For many of us, this has been our first week of alternative working arrangements, as the pandemic seems more challenging, uncertain, and disruptive every day. There’s still a lot of activity going on, and I’m grateful to all of you for the many ways you have risen above to meet the current challenges.

Three special kudos go to our IT group for helping faculty switch to online teaching, to our Faculty Support group for scanning thousands of pages of course materials for students, and to our Communications group for the many messages conveying the latest news.

Since we are working remotely, it is easy to feel disconnected from your colleagues and the College in general. This is our new normal for the time being, unfortunately. I encourage you to continue to reach out and check on each other, by email, Google hangouts, text or Zoom session — or a phone call — also to just say hello.

We will continue to share information as fully and expediently as possible. The University distributes announcements and updates on coronavirus.nd.edu as decisions are made. I will update you via email if there is information specific to Mendoza that you should know. We also will highlight important news in Mendoza Exchange. And hopefully you received our new College newsletter, Morning Brew, that sends out some lighter side Mendoza “news” on Wednesdays and Fridays.

I want to emphasize that as needs arise, there is help available. Please contact me, Kara Palmer or your direct supervisor to let us know about any concerns or needs.

In Notre Dame,

Martijn 

I have often talked about the three Cs as the pillars of our mission: Contribute, Cooperate, Compete.

In these past days as disruption, uncertainty and social-distancing have overtaken all parts of our lives – personal and professional – three different Cs have been much in evidence: Community, Connection and Compassion.

Despite the challenges we have faced in figuring out how to totally change the way we do our jobs, we have pulled together as a community to share information and learning, and to treat each other with patience and grace while still endeavoring to do our best to serve our students amidst difficult circumstances.

This is what it truly means to compete as the business school of the University of Notre Dame; to serve the most vulnerable among us through contributing and collaborating, even at a time when we ourselves might be the most vulnerable.

To be sure, everything hasn’t gone perfectly and there’s been a lot of stress. But we can draw a measure of comfort in knowing that although we’re “socially distant,” we’re still a community.

I’m thankful to so many of you who have gone above and beyond. Just to name a few: Our IT team led by Chris Fruehwirth has done an amazing job quickly bringing resources online while supporting each one of us with our individual tech questions and needs. Kristen Collett-Schmitt has reached out to coach faculty members (including me) about teaching online, even as she had to teach her own EMBA class online for the first time.

The Chicago EMBA students who participated in their residency online (rather than the campus experience they expected) reacted by organizing a fundraising effort for the Greater Chicago Food Depository to ensure underprivileged school children don’t go hungry.

These are real life examples of how we Grow the Good in Business. They are humbling reminders that we share a meaningful mission and that we can make a difference.

Please continue to share these stories. We will highlight them in Mendoza Exchange.

Please also share your needs. Even though we need to observe the critical social distancing policy, we also should remember that many people in our community stand ready to help each other.

The Mendoza faculty continues to publish research that is highly relevant to our workplaces, financial markets, corporate policies, data management and a wide range of other important topics. Here are a few of our recently published studies:

Robert Battalio, Finance Professor and the William and Cassie Daley Department Chair
Option Investor Rationality Revisited: The Role of Exercise Boundary Violations
Financial Analysts Journal

Our empirical results overturn the well-known textbook theory that American options should not be exercised early except in very limited conditions. In the real world, the best bid available in the market is frequently below the option’s intrinsic value, which we call an “exercise boundary violation” (EBV). In an EBV, early exercise can be the right strategy and the “American” option characteristic has economic value. Our results suggest that actual exercise behavior is much less irrational than earlier studies concluded.

Mike Crant, Mary Jo and Richard M. Kovacevich Professor of Excellence in Leadership Instruction, Management & Organization
Proactive yet reflective? Materializing proactive personality into creativity through job reflective learning and activated positive affective state
Personnel Psychology

Proactive leaders are creative, identifying opportunities and coming up with ideas for a better future. Research has considered this to largely originate from “ah hah!” moments, but our research suggests that proactive ideas are also a function of how deeply people reflect on their successes and failures at work. We refer to this process as job reflective learning, and across two studies we found that the more people think about—and take responsibility for—their successes and failures, the more likely they are to turn their experiences into fresh ideas.
 
Xinxue (Shawn) Qu, Assistant Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations
A Time-Based Dynamic Synchronization Policy for Consolidated Database Systems 
MIS Quarterly

In the age of analytics, data is becoming an increasingly important asset for organizations, which calls for efficient maintenance policies to keep the data up-to-date. This study proposes a maintenance policy for consolidated databases, which evaluates the data staleness level at predetermined checkpoints and run synchronizations only if given staleness thresholds are crossed. The proposed method consistently outperforms existing policies, leading to substantial cost savings.
 
Hal White, Vincent and Rose Lizzadro Endowed Professor of Accountancy
Information Overload and Disclosure Smoothing
Review of Accounting Studies

Companies often release large amounts of information over short periods of time, which can make it difficult for investors to adequately process; i.e., they become overloaded with information. Our research evidence suggests that companies can improve investors’ processing ability by spreading out their disclosures, so they have more time to digest each piece of information. This results in greater stock market benefits, including enhanced liquidity, reduced stock price volatility and more accurate analyst forecasts of the companies’ performance. This evidence helps inform regulators who are looking to combat the negative stock market effects of information overload.
 
Congratulations to these faculty members on their publications!

In Notre Dame,

Martijn 

One of the key promises of our imperative to “grow the good in business” is building a community of mutual advancement, and this includes a renewed focus on diversity and inclusion.

Two weeks ago, the College hosted a very successful 23rd annual Notre Dame Ethics Week titled “Women Lead.” The event featured speakers and panel discussions exploring the various challenges and opportunities women experience in the classroom and workplace. (See more information about Ethics Week below.)

This week, the Notre Dame Institute for Global Investing (NDIGI) is hosting another important event, the second annual Women’s Investing Summit (WIS), which takes place on Friday, Feb. 28, from 8 a.m.-4 p.m. in the Dahnke Ballroom in the Duncan Student Center. The Summit is open to women and men in the Notre Dame community.

WIS is distinctive and important to Mendoza and to the larger finance industry because all of the speakers are senior women in investment management. This makes it a rare event, because the percentage of women in leadership positions is extremely low — less than 10 percent. NDIGI managing director Erin Bellissimo, who has been at the forefront of many efforts to encourage young women to enter careers in investing, organized the Summit to give attendees the insider’s perspective on current market trends and future job and investment opportunities.

Speakers include Wendy Cromwell, the vice chair and senior managing director and partner at Wellington Management; Katie Koch (ND '02), the co-head of Fundamental Equity at Goldman Sachs; and Kathy Murphy, president of personal investing at Fidelity Investments. Students also have the opportunity to network with investment professionals during lunch.

Mendoza faculty and staff members are welcome to attend WIS. To register, email Tess Swain at tswain@nd.edu. You’re also welcome to attend NDIGI’s Student Stock Pitch Competition 5-6:30 p.m. on Feb. 27 in the Jordan Auditorium.

My thanks to the NDIGI staff and faculty who have put so much thought and effort into organizing the Women’s Investing Summit 2020 and the student stock pitch competition — Erin, Tess, Mark Dumich and Shane Corwin.

In Notre Dame,

Martijn