From the Dean's Desk


Research Roundup

Dean Martijn Cremers

Dean Martijn Cremers

Monday, 25 March 2024

I am glad to share some recent research papers that our faculty published in top academic journals:

Ahmed Abbasi, Joe and Jane Giovanini Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations
John Lalor, Assistant Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations
Kezia Oketch, Ph.D. in Analytics Student
Should Fairness be a Metric or a Model? A Model-based Framework for Assessing Bias in Machine Learning Pipelines (ACM Transactions on Information Systems)
Fairness is a crucial challenge in AI. However, fairness measurement currently involves metrics that consider disparities for a single protected attribute or group. Existing metrics don’t work well in many real-world applications of machine learning (ML), where imperfect models are applied to data with multiple protected attributes in a broader process pipeline. This leads to inconsistencies in fairness metrics between upstream representational harms and allocational harms in downstream policy/decision contexts. The authors propose FAIR-Frame, a model-based framework for parsimoniously modeling fairness across multiple protected attributes in a holistic ML environment. FAIR-Frame’s representational fairness measures have the highest percentage alignment and lowest error with allocational harm observed in downstream applications. The researchers’ findings have important implications for various ML contexts, including information retrieval, user modeling, digital platforms and text classification, where responsible and trustworthy AI are becoming an imperative.

 

Nicholas Berente, Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations
Sriram Somanchi, Assistant Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations
Do Crowds Validate False Data? Systematic Distortion & Affective Polarization (MIS Quarterly)
The paper examines how socio-cognitive influences can systematically distort crowdsourced ground truth in event-centric data through subgroups. The researchers conducted an immersive experiment to investigate whether crowd consensus can be systematically distorted by subgroup-based socio-cognitive influences, such as affective polarization. In the experiment, raters from various subgroups with varying levels of affective polarization were asked to view and validate crisis data from a violent public riot in 2020. Relying partly on double/debiased machine learning techniques, the research analyzes heterogeneous treatment effects across subgroups. The results show that affective polarization and more extreme raters, via the constructs of loyalty and betrayal, distort consensus-based ground truth in different ways.

 

Yixing Chen, Assistant Professor of Marketing
The Value of Safety Training for Business-to-Business Firms (Journal of Marketing Research)
Business-to-business suppliers invest in safety training programs believing that such programs mitigate safety hazards, prevent workplace injuries, and create value for their customers. However, causal evidence of these effects is sparse.  Leveraging proprietary data from a global oil field services company, a safety training regulation in New York City, and a conjoint experiment of procurement professionals, we underscore safety training as an important risk-mitigation vehicle that also has positive implications for business-to-business buying decisions.

 

Stephannie Larocque, Notre Dame Associate Professor of Accountancy
On the Informativeness of Unexpected Exclusions from Street Earnings (Contemporary Accounting Research)
The paper investigates the unexpected exclusions from street earnings that are revealed after earnings are reported. The researchers find that unexpected exclusions represent a mix of transitory and recurring items and are informative about future profitability, particularly when firms meet or beat analysts’ street forecasts but not their GAAP forecasts. The findings are consistent with recurring earnings amounts being opportunistically shifted to excluded items to meet or beat benchmarks.

 

Adam Wowak, Viola D. Hank Associate Professor of Management & Organization
John Busenbark, Mary Jo and Richard M. Kovacevich Associate Professor of Management & Organization
Why Do Some Conservative CEOs Publicly Support Liberal Causes? Organizational Ideology, Managerial Discretion, and CEO Sociopolitical Activism (Organization Science)
CEOs are increasingly choosing sides in societal debates, despite the obvious risk of alienating stakeholders. Even more puzzlingly, conservative CEOs sometimes espouse liberal stances in such debates, which runs counter to the otherwise consistent evidence that CEOs are guided by their ideologies in their actions. The study addresses this paradox by examining the antecedents of CEO liberal activism with an emphasis on the interplay between the CEO’s ideology and the prevailing ideological tilt of the employee population. In short, the research finds that a pronounced organizational ideology constrains a CEO’s ability to act in accordance with their own values.


Rafael Zambrana, Assistant Professor of Finance
Ben Golez, Associate Professor of Finance
Friendly Investing and Information Sharing in the Asset Management Industry
(Journal of Accounting and Economics)
The researchers study whether asset managers act as friendly shareholders of brokerage firms to gain privileged investment information. They find that mutual funds are more likely to hold and overweight stocks of their broker parent companies and side with management in contested votes. They also find that fund performance improves with the extent of such friendly investing. The performance improvement stems from trading the stocks of the broker's clients.

Thank you to Ahmed, John L., Kezia, Nick, Sriram, Yixing, Stephannie, Adam, John B., Rafael and Ben for your work.

I also wish you a blessed Holy Week and a joyful Easter. Pope Francis’ Easter message described the season of Lent as “a season of conversion, a time of freedom” and as an occasion to rediscover God’s promise: 

“It is time to act, and in Lent, to act also means to pause. To pause in prayer, in order to receive the word of God, to pause like the Samaritan in the presence of a wounded brother or sister.” 

May this be a blessed time for you and your families.

In Notre Dame,

Martijn

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Morning Brew


What I'm Crocheting - Kalynda Hamilton

The (Im)Perfect Stitch

 

When I was much younger, my mother taught me to crochet. Just a basic crochet stitch and I did it very poorly. It was one of those things that I would pick up and work on making something for a while, but it always took SOOO long and ended up very wonky, so I never kept at it very much. 

 

I would buy yarn for a whole blanket, make it through part of a skein and give up. I remember one time being very determined to complete a blanket. I decided to make small squares and then sew them together so that it wouldn’t be so daunting. That was the first blanket I completed, but the “squares” were anything but square! 

 

Shortly after getting married, I decided to try again. I re-taught myself how to do basic stitches and was able to make a whole blanket using the same stitch, over and over again. But every time I tried to follow a pattern, I got lost in the gobbledygook that they called a pattern! I could read three languages, but what on earth does “1tr in next 2sts, 1htr, 1dc, ch1, skip 1, 1dc, 1htr, 5tr, 1htr, 1dc, ch1, skip 1, 1dc, 1htr, 2tr” or “1hdc in first st, 1bptr in fptr 2 rows below, 1fptr in bptr 2 rows” mean?!?! So, I convinced myself that I could crochet, just not follow a pattern. 

 

Fast forward a few more years, and I found a yarn that I loved for crocheting. My hook didn’t get stuck in it, and I could keep the stitches even! I could do several rows without getting tired of it. Now that I had more confidence, I decided to try patterns again. I started with simple ones but suddenly they made more sense. Maybe having YouTube videos to watch helped too. And with this new information, off I went. I’ve now done blankets in V-Stitches, Lemon Peel, Elizabath, Grit, Chevrons, Moss and so many more. 

 

Sometimes I’ll pick up a blanket and try to figure out what stitch I used because I want to make a similar blanket, but each blanket ends up unique. I even tried my hand at Tunisian (or Afghan) crochet, which is a strange cross between crocheting and knitting, and successfully made a beautiful scarf. My friends and I will sit around and crochet and chat and laugh for hours. None of us crochet in quite the same way and people watching us don’t even think we’re doing the same craft. But you know, it doesn’t matter how you held the yarn when you end up with a beautiful warm blanket at the end.

 

Collage of Kalynda's crochet projects and her son and daughter.

 

 

I have quite the yarn stash at home, but can be found at Jo-Ann’s when my favorite yarn is on sale. (I even ran into a Mendoza faculty member and his daughter there once!) I take my work-in-progress with me just about anywhere I might be sitting and listening because It’s a great way to keep my hands busy and allow my mind to focus on the topic. 

 

I have made more blankets than I can count at this point. Many are placed around our house just in case someone is cold or wants to take a nap. Several have been gifted to friends, coworkers and family members. And oh, the baby blankets! I have even challenged myself to make a few hats for someone who was going through chemo. And now, I’m proud to have taught my daughter AND my son to crochet and they are both working on finishing up beautiful blankets of their own. 

 

There are definitely life lessons to be had from my experience with crocheting. As Eckman said in The Crochet Answer Book, "Being a 'good' crocheter is not about making perfectly stitched, elaborate, artful creations. It is rather a matter of confidence. You need to be sure of what you are doing and how to do it, and then have the confidence to figure out what to do if things aren't going quite right. Understanding why you do certain things and why they turn out the way they do increases confidence and leads to success." 

 

How many things in life can we apply that to? It’s not always about doing something perfect, but instead moving forward with confidence and learning how to maneuver through whatever life throws at you.

 

Kalynda Hamilton

Student Onboarding Coordinator, Mendoza Graduate Programs

Facilities & Program Operations

March 25, 2024

MCOB Updates


Wall Street Journal Subscription Update

Collections Update from the Mahaffey Business Library

We now have direct access to the Wall Street Journal

If you are already personally subscribed to the Wall Street Journal already. Do 2 things:
1. Cancel your current subscription
Please email AcademicSupport@dowjones.com or call 1-800-JOURNAL to cancel. When
requesting an account cancellation, indicate that your University has partnered with WSJ to
provide complimentary memberships to students, faculty, and staff.

2. Go to WSJ.com/ND and do a one-time account creation.

If you are not personally subscribed to the Wall Street Journal. Do 1 thing:
1. Go to WSJ.com/ND and do a one-time account creation

Our Capital IQ access policy has changed and can now be accessed by the following methods.
1. Access Capital IQ at the following link with your netID and password.
2. Alternatively, access as a clickable icon in okta.nd.ed

Please reach out to Ask a Business Librarian if the sign-in gives you an error or the Okta icon does not
appear

Accounts from the previous policy will still work for a brief migration grace period. Eventually, these
accounts will become inaccessible requiring all users to access via the new policy. Our Business Library Databases Page also maintains active links to each of these resources in addition to many others.

October 10, 2022

Mendoza IT

Tech Tips


Google Scholar

Citation analysis is being monitored more in the academic profession as a measure of impact. By creating a Google Scholar Profile (leave it public, which is the default) you can increase the accessibility of your research and have immediate access to h-statistics and other impact metrics.

February 3, 2020

ND Google Shortcuts

Did you know there are shortcuts to log in to your ND Gmail and other Google services? If you visit google.nd.edu you are taken directly to Google Drive, or to the login page if you are not already logged in. You can also skip logging in to insideND or visiting gmail.com by going directly to gmail.nd.edu for Gmail. You can also go directly to Google Calendar by visiting gcalendar.nd.edu.

February 3, 2020

Manage When Participants Join Zoom

If you enable Waiting Room in your Zoom settings, you can manage when new attendees are able to join a meeting from the list of Participants. When these tools are enabled, the option to allow attendees to join the meeting before the host arrives is automatically disabled.

February 3, 2020

Window Snapping

In Windows, you can drag a window to the left or right edge of your screen to make it fill one half of the screen, or drag to the top of the screen to maximize the window. View two windows side by side quickly and easily. You can also press the Windows key + left or right arrow to make the active window fill the left or right side of the screen.


Minimize All Windows

Sometimes you have a bunch of applications running, and you want it all to go away so you can get to the desktop. Simply pressing Windows key + D will minimize everything you have up, which will save you some time pressing the minimize button for each window. To bring everything back, press the Windows key + D again to restore your windows. 

Speak-Up Culture


As the College adapts and innovates in the face of change, your voice matters more than ever, and the ND Voice Engagement Committee wants to help you use it. Each week we will highlight a resource to inspire you, challenge you, and help you speak up and/or listen up more effectively.