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