From the Dean's Desk

Women’s History Month

Martijn Cremers

Martijn Cremers

Monday, 1 March 2021
On Friday, the University will celebrate International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month by recognizing outstanding Notre Dame faculty members whose research, teaching and expertise have significantly contributed to their disciplines and our larger understanding of the world. For 2021, the theme is "Women in Leadership: Achieving an Equal Future in a COVID-19 World.”

I’m pleased to announce that Cindy Muir (Zapata), associate professor of Management & Organization, will represent Mendoza this year. Cindy, who joined Mendoza in 2019, has developed a body of research on organizational justice and trust, with a focus on the ways in which perceptions of individual behaviors and of race and gender differences may affect the relationships between managers and employees.

Cindy’s research provides important insights into the complexities of race and gender in the workplace and reminds us of the critical importance of advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in our own work culture. As discussed in a previous message, DE&I is a top priority of the University, directly related to all three core pillars of Catholic social teaching (human dignity, solidarity and subsidiarity) and thus to Mendoza’s imperative to Grow the Good in Business.

One area of focus is the hiring and promotion of more female faculty. We currently have three female full professors: Ann Tenbrunsel, David E. Gallo Professor of Business Ethics (M&O); ITAO professor Hong Guo, who was promoted to full professor in May 2020; and Kirsten Martin, who joined Mendoza in 2020 as the William P. and Hazel B. White Center Professor of Technology Ethics. 

In addition, we have a number of tenured associate faculty members including: Viva Barktus, associate professor of Management & Organization; Stephannie Larocque, Notre Dame Associate Professor of Accountancy; Cindy Muir (Zapata), associate professor of Management & Organization; Sophie Shive, Viola D. Hank Associate Professor of Finance; Katherine Spiess, associate professor of Finance; Sandra Vera-Munoz, associate professor of Accountancy; and Xuying Zhao, associate professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations.

These developments signal improvements in gender diversity in our faculty over the past decade. We hope to continue making strides in the coming years. Our efforts to recruit female faculty include:

  • Adding the position of faculty diversity advocate: In collaboration with the Notre Dame Office of the Provost and Mendoza’s department chairs and search committees, the faculty diversity advocate seeks to increase the number of highly qualified faculty candidates from underrepresented groups. Ken Kelley, senior associate dean for faculty and research, currently serves in this role. The responsibilities include working to recruit, hire, retain and promote diverse faculty, from casting a wide net to increase diversity in the applicant pool to working to ensure any concerns and impediments to success are removed.
  • Participating in the PhD Project: Since 2003, Mendoza has participated in this effort to advance workplace diversity by increasing the diversity of business school faculty. Every regular faculty job is advertised at the PhD project as well as other outlets to “cast a wide net” when searching for faculty recruits. 
I encourage you to read Cindy’s story when the 2021 ND Women Lead feature is posted on Friday, as well as the Mendoza Business magazine story about her research, “The Humility Paradox.” I also encourage you to read about our past International Women’s Day honorees: Ann Tenbrunsel, Hong Guo, Katherine Spiess, Kristen Collett-Schmitt and Viva Bartkus. 

I’m thankful to all of our faculty and staff members who continue to advance the cause of DE&I through their research, teaching, leadership and personal commitment.

In Notre Dame,

Martijn

Guest column: Doug Franson

Martijn Cremers

Martijn Cremers

Monday, 22 February 2021
Contract management at ND
The University has implemented a new contract management tool called ContractsND that is now available and will become mandatory as of July 1. The system is a component of buyND, but it has been configured in partnership with Notre Dame General Counsel (NDGC) to be the default pathway for contracts to be executed for the University.
The aim is to ensure compliance with Notre Dame policy and contractual terms, to provide greater visibility of the contract process and store copies in a reliable and accessible repository, and to make contract management more efficient.
I’ve outlined below the process for managing contracts appropriately, but I want to clarify two points:
First, for our purposes, a contract is any agreement that includes terms and conditions, and requires a signature. An example might be signing an agreement for a block of hotel rooms or arranging for new software. Contracts cover a lot of areas, so if you’re unsure, please contact me or to finance team member Emilia Taylor. We will be happy to review your document and advise.
Second, the authority to sign a contract on the University’s behalf is restricted to only designated individuals as determined by the Operational Delegation of Authority. For Mendoza, the University has designated sole authority to Dean Martijn Cremers to sign contracts up to a value of $250,000. He has sub-delegated this responsibility to me for operations-related contracts and to Ken Kelley for research/data related contracts.
This is an important point: No one else at Mendoza is authorized to approve or sign contracts. Further, contracts with a value above $250,000 require the signature of the University provost or the president.
If you are considering a contractual agreement on behalf of the University, here are the next steps:
1. You should submit the contract to Emilia along with the following background information:
  • What is the purpose of this contract?
  • Is the contract related to research, data or software?
  • What is the anticipated total dollar value of the contract?
  • Does your department have an ongoing relationship with this vendor?
  • Who is the main point of contact in your department for managing the contract?
  • Is there a firm deadline or target date by which you wish to have a response?
2. Emilia will submit the contract and background information for a legal review to the Notre Dame General Counsel’s Office via ContractsND.
3. Once General Council approves the contract, they will route it back to Mendoza for review and signature (Martijn or myself). If the contract involves research, data or software, David Yeh and Brandon Greenawalt may review it and advise as well.
4. When the contract has been executed, copies will be stored in the University Contract Repository.
One more thing to note: In the past, you may have contacted Beth Smith for help in getting contracts signed. With the implementation of ContractsND, Emilia is now taking over this responsibility. Many thanks to Beth for her help managing the College contracts over the past nine years!
I expect that as the ContractsND tool is brought fully online, there will be some additional information and training opportunities. It's important that we understand how contracts should be handled so that we act as good stewards of the resources and responsibilities entrusted to us and to avoid potential misunderstandings down the line. If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
In Notre Dame,
Doug
Doug Franson
Director of Finance & Facilities

Research Roundup

Martijn Cremers

Martijn Cremers

Monday, 15 February 2021
I’m glad to share with you a sample of recently published research by our faculty, highlighting one paper in each of our academic departments:
Jessica Watkins
Assistant Professor (Accountancy Department)
“Usefulness of Interest Income Sensitivity Disclosures” (The Accounting Review)
The study examines multiple dimensions of usefulness of banks’ interest income sensitivity disclosures. We find these disclosures are predictive of future realized changes in net interest income and appear to be used by a number of market participants, including financial analysts and equity investors. These results suggest that interest income sensitivity disclosures are informative measures of interest rate risk and contradict assertions that these disclosures are useless due to lack of relevance of income sensitivity, poor modeling techniques, and/or redundancy relative to regulatory data.
Johnathan Loudis
Assistant Professor (Finance Department)
"The Conditional Expected Market Return" (Journal of Financial Economics)
Understanding the behavior of expected stock market returns is important for both practitioners and academics alike. In this paper, we develop a new method for estimating upper and lower bounds on the conditional expected market return at any date. Our theoretical and empirical results offer new insights into the origins and behavior of the expected market return. For instance, according to our measures the average expected market return is about 5.2% per year, but it is highly volatile and reaches levels as high as 64% during the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
Xuying Zhao
Associate Professor (IT, Analytics, and Operations Department)
“Preorder Price Guarantee in E-commerce” (Manufacturing & Service Operations Management)
With the development of the internet and e-commerce, retailers often offer preorders for new, to-be-released products. To encourage preorders, retailers such as Amazon offer preorder price guarantee (PG). This research finds that PG enables a firm to profit from preorder demand uncertainty. If preorder demand uncertainty is high, a firm should adopt PG in advance selling. If preorder demand uncertainty is low, then a firm should adopt PG if and only if the percentage of high-valuation consumers is high. 
Ann E. Tenbrunsel
David E. Gallo Professor of Business Ethics (M&O Department)
“It’s Just Business”: Understanding How Business Frames Differ from Ethical Frames and the Effect on Unethical Behavior” (Journal of Business Ethics)
The perspective, or "frame," by which a decision maker examines a decision has a significant impact on their unethical behavior. More specifically, we find that viewing a decision through a business frame leads to more unethical behavior than viewing the exact same decision through an ethical frame. We further find that the decision processes are different between a business and an ethical frame, and that we can change the behavior associated with a frame by explicitly changing the decision processes.
James Otteson
John T. Ryan Jr. Professor of Business Ethics (Marketing Department)
"Democracy and 'People Over Profit’" (Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy)
One central argument supporting democratic political institutions is a principle of equal moral agency, which holds that all people, as free and responsible persons of dignity, are entitled to liberty, rights, privileges and obligations equally, which in turn entitles them to an equal say, or vote, in their government. This paper argues that honorable business in a properly functioning market economy is also based on a principle of equal moral agency, which similarly grants consumers a say, or "vote," in business activity. Thus, some versions of the "people over profits" objection raised to business activity miss the mark: Profit-seeking firms, when operating honorably, do not privilege people over profits; instead, they use democratic profit signals to guide production of benefit to all their stakeholders.
My thanks to these Mendoza faculty members and the many others whose research supports and informs our mission to enlighten and educate.
I also encourage you to attend the Notre Dame Ethics Week events this week via Zoom (see schedule below). The series features a number of our faculty members and students presenting different perspectives of the theme of “Beginning with Empathy: Listening and Learning from Others.” Thank you to Chris Adkins, Jessica McManus Warnell, Viva Bartkus, Joe Sweeney, Kelly Rubey, Ken Milani and Brian Levey for serving as speakers and moderators.
In Notre Dame,
Martijn 

Guest column: Ryan Retartha

Martijn Cremers

Martijn Cremers

Monday, 8 February 2021
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Inspiring a culture of service
“How can I help?”
That’s the No. 1 question I’ve heard from our alumni during my first four months as director of Mendoza Alumni Relations. Coincidentally, it has also been the No. 1 question I’ve heard from my gracious colleagues here at Mendoza. This speaks to the strong mission alignment that the entire Notre Dame community shares, and it’s this culture of service that I’m making the cornerstone of alumni relations at Mendoza.
While a strong alumni network is a feature of every top university, what separates the truly elite schools are alumni who are inspired to give of their time, experience and connections to current students and faculty. Mendoza itself has a long history of strong alumni relations, with many of our departments, institutes and clubs enjoying decades of alumni participation. But Mendoza is growing and changing. If we’re to truly elevate, cooperate and integrate within Mendoza, all of our departments, programs and functional groups deserve and require the same robust alumni participation and support.
How do we inspire our alumni to service? A friend and mentor of mine at Notre Dame, the great Peter Holland, often told me that the easiest way to any alumnus’ heart was through the students. Nothing captures their attention more than the opportunity to affect the life of a current student, which is why increasing alumni involvement in the student journey is my top priority.
We need to constantly create, evaluate and improve upon meaningful opportunities for our alumni to have an impact on our students beginning with the recruitment pipeline, through the admissions process, during their time as students and after they graduate. We already have many alumni involved, but our needs are growing and diversifying. This year, you’ll see a huge emphasis on volunteer recruitment for student engagement.
Another way to inspire our alumni to service is by bringing more of Notre Dame to them, and have Mendoza be a source of knowledge and inspiration in their everyday lives. I plan to take advantage of our new comfort level with virtual meeting and learning to provide more ways for alumni to learn from Mendoza’s faculty, research and thought leadership.
Finally, the No. 2 question I’ve heard from our alumni is, “How can my work (or company) help the faculty?” This surprised me, but there’s a real opportunity there. Ken Kelley and I both recognize the role our alumni can play in providing diverse and interesting data to our faculty for their research.  I see it as yet another way our alumni can give back to Mendoza. I’m always available to work with faculty if they feel our alumni can be of value to their research efforts.
Alumni Relations can be an engine that provides constant support and energy to the College. Please reach out to me if you have any needs, questions or good ideas that you think can help inspire our alumni towards a culture of service.
In Notre Dame,
Ryan
Ryan Retartha (ND '07)
Director of Alumni Relations
Mendoza College of Business

New start

Martijn Cremers

Martijn Cremers

Monday, 1 February 2021
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I started my last message with "Happy New Year." This time, I wish you Happy New Semester! Starting the spring semester with a blast of winter weather, it is great to see our students returning as classes get underway.
Today also marks the start of Black History Month, which originally was intended to draw attention to fact that Black people have been underrepresented in the books and conversations that shaped the study of American history. The commemoration highlights a matter of high priority for the College; namely, to advance diversity, equity and inclusion across Mendoza as part of our imperative to Grow the Good in Business™: to educate servant leaders who contribute to human flourishing, cooperate in solidarity and compete through growing toward the best version of themselves with the help of God and others.
Acting in this spirit as educators — individually and in our roles at the College — this means shaping the educational experience at Mendoza such that diverse voices, experiences and backgrounds are valued, respected and nurtured. This includes ensuring that the material we teach, the classroom discussions we lead and the larger student experience reflect the voices and meets the needs of the diverse individuals who make up our community and the world.
Many of you have contributed a great deal of hard work and caring to initiatives to advance diversity, equity and inclusion at the College and University level. I highlight just a few of these, starting with some new efforts by the University and then giving some examples at Mendoza:
  • Initiative on Race and Resilience: Launched by the University in January 2021, this new interdisciplinary program promotes multiracial collaboration, qualitative and quantitative methodologies, and inclusive pedagogy.
  • Advisory Committees for Student Climate: This University effort is composed of undergraduate and graduate student representatives, administrators and faculty for the purpose of offering input to the vice president for Student Affairs about the Notre Dame campus climate for students, especially related to topics around diversity and inclusion.
  • Specialized Master Programs Council Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee: The newly formed Mendoza committee focuses on advancing DE&I through curriculum/education (speakers, faculty connections) and support (weekly coffee chats among students on current events).
  • MBA DE&I Student Task Force: Convened in 2020, the task force was charged with taking a broad and in-depth look at policies, programs and initiatives that shape student life and academics at Mendoza. Its recommendations continue to inform the decisions of leadership in regard to enhancing diversity, from recruitment to classroom culture.
  • Building Bridges Mentorship Program: More than 25 Mendoza faculty members regularly volunteer for this Notre Dame program, which pairs minority students with a faculty mentor to provide career counseling and support. For additional information, contact Arnel Bulaoro at abulaoro@nd.edu.
  • Leading for Justice and Inclusion: This new MBA course taught by Chris Adkins helps students develop both the mindset and toolkit for leading justly and inclusively in their future roles as business leaders.
  • Mendoza Staff Diversity Council: The Council’s purpose is to create and sustain an inclusive culture for all Mendoza staff by fostering an environment of dignity, respect and fairness that is grounded in our Catholic mission. These efforts will be facilitated through the College’s ongoing and continuing efforts to attract, retain and promote staff from all backgrounds, perspectives and abilities. 
Building a more diverse, equitable and inclusive community is a work in progress. I’m thankful to the many of you who are putting in the hard work it takes to bring about change, as well as to those who have shown great courage and thoughtfulness in speaking up and pointing out where we can do better.
As Pope Francis said, “The most effective antidote to every form of violence is education about discovering and accepting difference as richness and fertileness.”
In Notre Dame,
Martijn

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