Thank you to all who attended the University Chair Lecture delivered by Jason Colquitt on Thursday. Jason delivered an excellent talk that detailed his research career and helped us all understand his important work on justice and trust in the workplace. We will provide the link to the video of his talk as soon as it becomes available. 

Here are recent papers published or accepted by top academic journals:

Nicholas Berente, Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations
John Lalor, Assistant Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations
The Effect of Bots on Human Interaction in Online Communities (MIS Quarterly)
Artificial intelligence agents, or "bots," are becoming ubiquitous. To get a sense for how bots impact human to human interaction, the researchers studied Reddit — an online environment that is increasingly incorporating bots across its communities. In analyzing over 70 million posts, the authors found that different types of bots have different effects. Specifically, "reflexive" bots — those agents that generate and disseminate content — generally increase the breadth of interaction among different humans, but generally decrease the depth of interaction among specific human pairs.  Further, "supervisory" bots — those agents that manage the appropriate forms of interaction in communities — generally reduce the popularity of the most central humans in a community. 

John Busenbark, Mary Jo and Richard M. Kovacevich Associate Professor of Management & Organization
How Music Theory Can Inform Competitive Dynamics: Anticipatory Awareness and Successful Preemption (Academy of Management Review)
Navigating competitive interactions is a vital determinant of firm performance. Whereas research has primarily focused on how firms observe and react to their rivals' strategic actions, the authors shift the focus to proactivity and offer insights about how firms can anticipate their competitors' upcoming strategic moves and preempt them. They specifically draw from tenets of music theory to argue that managers’ ability to do so stems from interpreting contemporaneous and sequential cues from their rivals.

Zhi Da, Howard J. and Geraldine F. Korth Professor of Finance
Fractional Trading (Review of Financial Studies)
Fractional trading (FT) — the ability to trade less than a whole share — removes barriers to high-priced stocks and facilitates entry by capital-constrained retail investors. This research observed a surge of tiny trades among high-priced stocks compared to low-priced stocks after the FT introduction. These tiny trades, when coordinated during attention-grabbing events, are forceful enough to exert large price pressure on high-priced stocks, and even fuel Meme stock-like trading frenzies and bubbles.

Peter Easton, Notre Dame Alumni Professor of Accountancy
Stephannie Larocque, Notre Dame Associate Professor of Accountancy
Private Equity Fund Reporting Quality, External Monitors, and Third-Party Service Providers (The Accounting Review)
The researchers describe variation in the reporting quality of private equity (PE) funds across external monitors and third-party service providers. In contrast to public markets, they find only limited evidence that reporting quality varies with investor types. They observe, however, that reporting quality varies with auditor involvement and the use of third-party service providers. This evidence is important to investors and regulators, especially now that PE supersedes public markets as the main vehicle to raise capital.

Frank Germann, Viola D. Hank Associate Professor of Marketing
Getting the Board on Board: Marketing Department Power and Board Interlocks (Journal of Marketing Research)
The study examines how the power of marketing departments (MDP), a key driver of organizational outcomes, is influenced by board interlocks — directors serving on multiple boards. Analyzing 6,008 firms (2007–2021), the findings reveal that MDP in board-interlocked firms positively affects MDP in focal firms. Contrary to claims of diminishing board interlock effects, the influence remains robust, particularly when firms’ interlock networks have greater reach, richness and receptivity. The study underscores the board's role in sustaining MDP.  

Cindy Muir (Zapata), Professor of Management & Organization
Seeing “Eye to Eye” About Our Relationship Makes Me Good at Being Fair: A Study of LMX Agreement and Fairness Efficacy (Organization Science)
The importance of fair treatment within organizations is clear. What is less often discussed however is the value of supervisors and employees “seeing eye to eye.” This work demonstrates how the dynamic interplay between leaders and followers, and in particular — how aligning perceptions of leader-member exchange (LMX) quality — is key to fostering fairness at any level of relationship quality. By enhancing each party’s perceptions of fairness, agreement on the quality of the exchange relationship (LMX agreement) indirectly leads to supervisors becoming more confident in their fairness-related abilities, and employees performing at higher levels. Generally, findings reveal that achieving LMX agreement improves perceptions of fairness that can create a self-reinforcing fairness-efficacy spiral, benefiting both supervisors and employees beyond the immediate relationship.

Thank you to Nick, John L., John B., Peter, Stephannie, Frank and Cindy for their contributions.

In Notre Dame,

Martijn

Martjin Cremers
Martin J. Gillen Dean
Bernard J. Hank Professor of Finance