I’m pleased to announce a new policy for high-performing researchers that is truly historic for the College. For the first time, Mendoza will be offering our tenured faculty the opportunity to take paid research leaves — commonly known as sabbaticals — to focus on research and faculty development.

While this news directly applies to our tenured faculty, it affects the College as a whole. By providing more time for highly productive scholars to conduct intense and uninterrupted research, we are investing heavily in elevating our research culture, which is one of our top strategic priorities. 

The sabbatical policy will help us to be even more productive in publishing research in top-tier outlets. As we compete with our aspirational peers to attract, develop, and retain top scholars — all of our aspirational peers already have sabbaticals as standard practice — we will improve our standing as thought leaders. In so doing, we will be even more competitive with other highly ranked business schools. We thus seek to attract more top scholars to be part of the research culture within Mendoza.

Sabbaticals are a privilege and not an entitlement, and will be subject to the discretion of the administration of Mendoza on a case-by-case basis. To be eligible, tenured faculty members must meet all of the following criteria: 

1. Have been a Notre Dame faculty member for at least seven years.
2. Have not been granted a sabbatical leave under this policy in the previous seven years.
3. Have accumulated sufficient article acceptances in top-tier outlets since the previous sabbatical leave granted under this policy. 
4. Have provided sustained high-quality teaching.
5. Have provided sustained laudable service to the University.

A faculty member will not be responsible for teaching or involvement in University, College or departmental service (typically 20% of a tenured faculty member's role) while on the research leave. Thus, the faculty will have 100% of their time during the academic year to devote to research, upskilling, retooling and such development activities. 

We expect that relatively few of the eligible tenured faculty will be on sabbatical at the same time since the College must maintain the optimal functioning of the academic departments. During the initial rollout, the highest priority will be given to tenured faculty with the most research success during the previous six calendar years. Additionally, priority will be given to those whose application for a sabbatical is accompanied by strong justification for research advancement.

Mendoza sabbaticals are only available to tenured faculty; the sabbatical policy does not apply to teaching or other types of faculty. (Other types of faculty leaves not related to research include FMLA, primary caregiver and parental leave. More information about the University’s faculty leave policies can be found here.) 

To apply for a sabbatical, eligible faculty members should provide a written request to Ken Kelley, the senior associate dean for faculty and research, summarizing their research plans for a sabbatical leave before July 1 of the year that precedes the academic year in which the sabbatical would be taken. Sabbatical leaves may be granted two or more academic years in advance.

Ken is responsible for approvals of all sabbaticals, subject to the additional approval of the leave from the Office of the Provost per the Academic Articles, and will work with the relevant department on timing. As stated above, sabbaticals are not guaranteed and are fully subject to the discretion of Mendoza’s administration on a case-by-case basis with consideration of funding availability and teaching needs. Please contact Ken for the additional details of the Mendoza Sabbatical Policy.

I’m grateful to those who helped with the creation of the sabbatical policy, especially Ken, as well as the department chairs and members of the College Council, the faculty governing body that formally sanctioned the policy. 

In Notre Dame,

Martijn

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

Welcome back from spring break, and to the home stretch of the academic year. Commencement is just a little more than two months away. 

I was fortunate to travel just before spring break to Manila, the Philippines, for the Notre Dame Alumni Association Asia Pacific regional meeting and to explore a partnership with De La Salle University. The Philippines has one of the fastest-growing economies worldwide. Manila, with a city-center population of nearly 15 million, is one of the world’s most densely populated.

Club leaders and representatives from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, India and the Philippines attended, along with Experiential Learning Director Megan Piersma and several other Alumni Association leaders including Executive Director Dolly Duffy. I gave a presentation to the alumni club leaders about the College’s strategic plan and had several meetings with regional leaders of Notre Dame International to explore collaboration. I also met with a few parents of Notre Dame students and met other alumni at social events.

As I mentioned, an important reason for Megan’s and my trip was to explore a partnership with De La Salle University (DLSU), a Catholic university founded in 1911 by the Christian Brothers whose main campus is in Manila. We discussed future collaborations with DLSU, including a potential immersion for the Global EMBA in Manila and an exchange program for our undergraduate students (with DLSU students coming to Notre Dame in the fall and spring semesters, and our students traveling to Manila perhaps as part of a summer program).

We also met five of our own MBA students in Manila! They were in the Philippines as part of the Meyer Business on the Frontlines program. Megan and I had dinner with leaders from World Vision, our Frontlines partner in the Philippines, along with the Frontlines student team and two alumni advisors. We had fantastic Chinese food, and I challenged myself to eat some new dishes including chicken feet, which are one of the most popular appetizers in Asia.​​ They tasted pretty good (as long as I didn’t think about what I was eating). 

One of our memorable outings was to Mount Pinatubo, an active volcano about 60 miles north of Manila. Pinatubo last erupted in 1991, killing 847 people. Megan and I got up at 1:45 a.m. to drive to the volcano so we could get our hike done before the heat of the day. (Daytime temperatures in Manila typically range in the 90s and it’s very humid.) It was a truly fantastic experience, and one that we could offer the more adventurous of the EMBA students.  

Manila is a fascinating, diverse, busy city with a rich heritage. As a booming metropolis, the energy, the noise, the craziness are off the charts. At the same time, people are easygoing, very friendly and welcoming. Somehow, it all works, even the completely crazy traffic. It's also a city of extremes. There's great wealth and extreme poverty right next to each other. As a vital part of the Asia Pacific region and with a large Catholic population, the Philippines is important for the University and College. I felt a strong American flavor to their culture, e.g., in how many people are wearing NBA jerseys and caps, and the songs on the radio in the cabs.

Hearing from alumni, many of whom are from Mendoza, about their gratitude for Notre Dame, was inspiring. They have learned that the Notre Dame ethos of leadership is about service, and service is about others and giving back. And that’s what they are doing. They attended the regional meeting to learn how they could be more effective in giving back, which is just wonderful to hear. Our strongest supporters are our alumni, and they expressed deep gratitude again for everything they have received from the University because of our staff and faculty.

I’m grateful to the Notre Dame Alumni Association and especially to Lea Barthuly, NDAA international program director, and to the Philippines Alumni Club leaders Guenevierre Panopio (BBA ‘11) and Jaime Urquijo for arranging the meeting. Thank you to Megan Piersma, Ryan Retartha and Reilly Fangman for their support in coordinating the trip, and especially to Megan for being such a fantastic fellow traveler. 

In Notre Dame,

Martijn