VSB Faculty Profiles 2014

INSPIRING MINDS FACULTY PROFILES 2014

The greatest institutions have the sharpest minds, most creative researchers and the best teachers.

The faculty members at the Villanova School of Business (VSB) embody all of those traits, and their inexhaustible dedication enables us to deliver an education that is second to none. It is because of our excellent educators that VSB students become outstanding business leaders and distinguished members of society.

The accomplished faculty members at VSB shape our students’ futures, and ensure those futures are the brightest they can be.

The seven faculty members profiled in this publication represent the high caliber education to which VSB is committed. I invite you to read about these exceptional faculty members to capture a glimpse of what we offer our students at VSB. PATRICK G. MAGGITTI, PhD The Helen and William O’Toole Dean Villanova School of Business

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STEPHEN MAHAR

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JULIE PIRSCH

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MICHAEL PAGANO

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LUCY CHEN

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ERASMUS KERSTING

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, MANAGEMENT & OPERATIONS ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, MARKETING & BUSINESS LAW THE ROBERT J. AND MARY ELLEN DARRETTA ENDOWED CHAIR IN FINANCE ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, ACCOUNTANCY & INFORMATION SYSTEMS ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, ECONOMICS

& CHRISTOPHER KILBY

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, ECONOMICS

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NARDA QUIGLEY

DEPARTMENT CHAIR, MANAGEMENT & OPERATIONS

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Research complements good teaching and vice-versa.

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STEPHEN MAHAR, PhD

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, MANAGEMENT & OPERATIONS Big data captivated Stephen Mahar at a young age, inciting him to dedicate his career to uncovering new ways to leverage information to improve operations of retail corporations.

Hailing from Olean, New York, Dr. Mahar began working in his family’s grocery store business when he was just thirteen. Growing up in the retail business, Dr. Mahar developed a keen interest in using analytics to improve business processes.

Today, Dr. Mahar is one of VSB’s resident analytics experts. He teaches business analytics and data mining, and he advises the Business Analytics Society. He also played an integral role in the launch of the online Master of Science in Analytics, a program for which he also serves as director.

Dr. Mahar is also very involved in analytics research. Unsurprising given his upbringing, most of Dr. Mahar’s projects focus on retail companies with multiple sales channels. An article he co-authored titled “Optimizing Marketer Costs and Consumer Benefits across ‘Click’ and ‘Bricks’ ” is set to appear in the prominent Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Dr. Mahar also performs ongoing research for Eli Lilly & Company, for whom he developed a mathematical programming model to select balanced teams of employee volunteers to participate in company-sponsored service trips. That co-authored paper, “Eli Lilly and Company Uses Integer Programming to Form Volunteer Teams in Impoverished Countries,” recently ran in the respectable Interfaces journal. All of Dr. Mahar’s research is directly applied to his work at VSB, be it in the classroom, with student groups or to advance the practice of analytics.

After completing his bachelor’s degree at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Dr. Mahar went on to receive his MBA and doctorate from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University Bloomington.

He began his career as a product design engineer at Dresser-Rand, and then went on to teach at UNC Wilmington for seven years. After learning about the ongoing initiatives in business analytics at Villanova, Dr. Mahar knew his next move and joined the Nova Nation in 2012.

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JULIE PIRSCH, PhD

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, MARKETING & BUSINESS LAW Julie Pirsch illuminates marketing classes, rousing in her students a passion for the subject and vociferously championing their every pursuit.

Dr. Pirsch’s marketing experience spills over into practical, engaging lessons, and her allegiance to students makes for an education that teems with support and potency. A hands-on, experiential professor who promotes the concept of team teaching at VSB, Dr. Pirsch’s classes present an opportunity for students to be immersed in the professional marketing arena and to work directly with companies in the industry. Dr. Pirsch’s advocacy for her students culminated in the inception of ‘market u’, which she founded in conjunction with the Clay Center at VSB and the University’s Career Center. The ‘market u’ program engages marketing majors in the job and internship search process and helps them discover what career path they want to pursue. This initiative, designed to provide mentorship and guidance to students wishing to enter the marketing industry, has resulted in an increase in marketing job and internship placement rates.

The commitment Dr. Pirsch displays to the field and students of marketing does not stop there. At VSB, she is also on the teaching committee, is part of the Presidential Scholars Review Committee group, is a student advisor and chairs a team that looks at how business communications training can be integrated into VSB’s curriculum for students in each class year. In addition, Dr. Pirsch has performed captivating bottom of the pyramid research that emphasizes how marketing to the world’s poor is profitable for companies and can generate significant revenue growth.

A graduate of the University of Michigan, Dr. Pirsch received an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and a doctorate from Temple University’s Fox School of Business.

Her many years of education quickly translated into a job in the marketing industry, specifically within the residential home building products industry. During her eight years in the field, Dr. Pirsch worked on new product development, merchandising, package design, market research and much more. Dr. Pirsch took her work experience to the classroom and joined Villanova in 2002.

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Our team’s ‘market u’ brainchild aims to be graspable, practical, student-centric and enjoyable.

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I’m passionate about bridging the gap between finance theory and practice to develop research and classes that are both timely and relevant.

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MICHAEL PAGANO, PhD

THE ROBERT J. AND MARY ELLEN DARRETTA ENDOWED CHAIR IN FINANCE Michael Pagano’s accomplishments in the finance field have generated world-wide renown, making him a highly valued asset to everyone seeking to bolster their financial acumen.

Dr. Pagano has his hands in everything finance at Villanova. During his 15-year tenure, he has run two finance symposiums each year, as well as the annual Mid-Atlantic Research Conference, a day-long academic conference with professors and financial experts coming from all around North America. In addition, he is the academic director of the Master of Science in Finance program, a member of the Finance Department’s rank and tenure committee and the EMBA curriculum committee, and is a coach in the Charted Financial Analyst investment research competition. He also is a staple figure in the award-winning Applied Finance Lab, where he teaches finance courses and runs simulated financial competitions.

Dr. Pagano also pursues sophisticated finance scholarship. Not only has he won numerous accolades for excellent finance papers, but Dr. Pagano also publishes prolifically, serves on editorial boards for top-tier academic journals and is invited to speak at conferences all over the globe. Most recently, his paper examining investors’ reactions to announcements of large capital infusions was published in the Journal of Financial Stability, and his work on the quality of market opening and closing prices has recently been published in the Journal of Financial Markets. Dr. Pagano’s active research agenda also includes two more pieces of research that are currently under review at other prominent publications. The first is a study on how corruption impacts liquidity, investment flows and cost of capital in countries around the world. The second paper is a study on the relation between systemic risk exposure and sovereign debt in the Euro zone countries.

Prior to joining VSB, Dr. Pagano worked for financial firms on Wall Street for ten years. During that time, he gained first-hand experience as a lending officer, an investment analyst and a product manager, as well as by earning the CFA® designation, varied experiences that enrich his teaching. Dr. Pagano ultimately went on to earn both an MBA and a PhD in finance from Rutgers University, where he won the Doctoral Excellence Fellowship and a teaching excellence award for his early accomplishments in finance.

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LUCY CHEN, PhD

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, ACCOUNTANCY & INFORMATION SYSTEMS Lucy Chen personifies accounting, possessing industry knowledge that is unrivaled and pursuing research with unquenchable zeal.

Dr. Chen is the resident expert on international accounting, earnings quality and corporate governance.

She generates refined research on the topics with agility, contributing tirelessly to the scholarship of accounting. Contemporary Accounting Research recently published her paper, “The Impact of Firm Characteristics on Trading Volume Reaction to the Earnings Reconciliation from IFRS to U.S. GAAP,” which addresses and evaluates the SEC’s 2007 decision to accept financial statements prepared under the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) without reconciliation to U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

In another article, “Accounting Conservatism, Earnings Persistence, and Pricing Multiples on Earnings,” which is scheduled to appear in Accounting Horizons, Dr. Chen examines the effect of accounting conservatism on earnings persistence and the stock market’s valuation of earnings. The results of this study can be used to improve comprehension of the characteristics of conservatively-reported earnings.

Dr. Chen is also working on yet another study, which considers how foreign firms react to the SEC’s rule to eliminate 20-F reconciliation from IFRS to U.S. GAAP. The results show that although the firms that stop producing the reconciliation may undergo some information loss, they value cost-saving efforts over potential information loss.

Prior to joining VSB in 2011, Dr. Chen received a BS in accounting from Xiamen University in China and obtained her PhD from the Fox School of Business at Temple University. Upon earning her doctorate, Dr. Chen headed west to teach accounting at Arizona State University. Over the course of her career, Dr. Chen has earned numerous accolades for excellence in accounting, including winning the research excellence award from VSB’s Center for Global Leadership, the Merves Scholarship for outstanding achievement in the field of accounting, the American Accounting Association Doctoral Consortium Fellowship and the American Accounting Association New Faculty Consortium Fellowship.

Dr. Chen’s dedication to accounting does not stop at teaching and research. She is a member of the Phi Kappa Phi honor society, and participates in the committee that selects the student excellence award. She is also part of the membership committee of the International Accounting Section of the American Accounting Association, and she has also been selected to coordinate the 2015 Symposium for Business Ethics at American Accounting Association.

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Passion, persistence and being positive are my key tools for doing research.

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VSB allows us to draw students into debates at the cutting edge of research in our fields.

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ERASMUS KERSTING, PhD ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, ECONOMICS

& CHRISTOPHER KILBY, PhD ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, ECONOMICS Erasmus Kersting’s and Christopher Kilby’s recent research collaboration has not only furthered our understanding of foreign aid but also enhanced their students’ education and bolstered the University’s reputation. Their teaching style is creative and innovative, allowing students to learn in an independent yet supportive environment.

Individually Drs. Kersting and Kilby are dynamic, but it is their joint research that has recently attracted attention. The two collaborated on a statistical analysis of the impact of foreign aid on democracy across the globe, using Freedom House ratings that quantify the level of civil liberties and political rights in different countries. Previous research failed to consider the process experts use to generate these democracy scores, resulting in mixed conclusions. Drs. Kersting and Kilby’s study models this data generating process and examines the effects of foreign aid on democracy in both the long and short run. Their research finds that there is a significant positive relationship between aid and democracy. The paper they co-authored entitled “Aid and Democracy Redux” is published in the European Economic Review, and they have presented this work at conferences and workshops in the United States and Europe. Moreover, a blog post at AidData.org summarizing this research prompted inquiries from practitioners at Freedom House interested in how they might use these findings to shape future foreign aid flows.

Dr. Kersting began his teaching career at Villanova in 2010 after working as a visiting professor of economics at Southern Methodist University.

A native of Germany, he attended ChristianAlbrechts Universität Kiel as an undergraduate, and he earned his PhD in economics from Texas

A&M University. Dr. Kersting has experience teaching courses in intermediate macroeconomics, international macroeconomics, principles of macroeconomics, as well as principles of microeconomics. He recently designed an elective in international macroeconomics that covers global topics that arise once the focus switches from closed to open economies. In 2013, Dr. Kersting returned to Germany and spent the fall semester on junior sabbatical at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. While there, he conducted research on the relationship between multinational corporations and local suppliers. In particular, his work examines whether a multinational’s decision to outright acquire a supplier alleviates its credit constraints.

Dr. Kilby earned his PhD in economics at Stanford University after graduating from Harvard University with a major in chemistry.

Before moving to Villanova, he was an associate professor of economics at Vassar College. Dr. Kilby joined the Villanova School of Business’ Economics Department in 2008 and has since been teaching both undergraduate and MBA courses here. His areas of interest include research on development and foreign aid, especially as it relates to international organizations. Dr. Kilby is also involved in running an annual conference on the political economy of international organizations. His contributions to Villanova extend into the classroom as well. Dr. Kilby encourages students to do their own statistical analysis, guiding them toward cutting edge topics related to foreign aid. Courses taught by Dr. Kilby include macroeconomic theory, microeconomic theory, research methods, the political economy of development aid, and the political economy of the IMF, World Bank and WTO.

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NARDA QUIGLEY, PhD

DEPARTMENT CHAIR, MANAGEMENT & OPERATIONS Narda Quigley’s keen interest in improving workplace outcomes led her to the academic study of leadership and teamwork. In her research, she is deeply committed to gaining a broader understanding of what makes some teams and leaders more effective than others.

Dr. Quigley’s research is carefully executed and forward-thinking. She focuses on the effectiveness of leadership in cross-cultural environments and in teams. She also examines staffing and composition issues in work teams and how those issues play out in terms of team processes and performance over time. In other words, Dr. Quigley investigates what makes teams fail or succeed and applies her findings to commonly-encountered situations, both in workplace environments and in social settings such as team sports.

Two of Dr. Quigley’s research papers have recently been published in reputable journals. The Journal of Business Venturing accepted her paper titled “Exploring the Evolution of Supporter Networks in the Creation of New Organizations,” coauthored by VSB Professor Scott Newbert, which examines how and why certain networks enable entrepreneurial success. The paper identifies how entrepreneurs can develop their networks, and argues that nascent entrepreneurs must acquire resources from an increasingly diverse set of relatively stronger and weaker ties throughout the emergence phase.

The second paper of Dr. Quigley’s to be most recently published is “The Influence of Decision

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Frames and Vision Priming on Decision Outcomes in Work Groups: Motivating Stakeholder Considerations,” co-authored by VSB Professors Kevin Clark and Steve Stumpf. Printed in the Journal of Business Ethics, this paper looks at the choices of 94 groups in the context of a business decision-making simulation to determine how specific actions and communications can facilitate the consideration of different stakeholder perspectives.

Enthusiasm for management education came early for Dr. Quigley. As a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Quigley voluntarily attended an upper-level management seminar, despite the fact that she was not enrolled in the business school. The seminar’s professor became an important mentor to Dr. Quigley and inspired her to go to graduate school for a management degree.

Since then, Dr. Quigley has continued pursuing management opportunities, hungry for new sources of knowledge and cutting-edge research to explore.

She completed her PhD at the University of Maryland, where she majored in organizational behavior and minored in human resource management, before returning to the University of Pennsylvania in 2003. At Penn, Dr. Quigley completed a post-doctoral appointment working on the GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness) study, which examined leadership and societal culture in 62 countries.

In 2004, she began her career at VSB, teaching undergraduate and graduate level management courses, and recently assumed the role of Chair of the Department of Management and Operations.

Building cultural intelligence is one of my most important tasks as a professor.

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