahoma State University Spears School of Business faculty member Betty Simkins was recently appointed to a three-year term on the Market Risk Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Simkins, head of the Department of Finance, was selected because of her expertise and knowledge of derivatives and risk management, particularly with respect to energy commodities, the nomination letter from CFTC Commissioner Rostin Behnam stated. “I am honored to serve on this important committee,” said Simkins, the Williams Cos. Chair of Business and the head of the Department of Finance since January 2017. “I will do my very best to provide insights into potential systemic issues that may threaten the stability of the derivatives and other financial markets.” A faculty member at OSU since 1997, Simkins has earned the Regents Distinguished Teaching Award, the Regents Distinguished Research Award and the Outreach Excellence Award. “We are proud of Dr. Simkins and her appointment to this prestigious committee,” said Ken Eastman, dean of Spears Business. “Her selection speaks well of her dedication to her
profession and the respect that others have for her.” The newly appointed Market Risk Advisory Committee’s first public meeting is July 12 at the CFTC’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. “I’m going to learn a lot by being on this committee that I can take into the classroom,” said Simkins, who becomes the first person from OSU to serve on the committee. “There’s going to be a lot of work involved, but I’m looking forward to it. My mantra has always been to bridge the theory and practice of finance because I came from the corporate world before joining academia.” The appointment requires that Simkins serve as a special government employee member on the committee. She is expected to provide her best judgment on behalf of the U.S. government
during committee deliberations and provide expert advice in a manner free from conflicts of interest. Committee members are expected to regularly attend and participate in meetings, review committee materials provided beforehand and cooperate with the committee’s designated federal officer and serve their appointed term. Members include representatives of clearinghouses, exchanges, intermediaries, market makers, end-users, academia and regulators. Simkins joins another academic, Thomas Philippon of New York University, on the 36-person committee. The complete list of committee members is on the website of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission; visit here: okla.st/MRACmembers. @
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Digging Deep for Diversity Research divulges secrets to black women executives’ success S TO RY BY J O H N H E L S L E Y | P H OTO BY G A RY L AWS O N
Lex Smith Washington dug deep into the issue of a lagging rise of black women into executive roles in corporate America. Her research, published in the Harvard Business Review, found focus among those who succeeded. Smith Washington, an assistant professor in the Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University, worked with three colleagues to take an extensive look at the few black women who did manage to climb to the upper ranks of their companies. “We started off asking black women executives, ‘What has been your secret sauce?’” Smith Washington said. “‘What has worked for you? What has been great in corporate? What have been barriers? What have been opportunities in places where you needed to grow and develop in order to work these relationships?’” The answers, Smith Washington said, offer hope for a bigger breakthrough. From an original project interviewing more than 200 women executives within four levels of the CEO and examining their experiences in the corporate world, Smith Washington and her three co-authors — Marla
Watkins and Jamie Ladge of Northeastern University, and Pamela Carlton of Springboard-Partners in Cross Cultural Leadership — ultimately focused on the journeys of black women in those roles. Two sets of interviews with 59 black women took place; the first
1.3 percent are in senior management and executive roles of S&P 500 firms. There is not a single black female CEO in the Fortune 500, and only 2.2 percent sit on Fortune 500 boards of directors. Some of the hurdles were common, including race and gender. Yet the issues weren’t necessarily
“ T H E Y H A D TO B E CO M P L E T E LY AWA R E O F W H AT I T M E A N T TO B E A B L AC K WO M A N I N CO R P O R AT E A M E R I C A . W H AT I T M E A N T FO R OT H E R P E O P L E . A N D H OW T H E Y W E R E G O I N G TO M A N AG E OT H E R P E O P L E ’ S E X P E C TAT I O N S , ST E R E OT Y P E S , P O S I T I V E A N D N E G AT I V E AS S O C I AT I O N S W I T H B L AC K WO M E N .” — L E X S M I T H WAS H I N GTO N was in 2007 before the global financial crisis, then a follow-up in 2014. The time between the two interviews and the expanded experiences of the women provided optimum feedback. “The chance to visit with them twice and to pull together their stories was something I couldn’t turn down,” Smith Washington said. “It forced me to learn some new skills in terms of research, but it’s been one of the more rewarding projects of my career.” Smith Washington and her team found the women faced various challenges in their plans to rise through the executive ranks. Black women make up 12.7 percent of the population, yet only
conventional but often a product of “intersectional invisibility.” “Almost all of them talked about being invisible at work,” Smith Washington said. “You have these black women, and they’re the only one around, you’d think it would make them very visible. Ironically, it made them also invisible. “We don’t like to talk about our race and gender. We’re all afraid that we’re going to say the wrong thing. So, frequently, when you’re the only one, people just avoid you.” The researchers discovered key factors for the CONTINUES
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1.3% black women in
senior management/ executive roles
12.7% black women
2.2% black women among Fortune 500 boards of directors
women in navigating their paths and becoming visible hinged on keen self-awareness. “They had to be completely aware of what it meant to be a black woman in corporate America,” Smith Washington said. “What it meant for other people. And how they were going to manage other people’s expectations, stereotypes, positive and negative associations with black women.” From there, the women took the initiative in forming relationships, finding common bonds such as family or sports that would lead to mentorships and sponsorships among top executives within their companies, enhancing their visibility.
DISCOVER @ SPEARS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
50.8% are women 49.2% are men In gaining credibility in their environments, the women often took bold chances professionally, proving themselves on the big stage. “I think there’s something unique about black womanhood,” Smith Washington said. “I can speak as a black woman: Many of their stories resonated with me, these stories around sort of the cultural upbringings that many of us have, where we learn to be very strong and be very forward with our ideas. And when we’re clear on something, we work hard at it. “These women talked about that. Not only about being great at what you do, and having all the necessary skills and abilities
Read the Research The research by Smith Washington and her co-authors was highlighted by the Harvard Business Review in May. Read it at okla.st/2JOwxsL.
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U.S. population:
— and some women called it the ‘juice’ to get this stuff done — but also having the wherewithal to say, ‘I know I have the requisite skills. What I need to do now is to convince you that this is the right plan.’ “There was always this dance between being bold and also bringing people along.” Maybe now these women, with their research, can help bring others along. “To me, when I look at this research, hope is probably one of the major words that comes out,” Smith Washington said. “I’m hopeful because there is so much that can be learned from what they have done. There’s so much that can be packaged and put into tiny little manuals for the rest of us to follow and learn from and mimic. “So that makes me hopeful for what we can all do individually, for each other and for ourselves.” @
New Chairs and Professorships These Spears Business faculty members were recently recognized for their contributions with the award of a new chair or professorship.
Batjargal
Eaton
Gramling
Bat Batjargal Fran D. Jabara Professorship Greg Eaton Ed Keller Fellowship Audrey Gramling Anadarko Petroleum Corp. Chair Johnson
in Accounting, Wilton T. Anderson Chair in Accounting Sarah Johnson Patrick B. Dorr Professorship Lisa Schurer Lambert William S. Spears Chair in Business
Lambert
Lawson
Moore
Rao
Bradley Lawson Oscar S. Gellein/Deloitte and Touche Professorship
Curtis Moore Jordan Chair in Entrepreneurship Ramesh Rao Watson Chair in Financial Risk
Spencer
Zhang
Management
Angela Spencer Lanny G. Chasteen Chair in Accounting Jun Zhang Ed Keller Fellowship
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Crediting Artificial Intelligence Schuster researches just how computer inventors are acknowledged S TO RY BY T E R RY T U S H
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Mike Schuster envisions a possible future where the U.S. Patent Office receives hundreds if not thousands of patent applications for inventions created by artificial intelligence (AI). He believes that day may be closer than many believe.
iSTOCK
Computer-generated technologies have already been patented, and more applications are on the way. Up to now, however, applicants have hidden AI’s role in inventions because of uncertainty regarding how the patent office will treat computer inventors. That’s why it’s necessary to set standards regarding AI and patent law, the Oklahoma State University professor of legal studies said, and his recent research could assist in making more informed decisions. Examples of AI-created inventions include bullet-train technology and communications systems. A software package called the Invention Machine created a system controller, and the individuals who uploaded background information into the AI received the patent. But Schuster and many others are asking: Who should have received the patent? Does the patent belong to the AI itself? Or to the creator of the AI? “That raises a host of interesting legal questions,” said Schuster, who conducts research in intellectual property law. “You have to ask, are we going to grant patents for a non-human created invention? If so, who owns them?” Those are some of the questions he addresses regarding AI and patents in an article forthcoming in the Washington and Lee Law Review. Schuster began his research by filing a Freedom of Information Act request with the U.S. Patent Office seeking information on guidelines regarding how to treat patent applications claiming a non-human inventor. The office responded that it had no such policies.
With no guidance and finding little literature on the subject, he thought about the following questions: “If we are going to grant these patents, who should own them? Should it be the original coder of the software or the software company that employed the coder? What about the party in industry who is actually paying to use the AI to create new inventions that it’ll employ in commerce? Or should it be the engineer who looks at the AI’s output and recognizes a great idea? And what about the attorney who recognizes a patentable invention? These are all viable candidates for ownership. “I assumed the patent office was going to grant these patents and wondered to whom we should allocate these rights to maximize economic efficiency.” he said. Why is Schuster’s research important to the average family in the U.S.? He identifies one type of AI (out of many) that can be used to create new products called genetic algorithms, which mimics evolution for new and improved technologies. Genetic algorithms are able to evaluate many sets of invention characteristics and discard poor performing sets as it goes. “The process continues until it either identifies a system that satisfies a particular goal, say a microwave oven that will cook a chicken in two minutes, or after X many iterations of the genetic algorithm process,” Schuster said. Some decisions on AI inventions and patent law need to be decided before the process moves along much further, he said.
“I THINK THE TIME IS N E A R TO A D D R E S S WHETHER WE’RE GOING TO G R A N T PAT E N TS FO R CO M P U T E R C R E AT E D I N V E N T I O N S A N D W H O M I G H T OW N T H E S E PAT E N TS .” — M I K E S C H U ST E R “I think the time is near to address whether we’re going to grant patents for computer-created inventions and who might own these patents,” he said. “It is certainly an issue in business that is coming to the fore as we speak. That being said, it’s better to make an informed decision that we can live with for the next several generations, as opposed to making a bad decision hastily.” @
Read the Research Schuster’s research was selected as an “Editor’s Pick” in the April issue of IPPro Patents. To read it, visit okla.st/ AIresearch.
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To Invest or Not to Invest? Havakhor’s research to help companies decide IT questions S TO RY BY J O H N H E L S L E Y | P H OTO BY L A N C E S H AW
“ W E A R E L I V I N G I N A WO R L D W H E R E T H E R E I S A H O ST O F N E W T E C H N O LO G I E S CO M I N G A N D G O I N G . S H O U L D W E I N V E ST I N T H O S E T R E N D I N G T E C H N O LO G I E S , O R S H O U L D W E H O L D O N TO O U R L E G AC Y SYST E M S ? ” — TA H A H AVA K H O R
Technology shifts and evolves and emerges constantly, creating many issues for companies and organizations, including financial considerations in the quest to remain current. How can they possibly keep up? Should they even try?
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That’s the focus of research involving Taha Havakhor, a Spears School of Business assistant professor in the Department of Management Science and Information Systems. The findings were revealed in the article “Performance Consequences of Information Technology Investments: Implications of Emphasizing New or Current Information Technologies,” which was recently accepted for publication in the journal Information Systems Research. “Congratulations on producing a fine manuscript,” wrote Paul A. Pavlou, senior editor for Information Systems Research and an MSIS professor at Temple University. “I am sure that it will be well read and cited.” Havakhor served as the second author on the paper, along with Zach Steelman, a former assistant professor at OSU who is now at the University of Arkansas, Rajiv Sabherwal, also of Arkansas, and Sanjiv Sabherwal of the University of Texas at Arlington. “I want to congratulate Taha on getting this acceptance,” said Ramesh Sharda, vice dean of the Watson Graduate School of Management. “Top journals like ISR are extremely competitive, and we want our faculty members to target at least some of their research at the very elite journals. Such publications add to the faculty member’s personal profile as well as to Spears School of Business’ prestige. So, it is really nice that a young colleague like Taha is already hitting such top journals.” The team studied considerations of companies and firms in financially committing to information technology.
“As they are dealing with information technology, one of the broader questions — and there are many — that any IT executive is asking: ‘We are living in a world where there is a host of new technologies coming and going. There are technologies that are trending, and those that have been around for a while. Should we invest in those trending technologies, or should we hold onto our legacy systems?’” Havakhor said. “The question is significant, because there are certain sorts of technologies that are very costly to invest in.” Havakhor and the team of researchers looked at different types of companies, weighing several factors, in projecting which firms may benefit best by investing in new technology, and which ones may benefit by staying with systems already in use. “That’s the thrust of the paper, trying to understand whether there are more benefits obtained from investing in new technologies, or are there better payoffs when emphasizing investments in current technologies?” Havakhor said. “Invest in doing research on them. Doing maintenance on them. Protecting them. Updating them. “So, we started with that broad question four or five years ago. We started to track companies that are ranked by Information Week as top IT leaders. The research focuses on IT leaders that do not procure information technology; they are a user of information technology.” The research examined over 270 publicly traded firms in the Information Week rankings, built
on information gathered from 2000 to 2007. While some companies benefit greatly by pivoting to new technology, others are not best served by making a change. “We observe that some companies may even lose value as a result of investing in new technology,” Havakhor said. “And the loss of value is considerable, so it’s something to consider as firms delve into a market they are not ready for specifically. “It’s like an athlete who is not warmed up. You send them to the field and they fail, they probably injure themselves and come off limping. That’s the kind of result we observe in unready companies. They are probably not getting any additional value from investing in newer technologies. As they do not have the means for committing to adoption and implementation of new technologies, such investments may only disrupt their operation. “It’s a big topic in the field.” Havakhor said he’s enjoyed working on this research. “It’s my main area of research, and I am very involved in it,” he said. The research continues as well, with the ongoing work focusing on other unexplored aspects of the business value of different kinds of technologies in public corporations. “One of the aspects that we found is how you put IT as one of the key players in a company really affects you,” Havakhor said. “But there are discussions into how you can evaluate that. “So we wanted to look at different ways we could understand.” @
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Spears’ Editorial Input Many faculty members in the Spears School of Business work with highly respected professional journals in their fields of study. The roles of Spears Business faculty are listed here.
Accounting Sandeep Nabar
Journal of International Accounting Research, editorial board member
Finance David Carter
FMA Online, associate editor Journal of Undergraduate Research in Finance, associate editor
Economics and Legal Studies Harounan Kazianga
Economic Working Paper Series, editor Environment and Development Economics, associate editor Journal of African Economics, associate editor
Laurie Lucas
American Business Law Journal, editor in chief
Jaebeom Kim
Korea and the World Economy, associate editor Korean Social Science Journal, associate editor
Dan Rickman
Growth and Change, co-editor in chief Journal of Regional Science, associate editor
Ramesh Rao
Journal of Applied Finance, co-editor
Betty Simkins
Advances in Financial Education, associate editor Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, associate editor Journal of Financial Education, associate editor Journal of Commodity Markets, editor Review of Financial Economics, associate editor Finance Research Letters, associate editor British Accounting Review, associate editor Journal of Banking and Finance, associate editor International Review of Financial Analysis, associate editor European Research Studies Journal, associate editor
Management Entrepreneurship
Federico Aime
Robert Baron
Journal of Management, editorial board
Bruce Barringer
Journal of Business and Psychology, editorial board
Management Science, associate editor The Wall Street Journal Entrepreneurship Weekly Review, co-editor
Bat Batjargal
Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, co-editor
Per Bylund
Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy, co-associate editor
Matt Rutherford
Journal of Small Business Management, special issue editor
Tom Westbrook
Resonate eMagazine, co-editor
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Matthew Bowler Bryan Edwards
Africa Journal of Management, editorial board Journal of Applied Psychology, editorial board Journal of Business and Psychology, editorial board Journal of Management, editorial board Personnel Psychology, editorial board
Tom Stone Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, editorial board Career Development International, associate editor
Management Science and Information Systems Ali Amiri Information Technology and Management Journal, associate editor
David Biros
Journal of Digital Forensics Security and Law, co-editor Conference on Computer Forensics, Security, and Law, associate editor
Faculty grants
Nik Dalal e-Service Journal, associate editor Dursun Delen
Journal of Business Analytics, co-editor International Journal of Decision Sciences & Applications, editor
Journal of Business Research, senior editor Decision Sciences Journal, Special Issue, editor Decision Support Systems, senior editor Decision Analytics, associate editor International Journal of Experimental Algorithms (IJEA), editor
International Journal of RF Technologies: Research and Applications (IJRFT), associate editor
Jeretta Horn Nord
Journal of Computer Information Systems, executive editor
Ramesh Sharda
ACM Database Preeminent, editor Decision Sciences Journal, special issue editor Engaged Management Review, associate editor Information Systems Frontiers, associate editor & special issue editor
Mark Weiser
Journal of Information Systems Security, associate editor
Marketing and International Business Tom Brown Journal of Service Research, special section “Managing Frontlines in Service Organizations,” co-editor Karen Flaherty
Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, editor in chief and managing editor
Kevin Voss
European Journal of Marketing, associate editor
Josh Wiener
Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, editor & associate editor Case Studies in Business, Industry and Government Statistics, associate editor
Several Spears Business faculty members have successfully secured industry and government grants. A list of current active grants includes:
Bruce Barringer and Richard Gajan
I-Corps Site Programs, National Science Foundation Alexces Bartley Veterans with Disabilities Entrepreneurship Program, U.S. Small Business Administration Goutam Chakraborty Loyalty Marketing Analytics, Technology Marketing Project, Merchandising Analytics, Data Validation and Analytics for Data Lake, Fuel Price Optimization, Retail Sales Predictive Modeling — Love’s; Central Analytics — OG&E; Healthcare Data Model, Analytics — Infinedi; JM Family Enterprises Lindsey Greco and Evan Davis Smart Community Survey, Central Electric Cooperative Andy Luse Teaching Security … as Easy as 1, 2, 3, National Science Foundation William Paiva Google/Verily; Center for Integrative Research on Childhood Adversity (CIRCA) Dan Rickman Oklahoma State Econometric Model, Oklahoma Tax Commission Ramesh Sharda Analytics Applications for Smart Energy Infrastructure, NESISES; Partnership Community Grants, Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education Craig Watters Mandela Washington Fellowship Program for Young African Leaders, International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX)
15 BUSINESS.OKSTATE.EDU
Spears Journal Publications Spears Business faculty have actively contributed to sharing knowledge. In 2017-2018, faculty members published a total of 207 papers in refereed journals. Of these, 44 papers were in top-tier journals. Spears Business initiated an aspirational journal
The following highlights faculty publications in high-
program in 2016 to encourage faculty members to target
quality journals in each department, with all of the papers
some of the top journals. This year, 14 papers authored or
in aspirational journals listed first. A list of all the other
co-authored by Spears Business faculty have appeared or
journals where faculty have published this year follows.
been accepted in those journals.
Spears faculty names are italicized.
Aspirational Journals (all fields) Baron, Robert ; Tang, Jintong; Tang, Zhi; Zhang, Yuli. (2018) “Bribes as Entrepreneurial Actions: Why Underdog Entrepreneurs Feel Compelled to Use Them,” Journal of Business Venturing.
Bonner, Julena; Greenbaum, Rebecca ; Quade, Matt. (2017) “Unethical Behavior to Shame as an Indicator of Self-Image Threat and Exemplification as a Form of Self-Image Protection: The Exacerbating Role of Supervisor Bottom-Line Mentality,” Journal of Applied Psychology. Bylund, Per L .; McCaffrey, Matthew. (2017) “A Theory
of Entrepreneurship and Institutional Uncertainty,” Journal of Business Venturing. Cai, Zhengyu; Winters, John . (2017) “SelfEmployment Differentials Among Foreign-Born STEM and Non-STEM Workers,” Journal of Business Venturing. Eaton, Gregory W. ; Chen, Y; Paye, B.S. (2017)
“Micro(Structure) Before Macro? The Predictive Power of Aggregate Illiquidity for Stock Returns and Economic Activity,” Journal of Financial Economics. Haleblian, J.; Pfarrer, M.D.; Kiley, Jason T. (2017) “High-Reputation Firms and Their Differential Acquisition Behaviors,” Strategic Management Journal. Havakhor, Taha; Sabherwal, R.; Steelman, Z.;
Sabherwal, S. (forthcoming) “Relationships Between Information Technology and Other Investments: A Contingent Interaction Model,” Information Systems Research.
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Hill, Aaron D.; Aime, Federico ; Ridge, Jason. (2017) “The Performance Implications of Resource and Pay Dispersion: The Case of Major League Baseball,” Strategic Management Journal.
Mawritz, M. B.; Greenbaum, Rebecca ; Butts, M.; Graham, K. A. (2017) “I Just Can’t Control Myself: A Self-Regulation Perspective on the Abuse of Deviant Employees,” Academy of Management Journal. Mitchell, M.S., Greenbaum, R.L ., Vogel, R.M., Mawritz, M.B., Keating, D.J. (conditionally accepted). “Working in a Pressure Cooker: The Effect of Performance Pressure on Employee Self-regulation and Behavior,” Academy of Management Journal. Parker, Owen N. ; Krause, R.; Devers, C. (forthcoming) “How Firm Reputation Shapes Managerial Discretion,” Academy of Management Review.
Ridge, J.; Ingram, A.; Hill, Aaron D. (2017) “Beyond Lobbying Expenditures: How Lobbying Breadth and Political Connectedness Affect Firm Outcomes,” Academy of Management Journal. Schuster, W. Michael ; Wroldsen, John S.
(forthcoming) “Entrepreneurship and Legal Uncertainty: Unexpected Federal Trademarks for Marijuana Derivatives,” American Business Law Journal. Steelman, Z.; Havakhor, Taha ; Sabherwal, R.; Sabherwal, S. (forthcoming) “Performance Consequences of Information Technology Investments: Implications of Emphasizing New or Current Information Technologies,” Information Systems Research.
Accounting Brockbank, Bryan G .; Hennes, Karen. (forthcoming)
“Strategic Timing of 8-K Filings by Privately Owned Firms,” Accounting Horizons. Eshleman, J. Daniel; Lawson, Bradley P . (2017) “Audit Market Structure and Audit Pricing,” Accounting Horizons. Other recent publications: Accounting and the Public Interest, Advances in Quantitative Analysis of Finance and Accounting, AIS Educator Journal, International Journal of Emerging Markets, Journal of Corporate Accounting & Finance, Journal of Forensic and Investigative Accounting, Petroleum Accounting and Financial Management Journal, Research in Accounting Regulation
Economics and Legal Studies Hirsch, Barry; Husain, Muhammad; Winters, John . (2017) “The Puzzling Pattern of Multiple Job Holding Across U.S. Labor Markets,” Southern Economic Journal. Lucas, Laurie A .; Peterson, Christopher L. (2017) “Developments in Federal Student-Lending Law: Harbingers of Change?” The Business Lawyer.
Other recent publications: American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Annals of Regional Science, Applied Economics, Civil War History, Contemporary Economic Policy, Economic Modelling, Energy Economics, Environmental and Resource Economics, European Journal of Operational Research, Growth and Change: A Journal of Urban and Regional Policy, Health Economics, Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance, and Management, International Advances in Economic Research, Journal of African Economies, Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, Journal of Business Strategies, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Economic Geography, Journal of Monetary Economics, Modern Economy, Papers in Regional Science, Public Finance Review, Regional Science and Urban Economics, Research in International Business and Finance, Review of Development Economics, Social Indicators Research, B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy, Urban Studies, World Development, American Business Law Journal, Gonzaga Law Review, Journal of Business & Economic Policy, Nebraska Law Review, UC Davis Law Review, Wake Forest Law Review, Washington & Lee Law Review
Entrepreneurship Hornsby, Jeffrey; Messersmith, Jake; Rutherford, Matthew W .; Simmons, Sharon. (2018) “Entrepreneurship Everywhere: Across Campus, Across Communities, and Across Borders,” Journal of Small Business Management. Packard, Mark; Bylund, Per L. (2018) “On the Relationship of Inequality and Entrepreneurship,” Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal. Other recent publications: Family Business Review, Group and Organization Management, Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy, Journal of Family Business Strategy, Journal of Management and Enterprise Development, Journal of Small Business Strategy, Review of Political Economy
Finance Adams, J.; Nishikawa, T.; Rao, Ramesh . (forthcoming) “Mutual Fund Performance, Management Teams, and Boards,” Journal of Banking and Finance. Eaton, Gregory W. ; Paye, Bradley. (2017) “Payout Yields and Stock Return Predictability: How Important Is the Measure of Cash Flow?” Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. Rao, Ramesh ; Orlova, Svetlana; Kang, Tony. (2017) “National Culture and the Valuation of Cash Holdings,” Journal of Business, Finance and Accounting. Zhang, Jun . (2018) “Informed Options Trading Prior
to Dividend Change Announcements,” Financial Management. Other recent publications: Darden Business Publishing, Finance Research Letters, International Review of Economics and Finance, Journal of Commodity Markets, Journal of Economics and Finance, Journal of Economics and Human Biology, Journal of Empirical Finance, Journal of Finance and Data Science, Journal of Financial Education, Journal of Financial Research, Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Review of Behavioral Finance, Review of Financial Economics, Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Journal of Fixed Income
CONTINUES
17 BUSINESS.OKSTATE.EDU
Management Brymer, R.; Chadwick, C.; Hill, Aaron D .; Molloy, J. (forthcoming) “Pipelines and Their Portfolios: A More Holistic View of Human Capital Heterogeneity via Firm-Wide Employee Sourcing,” Academy of Management Perspectives. Greco, Lindsey M. ; O’Boyle, E.H.; Cockburn, B.S.; Yuan, Z. (2017) “Meta Analysis of Coefficient Alpha: A Reliability Generalization Study,” Journal of Management Studies. Greenbaum, Rebecca ; Quade, Matt; Mawritz, M.B.
(forthcoming) “If Only My Coworker Was More Ethical: When Ethical and Performance Comparisons Lead to Negative Emotions, Social Undermining and Ostracism,” Journal of Business Ethics. Hill, Aaron D. (2018) “The Signaling Role of Politician
Stock Ownership: Effects on Lobbying Intensity,” Journal of Management. Humphrey, S.E.; Aime, Federico ; Cushenbery, L.; Hill, Aaron D .; Fairchild, J. (2017) “Team Conflict Dynamics: Implications of a Dyadic View of Conflict for Team Performance,” Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes. Porck, J.P.; van Knippenberg, D.;Tarakci, M.; Ates, N.Y.; Broenen, P.J.F.; de Hoas, M.A. ( forthcoming)
“Do Group and Organizational Identification Help or Hurt Intergroup Strategic Consensus?” Journal of Management. Quade, Matt; Greenbaum, Rebecca ; Petrenko, Oleg. (2017) “‘I Don’t Want to Be Near You, Unless...’: The Interactive Effect of Unethical Behavior and Performance onto Workplace Ostracism,” Personnel Psychology. Ridge, Jason; Hill, Aaron D .; Aime, Federico . (2017) “Implications of Multiple Concurrent Pay Comparisons for Top Team Turnover,” Journal of Management. Smith, M.; Hill, Aaron D .; Wallace, Craig; Recendes, Tessa ; Judge, T. (2018) “Upside to Dark and Downside to Bright Personality: A Multidomain Review and Future Research Agenda,” Journal of Management. Washington, Alexis ; Watkins, M.B.; Ladge, J. (2018) “Interviews with 59 Black Female Executives Explore Intersectional Invisibility and Strategies to Overcome It,” Harvard Business Review.
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Other recent publications: Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, Current Directions in Psychological Science, Harvard Business Review Online, Journal of Academic Ethics, Journal of Alloys and Compounds, Journal of Business and Psychology, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Contemporary Athletics, Journal of Managerial Issues, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Royal Society of Chemistry, Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, Sierra Leone Journal of Biomedical Research, Case Research Journal, Leadership Quarterly
Marketing Arens, Zachary G ; Hamilton, Rebecca W. (2017) “The
Rebound of the Forgone Alternative,” Journal of Consumer Psychology. Arens, Zachary G ; Hamilton, Rebecca W. (2018) “The
Substitution Strategy Dilemma: Substitute Selection Versus Substitute Effectiveness,” Journal of Academy of Marketing Science. Brady, Michael; Arnold, Todd . (2017) “Organizational Service Strategy,” Journal of Academy of Marketing Science. Johnson, Kathryn; Liu, Richie L .; Minton, Elizabeth; Bartholomew, Darrell; Peterson, Mark; Cohen, Adam; Kees, Jeremy. (2017) “Citizens’ Representations of God and Support for Sustainable Policies,” Journal of Public Policy and Marketing. Wiener, Josh , Pam Ellen, Scot Burton (2018) “Looking
to the Future: The Evolving Marketing and Public Policy Community,” Journal of Public Policy and Marketing Other recent publications: A Journal of Research in Marketing, Consumer Culture Theory: Research in Consumer Behavior, European Journal of Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management, Interfaces, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Marketing Communications, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Journal of Service Research, Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, Political Psychology, Public Management Review, International Journal of Sport and Society
Management Science and Information Systems Arda, Ozlem A; Delen, Dursun ; Tatoglu, Ekrem; Zaim, Selim. (forthcoming) “An Analytic Approach to Assessing Organizational Citizenship Behavior,” Decision Support Systems. Ashish Gupta, Gary Wilkerson, Ramesh Sharda & M. Colston. (forthcoming) “Who is More Injury-Prone? Prediction and Assessment of Injury Risk,” Decision Sciences. Havakhor, Taha ; Sabherwal, R. (2018) “From Black
Boxes to Pipes, Prisms, and Processes: Collaboration in Organizational Online Knowledge Communities,” Journal of Management Information Systems. Piri, Saeed; Delen, Dursun ; Liu, Tieming. (forthcoming) “A Synthetic Informative Minority Over-Sampling (Simo) Algorithm Leveraging Support Vector Machine to Enhance Learning from Imbalanced Datasets,” Decision Support Systems. Piri, Saeed; Delen, Dursun ; Zolbanin, Hamed M; Liu, Tieming. (2017) “A Data Analytics Approach to Building a Clinical Decision Support System for Diabetic Retinopathy: Developing and Deploying A Model Ensemble,” Decision Support Systems.
Other recent publications: Communications of the Association for Information Systems, Communications of the Association of Information Systems, Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, Computers in Human Behavior, Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, European Journal of Operational Research, Expert Systems with Applications, Global Business Review, Health Informatics Journal, Healthcare Informatics Research, IEEE Potentials, Informatics For Health and Social Care, Information and Management, Information Systems Frontiers, Information Systems Journal, International Journal of Accounting and Information Management, International Journal of Computational Intelligence Systems, International Journal of Database Theory and Application, International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, International Journal of Information Management, International Journal of Medical Informatics, Issues in Information Systems, Journal of Asia Entrepreneurship and Sustainability, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Computer Information Systems, Journal of International Technology and Information Management, Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering, Journal of the Midwest Association for Information Systems, Journal of Transport & Health, mHealth, Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews, Renewable Energy, Statistics Education Research Journal, Suburban Sustainability, Transactions on Data Privacy
RANDY ALVARADO / MANHATTAN CONSTRUCTION
The Watson Trading Floor is one of many highlights of the new OSU Business Building, which opened in January 2018.
19 BUSINESS.OKSTATE.EDU
Management articles top Big 12 The management faculty in the OSU Spears School of Business was among the top in the nation for 2017 in aggregate publication rankings in the eight top-tier journals in U.S. business schools. Spears Business management faculty tied for 19th overall and was first among Big 12 schools in the Texas A&M/University of Georgia Rankings of Management Department Research Productivity for 2017. The rankings are based on the number of scholarly articles a business school’s faculty has published in eight top-tier, peer-reviewed journals. With seven published articles, Spears Business faculty tied for 19th out of the 97 schools with at least two publications. “At a strategic planning retreat in 2013, our faculty committed to the pursuit of increasing our research profile,” said Jim Pappas, head of the Department of Management. “With the support of Dean Ken Eastman and Vice Dean Ramesh Sharda, we have made great strides in producing cutting-edge research that is recognized nationally.
“We realize our long-term goal requires continued support from many external and internal constituents; however, we also know it is possible to aim high and achieve excellence.” In addition, the OSU faculty members tied for 40th overall among the 150 most productive groups with at least two publications for the last five years (2013 to 2017). Over those five years, their publications appeared in the Academy of Management Journal (five articles), the Academy of Management Review (one), the Journal of Applied Psychology (three), Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (three), Organization Studies (one), Personnel Psychology (two) and the Strategic Management Journal (six). For a complete list of the rankings, visit okla.st/tamuga.
number one among Big 12 schools
th
overall ranking
7
Texas A&M/ University of Georgia Rankings of Management Department Research Productivity for 2017
published articles by Spears faculty
20 DISCOVER @ SPEARS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
Our
Rankings
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Management Research Productivity in Big 12 (TAMUGA rankings)
Best Online MBA in the Big 12 (U.S. News & World Report)
SPEARS BUSINESS
Power of Personal the
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2
Affordable Online Master’s in Data Science
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Best Colleges for Marketing Degrees
Top
(Data Science Degree Programs)
(Schools.com)
20
2019 Best Business School rankings
% (U.S. News & World Report)
Business Building, Stillwater, OK 74078-4011
A NEW HOME FOR OSU’S SPEARS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS RANDY ALVARADO/MANHATTAN CONSTRUCTION