Research
The following research is ongoing among these business school faculty members.
Ivonne Liebenberg finds that the benefits from investment diversification are lower during recessions and that this effect is magnified in developing countries and countries with weak accounting or transparency standards.
Andre Liebenberg examines the effects of product diversification for property-casualty insurers and finds that, on average, even within-industry diversification appears to have a negative effect on both accounting and market performance, such as the case of AIG in the recent crisis. In other work, Liebenberg provides the first analysis of household-level survey data to identify the characteristics of households that are most likely to take out a life insurance policy loan, and identifies characteristics of life insurers that are most exposed to mortgage-backed securities.
Stephanie Noble, associate professor of marketing, explores the reasons behind consumption behaviors of college-aged Generation Y individuals. In another study, Noble investigates when relationships pay off for small retailers in terms of relationships with customers and suppliers. This research was conducted with small retailers throughout Mississippi; thus, these findings are directly applicable to the small businesses that operate throughout the state.
Stephanie and Charlie Noble show how consumers’ use of online message boards, as a means of “customer-to-customer” service in providing product opinions, usage information and other forms of guidance, influences purchase decisions.
Clay Dibrell shows how companies that make the natural environment a strategic priority are more likely to be more innovative and in-tune with their customers’ needs as compared to companies that place a lower strategic emphasis on the natural environment. In other studies, Dibrell finds that support by the entrepreneur’s family for the start-up venture was the No. 1 indicator for new-venture survivability. Family-owned businesses that did incorporate family in their promotional activities showed increased financial performance, and investment in information technologies enabled small- to medium-sized companies to compete more effectively resulting in greater financial performance.
Mark Bing, Heather Davison, Bart Garner, Anthony Ammeter and Milorad Novicevic show that individuals may prefer to give to their organizations, prefer to get from their organizations, prefer to have a balance of giving and getting, or even may be indifferent to the exchange relationship.
Heather Davison and Mark Bing examine the reasons why individuals with disabilities are reluctant to request accommodations, and they provide recommendations for disabled individuals when requesting accommodations from employers.
Mark Bing and Heather Davison develop a measure of bad employee behavior that should be helpful for any company trying to obtain a full picture of employee performance and counter-productivity, either for employee development or performance evaluation.
Bahram Alidaee shows that production-mix efficiency and product-route efficiency in the scrap-steel industry have a positive effect on profitability. In another study, Alidaee reviews 20 Mexican organizations’ experiences associated with the 5S practice from the Toyota quality and continuous-improvement methods and techniques. He also studies the best time for preventive-maintenance scheduling of a complex system such as oil refinery systems, airplanes, health care facilities, automated manufacturing systems and multi-cogeneration plants such as power plants and freshwater desalination processes, and how to assign tasks for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) used for military and civilian missions; how the USDA’s Goodwin Creek experimental watershed, located in Northern Mississippi, can use an integrated approach at the watershed level to provide efficient and cost-effective conservation.
Fan Chen published a study that shows portfolio managers can moonlight and effectively run both mutual and hedge funds.
Jeanette Martin published the fifth edition of Intercultural Business Communication, a textbook about intercultural-business-communication issues that can cause problems when working internationally.
James Meurs finds that in workplace situations of increased conflict, if employees are politically skilled, they can experience decreased burnout from workplace stress and increased performance evaluations from their supervisors. In another study, Meurs explains that individuals with negative dispositions are not just “complainers,” but that they actually experience higher physiological strain. In another paper, Meurs demonstrates that having lower barriers to mentoring had a positive impact on an individual’s career success two years later.
Matthew Hill demonstrates that firms’ operating working-capital policies are influenced by operating conditions and access to internal and external financing. The results suggest investors should consider these factors when assessing the efficiency of corporate working-capital policies.
Brian Reithel, UM management information systems doctoral program graduate Jie Zhang and another collaborator find that during information technology-related security training, the power and capability of technical-protection mechanisms should not be exaggerated. Instead, technical limitations and drawbacks should be emphasized so that information technology users will adopt more cautious security practices and adhere to the requirements of their organization’s security practices to reduce a firm’s exposure to hackers, viruses and other technology-enabled threats.
Robert and Bonnie Van Ness find that some short sellers in stocks periodically act in a predatory manner. When this occurs, it causes temporary liquidity crises in the trading of the stock. They also show, along with a second-year Ph.D. student, Jared Egginton, that over the last 14 years, The University of Mississippi’s finance department is ranked as the 20th most active university in terms of research presentations at the Financial Management Association conference.
Ken Cyree studies what small, privately held banks pay for when they acquire other small banks and finds that banks pay a premium for deposits and for a growing bank in a growing market.
Professors Larry Cox and Robert Van Ness and Ph.D. graduate Tao Zhang find that hard-to-value lines of insurance underwritten by property-casualty insurers lead to difficulties in estimating stock values for these insurers. No similar problems are found for life-health insurers, however.
Professor Larry Cox and Ole Miss Ph.D. graduate Michael McShane explore the relatively young market for long-term care insurance and find evidence that firms with a prior focus on health care lines are having a greater impact than those that are taking a more diversified approach to underwriting life and health lines.
Robert Robinson and Sam Cousley published an article in the “Southern Law Journal” that analyzed the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). The Act, if passed, will present several compliance issues that employers will have to resolve. The study investigated these issues by considering the stated prohibitions included in the most current version of the Act and by examining its implied ramifications. Of particular concern was the impact ENDA is likely to have on employer practices, particularly grooming and dress codes, and the employer’s obligation to maintain a harassment-free work environment. The research also addressed some of the statutory limitations placed on sexual orientation, which are not imposed on the other protected classes.
Robert Robinson and Sam Cousley examine the case popularly known as the “New Haven firefighter’s case” (Ricci v. De Stefano) that was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States on June 29, 2009. Many in the popular media contend that this decision was a major setback for affirmative action. However the case actually had nothing to do with affirmative action; rather it addressed very technical legal issues dealing with disparate impact theory and the employer’s burden of persuasion involving validated employment requirements, especially written examinations. The study examines how the Ricci decision affects current employment practices, especially validated selection metrics. In addition, it discussed the legal standards for demonstrating that a given selection device is job-related, and how this, a process known as validation, is generally accomplished. Finally, the study analyzes the impact of the Ricci decision on employer defenses predicated on validated test results.
Douglas W. Vorhies demonstrates the impact on firm financial performance of aligning capabilities in marketing with the business strategy of the firm. The study shows that firms should align their marketing capabilities with the demands of their business strategy to drive superior financial performance. In a second study, Vorhies demonstrates that firms should strive to manage their market orientation and their marketing capabilities to help drive superior financial performance. In a third study, Vorhies shows that firms that want to grow their revenues and margins should develop superior-brand, customer-relationship and market-sensing capabilities.
Bonnie and Robert Van Ness look at short sales in the stock market. While some predict that short sellers close out their positions on Friday and reopen them on Monday, the Van Nesses do not substantiate this finding. They find that short sellers, in general, tend to trade as prices are moving up, and they trade more during the middle of the week. They also compare short sales of NYSE and NASDAQ stocks and find that NASDAQ has relatively more short sales than NYSE. They find that short sellers of NASDAQ stocks tend to sell more as prices are rising (and returns have been positive) and are better able to predict when prices will be dropping (by shorting prior to the price declines).
