v i l l a n o va s c h o o l o f b u s i n e s s
GREAT faculty with GREAT students
The Villanova School of Business takes in its multidimensional faculty who actively our students.
Faculty members at the Villanova School of Business (VSB) excel across the board—in research, teaching, and curricular innovation. Our community of scholars goes beyond providing formal business training to prepare students to be impactful members of society. The best and brightest minds come to VSB to be part of this supportive yet challenging environment. VSB aims to attract and support world-class faculty and bring them together with the finest students. This collaboration, along with our multidisciplinary approach, focus on cutting-edge analytical skills and deep liberal arts tradition, helps VSB students become impactful citizens, successful businesspeople, and effective global leaders. In keeping with Villanova’s Augustinian approach, VSB integrates ethics and social responsibility into educational and extracurricular experiences. VSB students are consistently prompted to view themselves and their work within the context of making a positive contribution to the world. This publication highlights some of the exceptional research minds at VSB along with five outstanding students who create positive change everywhere life takes them. It is this combination of extraordinary talent across our faculty and students that creates an incredibly powerful and transformative learning experience.
Kevin D. Clark Interim Dean Villanova School of Business
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Drawing On Social Motivations
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tarting your own business is a risky decision. The environment in which entrepreneurs operate is often uncertain, with traditional marketing analyses relying on data that may be unreliable or even unavailable to those launching their own business ventures. As such, many entrepreneurs count on their own past experiences when developing marketing strategies. However, social entrepreneurs, even those in the for-profit sector, tend to lack a solid background in business. VSB Associate Professor of Management and Operations Scott Newbert hypothesized that social entrepreneurs would be less likely than commercial entrepreneurs to apply sound marketing fundamentals when establishing their organizations, predicting they would focus instead on the societal needs they seek to fulfill. Newbert’s assumptions are supported by evidence that for-profit social entrepreneurs are less likely than commercial entrepreneurs to implement a number of best marketing practices. His research intends to provide social entrepreneurs with guidance on how to design and implement an effective marketing strategy, and also aims to influence government policy. Noting the important role for-profit social entrepreneurs play in addressing social needs, Newbert calls on government agencies to broaden their strict focus on non-profits and include for-profit entrepreneurs in federal grant programs designed to stimulate solutions to today’s most pressing social problems. Newbert’s recent research also includes collaborative work with VSB Professors Kevin Clark and Narda Quigley comparing the traits, commitment bases, and goals of social entrepreneurs, as well as another study that examines how the networks of nascent entrepreneurs evolve over time. Newbert’s research has previously been published in the Strategic Management Journal, the Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, and Small Business Economics, for which Newbert was named the Harry Halloran Emerging Scholar in Social Entrepreneurship.
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Scott
Newbert, phd Associate Professor, Management and Operations
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amayo
bassey ’14 VSB
Before her official acceptance to Villanova University, Amayo Bassey did everything she could to get the attention of the Admissions Office. “I constantly bugged them, filling their inboxes with updates, recommendations, and essays explaining my interest in Villanova,” she says. “I burst into tears of joy when I got accepted!” Coming from Nigeria, Amayo chose Villanova because of its commitment to service. “My middle and high schools’ motto is ‘Service of God and Others,’ so service has always been a way of life for me. I found myself drawn to Villanova’s emphasis on community work.” Once on campus, Amayo enthusiastically signed up for nearly every possible club during the annual Activities Fair. “I couldn’t wait to dig into the sea of organizations!” she explains. “However, it didn’t take me long to figure out which ones I was going to take seriously.” Amayo became active in the Leadership Learning Community, worked at the St. Ignatius School through RUIBAL (Reaching Urban Individuals by Action and Love), raised money for cancer research through participation in the Relay for Life walk, and cheered as a volunteer for the Special Olympics. Now a sophomore, Amayo works in a leadership role as secretary of the International Business Society Council and treasurer of African and Caribbean Villanovans, among many other activities. Although Amayo initially wanted to study International Business, she has discovered a love for marketing and will pursue a double major in Accounting and Marketing. “The activities I participate in and the vast amount of community service I have performed are just two reasons I am proud to be a Villanovan,” Amayo proclaims. “I am a hundred percent sure I made the right decision to come here, and my experiences so far have been nothing but worthwhile.”
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Measuring the REIT Stuff
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oes a hotel owned by a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) perform better than a non-REIT hotel? Does REIT ownership add value at an individual property level? Limited prior research on the topic has been inconclusive. In collaboration with fellow VSB Professors Shelly Howton, Shawn Howton, and Johnny Lee, Assistant Professor of Finance Mi (Meg) Luo re-examined these questions and arrived at an affirmative response. Other research that has investigated the impact of REIT ownership on property performance focused on revenue-based performance measures. Luo and her co-authors, however approached this issue using a unique dataset
of detailed accounting information for individual hotels across five states. Their expansive dataset differed in that it enabled them to examine both top-line and bottom-line performance of hotel operations. The team of professors used this evidence to conclude that REIT ownership favorably impacts property performance and that REIT-owned hotels have higher profit margins. Luo’s research has been published in the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Corporate Finance, and the Journal of Internet Commerce. She earned her PhD in finance at the University of Utah and a BS in finance at Nanjing University in China. Luo’s research interests include executive compensation, cash management, and dividend policy. In 2008, she received the Villanova Summer Research Grant.
MI (MEG)
LUo, PhD
Assistant Professor, Finance
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HAMZA
GUENNOUn ’12 VSB Prior to enrolling at VSB, Hamza Guennoun had never seen the campus in person. Applying from Morocco on a gut feeling, his only hope was that VSB would help him attain his dream of working on Wall Street. Now a senior, Hamza has come a long way in his four years, “VSB has helped me grow and succeed in ways I never expected,” he says. “I came here with the singular goal of gaining an education that would help me land a job, and ended up discovering a wide array of academic, professional, and social opportunities that have helped me develop the essential managerial, leadership, analytical, and networking skills to excel and stand out in the most competitive of environments.” A Finance and Economics major, Hamza praises VSB for its strong academics and variety of educational societies. As an active member of the Equity Society, Hamza recommends trades in the large-cap finance sector. He is also the head of the newly formed economic team of this society and has made efforts to strengthen the team’s presence in meetings and decision-making opportunities. Hamza also participates in honors tutoring and has joined both the Financial Management and the Economics Societies. Following a successful summer internship, Hamza’s time at VSB has culminated in the realization of his dream: a full-time job on the trading floors at Bank of America Merrill Lynch awaits him upon graduation.
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Clipping Groupon’s Earnings
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housands of deal- hungry consumers visit Groupon.com to buy daily discounts on local and national products and services. Theoretically, when a customer purchases a deal through this website, Groupon and the retailer split the profit equally, but Groupon has been reporting the entire amount of the purchase—twice their actual revenue—as fully their own, raising serious concerns about the reliability of their accounting practices. VSB accounting professor Anthony Catanach’s research brought light to this and other significant problems with Groupon’s S-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Catanach shows that Groupon, in preparation for an IPO, considerably overstated revenues in income statements. Rather than reporting revenues on a net basis, which would have been the proper format for a company of this type, Groupon instead reported revenues on a gross basis. According to Catanach, Groupon failed to follow generally accepted accounting principles and did not conform to specific requirements set forth by the Emerging Issues Task Force. Catanach’s revealing research caught the attention of the media and of the SEC, which ultimately intervened and compelled Groupon to restate its revenue. Catanach’s work has appeared in BNET, CNN Money, Forbes, The Economist, and the New York Times Deal Book. He also has been interviewed on Bloomberg West, as well as on CNBC’s Street Signs and Fast Money shows.
Catanach’s academic research has appeared in Accounting Horizons, Advances in Accounting, the Journal of Managerial Issues, and Research on Professional Responsibility and Ethics in Accounting. He has won several Best Paper Awards and received the first-ever Cary M. Maguire Fellowship in Applied Ethics from the American College Center for Ethics in Financial Services. Catanach also is the co-editor of the Grumpy Old Accountants blog.
anthony
catanach jr, phd Associate Professor, Accountancy
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JULIO
PENA ’13 EMBA
Just two days before beginning the Executive MBA program at Villanova, Julio Pena, his wife, and their two young children moved to the United States from Venezuela, where Julio was born and raised. After graduating from law school in 1997, Julio worked as a corporate associate for a major Venezuelan law firm. He then spent time in New York, where he earned master’s degrees in Comparative Jurisprudence and in Corporate Law and passed the NY Bar exam. Julio and his family then returned to Venezuela, where he became the Alternate Corporate Secretary for Mercantil Servicios Financieros, the largest financial institution in Venezuela. After his wife received a job offer in the United States, Julio arranged to transfer to the New York office of Mercantil Commercebank, N.A. and decided to complement his work experience with an Executive MBA degree. Julio researched and chose Villanova based on two important factors, he says. “VSB’s Executive MBA curriculum is woven around a systems thinking-based approach and was the only program I found where teams rotate, allowing for everyone in my class to share and learn from one another. This exchange enhances the learning opportunities by facilitating and encouraging dynamic peer-to-peer learning, rather than having a team assigned at the beginning of the program for the duration of the program.” While his start to the Executive MBA came on the heels of a hectic intercontinental move, Julio is thrilled with his decision to enroll in VSB and is thriving on expanding his business acumen with the help of both faculty and fellow students.
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Twisting the Economy Around
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ow to stimulate the troublesome economy has been a source of contention for years. The Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) recently announced plans to launch “Operation Twist” as an economyboosting initiative, and this decision spurred widespread debate. VSB Professor of Economics Victor Li, who has long been studying and analyzing the policies of the Fed, examined the numbers and penned an op-ed in favor of the policy. “Operation Twist” involves selling a large amount of short-term bonds in exchange for the same quantity of longer-term bonds. The objective of this measure is to reduce interest rates and offer consumers incentive to borrow and spend money. Li contends that “Operation Twist” would be beneficial to the economic recovery, explaining that downward pressure on the long-term mortgage rates would reinvigorate the sluggish housing market. Additionally, a reinvestment in securities would actually have minimal impact on the Fed’s overall balance sheet. This strategy also would benefit market investors, who would see a greater return on their long-term bonds from the boost in prices. While other experts argue that policymakers should focus singularly on the unemployment rate rather than the Fed’s mandate of price stability and low inflation, Li maintains that this action would be inadvisable. Li’s research has appeared in the Journal of Monetary Economics, the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, and the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control. Li previously worked with Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, while both were at Princeton, and he also was a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Li has been quoted as an expert on the Federal Reserve by a number of media outlets, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, Bloomberg, and The New York Times.
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FANNY
D’ONOFRIO ’13 MBA For ten years, Fanny D’Onofrio represented refugees and victims of human rights abuses and war crimes in Europe, Africa, and the United States. She focused on the violent, gender-related acts of female genital mutilation, human trafficking, and forced marriage.
VICTOR LI, PhD
Associate Professor, Economics
After earning her law degree from her native France, Fanny obtained Masters of Law degrees in both the U.K. and the United States. During her legal career, Fanny collaborated with regional and international humanitarian organizations, managing a portfolio of NGO grants at the United Nations in Geneva, organizing an international awareness campaign for war crime cases at Human Rights Watch in Brussels and Dakar, and defending female asylum seekers and immigrants with HIAS & Council Migration Service of Philadelphia. Fanny wants to make a greater impact with her human rights efforts, and so she began the Villanova MBA program in the fall of 2011 to enhance her knowledge of socially conscious management and to gain experience in non-profit leadership, fundraising, and grant writing. “I value VSB’s holistic approach that embraces corporate, non-profit, and ecclesiastic leadership, “ she says. Fanny is also a graduate fellow and regularly attends advocacy events held at Villanova’s Center for Peace and Justice.
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Shining a New Light On poverty
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he concept of “keeping up with the Joneses” is usually associated with wealth. Consumers in wealthy communities tend to compete with and compare themselves to their peers when it comes to material goods—your neighbor, for example, buys a Porsche, so your BMW needs to be replaced. Matching pace financially with those around us, it seems, is a game of affluence. VSB Professor of Marketing Ronald Hill, however, discovered an unexpected twist: peer comparisons are more prominent and more impactful among the poor. New research by Professor Hill shows that social comparisons are more powerful determinants in life satisfaction for people in poorer, developing societies than for people in more affluent nations. His research revealed that, perhaps not surprisingly, people in poorer countries are more dissatisfied with their lives than those in wealthier countries. Hill’s research further suggests that people in poorer countries who make downward social comparisons are more satisfied with their lives than individuals making upward social comparisons. In less developed regions, individuals who believe they are worse off than their peers are less satisfied with their lives than their counterparts in wealthier nations. According to Hill, marketers need to understand that the poor have some similar attitudes and aspirations as wealthier consumers. Professor Hill is the editor of the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing and holds editorial positions with the Journal of Consumer Affairs and the Journal of Macromarketing. His research has been published in these journals and others, including the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Marketing Research, and the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Hill won the 2010 Richard W. Pollay Prize from the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia, a lifetime achievement award given annually to recognize intellectual excellence in the study of marketing in the public interest.
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ronald
E. dukes ’12 VSB
ronald P. hill, phd
Richard J. and Barbara Naclerio Endowed Chair in Business Professor, Marketing
“Considering my background and ethnicity, I am statistically more likely to end up in jail than to graduate from college,” says Ron Dukes, who has beaten the odds and will graduate in May from VSB with a degree in Accounting and Management Information Systems and a minor in Peace & Justice. While he is proud of this feat, he is more grateful than anything else. Among many positive influences in his life, the determination and strength of his mother most enabled Ron to avoid becoming a judicial system statistic. Ron chose to study at Villanova so he could pursue his passion for business and immerse himself in an environment where giving back to the community is paramount. During his time at VSB he has served as a UNITAS and Leadership Academy peer mentor, a student facilitator of the Service Learning Community, a Safe-Zone volunteer, and a PICPA campus representative. Ron also volunteered for the St. Thomas of Villanova Day of Service, dedicated a school break to a Habitat for Humanity service trip, and helped organize the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service. Ron has served in leadership roles as treasurer for the National Association of Black Accountants and as Head Resident Assistant. He also is dedicated to celebrating diversity and founded the Multicultural Business Association, which offers professional development opportunities for diverse student populations at Villanova and empowers them to become leaders. Ron has won a number of recognitions, including the Academy of Finance Citigroup National Award, PricewaterhouseCoopers’ National eXceed Scholar Award, and the AICPA National Scholarship. Of his deep commitment to VSB, Ron says, “It is difficult to express the depth of my appreciation. I have been overwhelmed by the support of the Clay Center, my professors, and fellow students to help me reach and exceed my potential.The foundation I have built here of academics, service, and leadership will serve me throughout my personal and professional development in the future.” www.villanova.edu/business 11
c e n t e rs o f e xc e l l e n c e
VSB’s commitment to research and academic rigor is evident in its support of six Centers of Excellence Through education, research, and outreach, the Center for Global Leadership promotes three core ideals: cross-cultural awareness, ethical international business relationships, and responsible global leadership. These ideals are firmly rooted in the university’s Augustinian tradition, which focuses on the moral and ethical development of our students and faculty and our contributions to thriving global communities. The center pursues these guiding principles through educational programs, research, and service and outreach activities. The Center for Marketing and Public Policy Research supports scholarship and research on marketing and public policy issues, examining the impact of regulation on the business community, consumers, and society. Its mission is to produce cutting-edge research that influences sound policy at the local, state, and national levels. Faculty members are supported by the center’s diverse advisory board, which is comprised of leaders from business, government, and academia. Although the Church is not a business, good stewardship of Church resources requires an understanding and application of sound business practices. VSB has positioned itself as a “first mover” in the study and application of sound business methods to Church decision making through the establishment of the Center for the Study of Church Management. The center, created in 2004 to serve the Catholic Church through education and research, provides training—along with important research on pertinent issues—in support of Catholic Church leaders and their communities throughout the United States. The Daniel M. DiLella Center for Real Estate is changing the face of business education at Villanova. New courses in real estate have been introduced, along with a co-major in real estate and a real estate specialization in the Villanova MBA program. VSB students have also begun a Real Estate Society. The center supports faculty research and teaching, ensuring relevance in the curriculum through the incorporation of site visits, experiential learning projects, industry-standard tools, and the perspective of industry experts. The Innovation, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship Center (ICE Center) is an innovative driver of scholastic, educational, and professional development opportunities in the areas of creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship. The center’s curricular division provides support for programs, courses, and the undergraduate minor in entrepreneurship. The research division provides support to faculty conducting and publishing relevant research, and the practice division develops and maintains programs and initiatives that provide an interface between the business community and the research and curricular capabilities of the center. The Center for Business Analytics was established in 2010 to promote education, research, and practice using analytics, business intelligence, performance management, and process management for our students, faculty, and business partners. The center promotes developing a strong program in analytics, including analytics-oriented courses for both undergraduate and graduate students, and promotes best practices in analytics through roundtable sessions, conference, and executive workshops.
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VSB 2012 The Villanova School of Business is ranked consistently among the country’s best business schools by publications including Bloomberg Businessweek, U.S.News & World Report, and the Financial Times. We strive to deliver a worldclass education that prepares students for the social, environmental, and ethical complexities of modern-day business. Bloomberg Businessweek
Financial Times
Best Undergraduate Business Schools
Executive MBA
• #7 in the nation
• #16 among U.S.-Based Programs
• #2 in the nation for “Overall Academic Quality”
• #3 among U.S.-Based Programs in “Aims Achieved”
• A+ in “Teaching Quality” • A in “Job Placement”
Aspen Institute Global 100 The Villanova MBA
U.S.News & World Report • #1 rank for Villanova University among regional universities in the North Region
• #84 worldwide in the Global 100 list of business schools, which recognizes schools that have integrated social, environmental, and ethical issues into their MBA programs
Best Business Programs by Specialty • #24 in the nation for accounting
Wall Street Journal Executive MBA
• #1 for classmates’ contributions to the learning experience
Bloomberg Businessweek The Villanova MBA • #12 in the nation • #2 in the Mid-Atlantic region • #12 for Academic Quality • A+ in “MBA Curriculum”
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www.villanova.edu/business