Survey says…community! 

Not just one survey response, but many survey responses say that one reason our students come to Notre Dame and enjoy their Mendoza experience is thanks to our community. That’s not likely to be surprising to anyone reading this column.

Highlighting our community hasn’t always been an easy task for the Mendoza Graduate Enrollment team over the past few years; we’ve had to be nimble and flexible in considering the mode of communication. We were successful in showcasing our community via Zoom during the pandemic. Since then, we’ve conducted a lot of one-on-one meetings and tours, and have gotten back on the road to meet students in their hometowns. 

Through it all, Mendoza faculty, staff and students have been there with us telling their stories. We can’t thank you enough for your time and partnership.

On Friday, the Graduate Enrollment team hosted our spring Domer for a Day. The event introduced 22 prospective graduate students (one even flew in from Los Angeles) to Mendoza through a day filled with activities including a campus tour, networking opportunities, and career development and application advice sessions with our team. For us, on-campus events like this are some of our favorite days. At the end of the day, our cheeks hurt from smiling, we see our colleagues in their element as they interact with prospective students, and most of all, we see our guests’ eyes light up after spending a day in our community.

The enrollment team’s goal is to invite more prospective students to get to know us, and to get to know you — the Mendoza community.  We want all of our guests to feel like they’re already part of our community, to feel like “Domers for a Day,” through opportunities such as a site visit, lunch with a current student or attending a guest lecture or event put on by a Mendoza department.

So whenever you see a Graduate Enrollment team member walking with someone in the halls and extolling the virtues of Grow Irish Week or snacks in the student lounge, please stop us to say hi. We’d love to introduce you to a potential member of our Mendoza community. 

Here’s to many more comments and survey shoutouts in the future!

Claire

Claire Fitzgibbon
Senior Director of Graduate Enrollment

I want to highlight two important events happening in the College next week.

On February 11-13, the College will host a team of faculty and administrators from peer and aspirant business schools as part of our accreditation by AACSB International, a global nonprofit association that is the longest-serving global accrediting body for business schools offering undergraduate, master’s and doctoral degrees in business and accounting. 

The College first received AACSB accreditation in 1962. The Accountancy program, which is reviewed separately, has been accredited since 1984. Since then, we have participated in a five-year “continuous improvement” peer review to extend the accreditation.

The peer-review team will be on campus to meet with our deans, chairs, senior directors, faculty and students. The review also involves the submission of an extensive continuous improvement report about the College’s activities and accomplishments, to which many of you contributed data and information. 

The report was a substantial project and I appreciate the contributions of Kristen Collett-Schmitt, Ken Kelley, Letecia McKinney, David Smiley, Diego Wang, MinHee Myung, Amanda Rink, Carol Elliott, Zara Osterman, the academic directors of all programs and others who provided information. The Accountancy report was completed by Brad Badertscher, Fred Mittelstaedt, Jim Seida and Barb Westra. Thanks also to those of you who are participating in the upcoming visit.  

Notre Dame Ethics Week also gets underway next week with the theme of “Artificial Intelligence: Its Ethical Possibilities and Problems.” This year, we are featuring an all-Mendoza lineup of faculty members who have deep knowledge and research expertise in AI. The topics address current issues around AI that are the subject of daily headlines. The talks take place from 12:05 p.m. to 1 p.m. February 12-16 in Mendoza room 133. 

• February 12 (Monday): Ahmed Abbasi, Joe and Jane Giovanini Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations; Academic Director of the Ph.D. Program in Analytics and co-director of the Human-centered Analytics Lab, “Artificial Intelligence's Major Challenge:  Striking a Balance Between Innovation and Precaution.”
• February 13 (Tuesday): Kirsten Martin, William P. and Hazel B. White Center Professor of Technology Ethics, “Who is Responsible for Algorithmic Recommendations Online? (And Other Pesky AI Questions).”
• February 15 (Thursday): Greg Robson, visiting assistant research professor of Business Ethics and Society, “Planning Future Economies: Can Artificial Intelligence Be Trusted?” 
• February 16 (Friday): Nick Berente, professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations, “Artificial Intelligence's Use, Impact and Necessary Guardrails.”  

I hope you will attend as your schedule allows. My thanks especially to Ken Milani, who has faithfully organized Ethics Week which is now in its 26th year, as well as to Claire Donovan, Bob Essig and John Sikorski.

In Notre Dame,

Martijn

I’m pleased to feature five research papers written by our faculty and recently published in top-tier academic journals:

John Busenbark, Mary Jo and Richard M. Kovacevich Associate Professor of Management & Organization
Director Departure Following Political Ideology (In)congruence With an Incoming CEO (Strategic Management Journal)
Political ideologies are vital in how people craft their networks, as individuals prefer to associate with others who share their views and can possess a visceral aversion to others who do not. The researchers theorize and find that board directors with a congruent political ideology to an incoming CEO are apt to remain on the board but they are even likelier to depart their positions when they have an incongruent political persuasion with the CEO.

Zhi Da, Howard J. and Geraldine F. Korth Professor of Finance
The Information in Industry-Neutral Self-Financed Trades (Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis)
The research identifies Industry-Neutral Self-Financed Informed Trading (INSFIT) as stock trades financed by offsetting, equivalent dollar-denominated stock trades in the same industry. Approximately 37% of short-term mutual fund trading profits can be attributed to these trade pairs. Consistent with informed trading, INSFIT precedes unusually high media coverage for the underlying stocks. Both relative valuation and the hedging of industry exposure motivate INSFIT’s industry neutrality.

John Donovan, Gerspach Family Associate Professor of Accountancy
Pay for Prudence (Journal of Accounting and Economics)
The study provides evidence that prudential principles shape bankers' executive compensation (“pay for prudence” or “PfP”). The researchers conjecture that PfP incentivizes bankers to balance shareholders' preference for risk with regulators' preference for prudence. They find that PfP is positively associated with equity incentives for risk-taking but also associated with lower tail risk, fewer bad loans, and lower likelihood of regulatory downgrades. The results shed light on a new dimension of bankers' pay and suggest that PfP complements widely studied incentives for risk-taking.

Frank Germann, Viola D. Hank Associate Professor
Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Empowering Female Entrepreneurs through Female Mentors (Marketing Science)
Governmental and nongovernmental organizations invest billions of dollars every year providing training programs to emerging market entrepreneurs. Many of these programs involve providing entrepreneurs with mentors. Unfortunately, the effects of these programs are often muted, or even null, for woman-owned firms. Against this backdrop, the researchers tested whether gender matching, where female entrepreneurs are randomly paired with a female mentor, could help address the gender gap. Findings from a randomized controlled field experiment with 930 Ugandan entrepreneurs show that firm sales and profits of female entrepreneurs guided by a female mentor increased by, on average, 32% and 31% compared with the control group. In contrast, female entrepreneurs guided by a male mentor did not significantly improve their performance.

Alfonso Pedraza-Martinez, Greg and Patty Fox Collegiate Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations
Improving Drinking Water Access and Equity in Rural Sub-Saharan Africa (Production and Operations Management)
Worldwide, more than 771 million people — many in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) — lack access to clean drinking water. Using optimization, the researchers investigate where to build new water wells to reduce users’ distance to water in SSA. They model construction costs, community collaboration and groundwater distribution. The study shows that community collaboration expands the feasible space for the location of water projects, improving distance to water and social equity.

Thanks to John B., Zhi, John D., Frank and Alfonso for their contributions to advancing research.

In Notre Dame,

Martijn