TURNER
BUSINESS COMMERCE & TECHNOLOGY REVIEW
VOLUME 8 | SPRING 2021
2
IN THIS ISSUE Letter from the Dean 1 New Turner College Faculty 2 Hodhod Named International Educator of the Year
2
Turner Faculty Trailblazers 3 8
11
2020 Turner College Faculty and Staff Awards
7
Navarrete Wins Top Staff Award
8
Angelopoulou Wins 2020-2021 Teach Access Award
9
9th Annual Business Plan Competition
10
Angelopoulou Receives National Science Foundation Grant
11
TSYS School Student Wins CSU Shark Tank
11
Turner Books 12
11
Spring 2021 Volume 8
Turner Business highlights activities of the faculty, staff, students, and alumni of the Turner College of Business at Columbus State University.
EDITOR
Franklin Mixon, Jr.
LAYOUT EDITORS Jessica Drake Director of Marketing Kelsey Vickers Marketing Specialist
ADVISORY BOARD Linda Hadley Dean
Fonda Carter Associate Dean Chair, Accounting & Finance Shamim Khan Interim Chair, TSYS School of Computer Science John Finley Chair, Management & Marketing
Turner.ColumbusState.edu
Letter from the Dean
W
e recently updated the mission of the Turner College. Our new mission makes a bold commitment to “create better futures” for our diverse student body by producing a career-ready workforce.” This is not a departure from our most recent mission statement which committed the College to “prepare our students to add value to their employers…” The new mission doubles down on the old one. We strengthen our commitment to both our students and the companies that employ them. This is indeed a bold commitment. We will now develop metrics to measure our performance each year. Our performance will further validate the College’s impact on the stakeholders and communities we serve. During this pandemic year, we have not only examined our mission and vision, but we’ve been forced to rethink how we teach, how students learn and how best to support student success. The transition to virtual learning was a major adjustment for both students and faculty. The silver lining, however, is that we have all been forced to explore new technologies, new pedagogies, and to reexamine our old practices and expectations. To varying degrees, we have all adapted to living in the virtual space, and we’ve gradually replaced our longing for a return to “normal” with speculation on what a post pandemic world will look like. The Turner College is committed to using the lessons learned during this period as part of our continuous improvement process.
I offer my sincere appreciation to the faculty, staff and students of the Turner College for rising to the challenges of the past year. We are now turning our attention to preparing for the return of the “full” college experience in the fall. We welcome the return of the masses of students and faculty who create and enrich our college community. We look forward to the return of student activities, speaker series, internships, study abroad, and even full parking lots. We hope that you enjoy this edition of Turner Business. As you will see, the work of the College has continued. This publication highlights the research of some of our business and computer science faculty. The faculty’s engagement in research not only enhances their credentials, it also enhances the profile of the University and demonstrates our commitment as a partner in economic and community development. Dr. Frank Mixon, editor of Turner Business, has selected some of the research that was originally prepared for academic journals and summarized here for our stakeholders. Thank you for your continued support of the Turner College. It has been my honor to serve the College as Dean.
TSYS School’s Angelopoulou Awarded MegaGrant Columbus State University assistant professor of Computer Science Anastasia Angelopoulou recently received a $25,000 MegaGrant from Epic Games to support the creation of an educational simulation game prototype that introduces consumers to the concept of peer-topeer energy trading. Peer-to-peer energy trading is a new concept of power operations, where households can generate their own energy using renewable energy resources. This energy can be traded to peers using models similar to those employed by Airbnb and Uber. “The project would not be possible . . . without Epic Games’ support and funding. It will be a great opportunity for CSU’s computer science students . . . to learn more about renewable . . . energy, simulation modeling and game design,” said Angelopoulou.
1
News of Angelopoulou’s grant award was included in Mary Ann DeMuth’s feature for the January 28, 2021 issue of GeorgiaTrend magazine.
Ge Joins TSYS School Faculty Linqiang Ge has joined the TSYS School of Computer Science as an assistant professor of Computer Science. Ge comes to CSU from Georgia Southwestern State University, where he served as chair of the Computer Science department. Professor Ge holds a master’s degree in Information Technology and a PhD in Computer Science, both from Towson University. Prior to these, he earned two bachelor’s degrees – in applied Mathematics and Finance – from Qingdao University in China.
Professor Ge’s recent research on encryption and data protection appears in the IEEE Internet of Things Journal, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology and ACM SIGAPP Applied Computing Review. His other research projects appear in Big Data Research, International Journal of Security and Networks, and Security and Communication Networks.
Hodhod Named International Educator of the Year TSYS School of Computer Science associate professor Rania Hodhod was named CSU’s International Educator of the Year at the 2020 University Awards Convocation. This award recognizes and rewards faculty and staff members who have made significant contributions to the University’s internationalization and to the international learning outcomes of its students.
In naming Hodhod the 2020 winner, CSU Provost Deborah Bordelon said Hodhod “. . . has made a tremendous contribution to Columbus State University and has advanced [its] mission at all levels, but particularly in the area of international education. She motivates and inspires students and is a faculty member who truly makes an impact.”
Bordelon also added, “[o]ne of [Rania’s] greatest strengths is bringing her own international experiences to the classroom[, . . . wherein her] students are challenged to see the world in different ways, and her real-world examples are invaluable to students who have yet to experience the world. Not only does she organize and run study abroad trips, she focuses on students’ experiences. True immersion in the culture is her goal and she achieves that through home dinners, building friendships, and taking classes with local students.”
Google Scholar and the Turner College Turner College faculty are continuing to excel in terms of garnering citations to their published research. As the accompanying table indicates, the College’s 43 faculty have combined to exceed 15,850 Google Scholar citations. In fact, the College’s 43 faculty have garnered a cumulative total of 15,887 Google Scholar citations, for an average of 369 per faculty.
TURNER COLLEGE DEPARTMENT
GOOGLE SCHOLAR NO. OF CITATIONS FACULTY
CITES PER FACULTY
Accounting & Finance
4,461
11
406
TSYS School of Computer Science
3,859
14
276
Management & Marketing
7,567
18
420
The Department of Accounting and Finance, which All 15,887 43 369 also includes Economics faculty, has produced a total of 4,461 Google Scholar citations. With 11 faculty in that unit, this total generates an average of 406 per faculty. The Department of Management and Marketing, which includes Management Information Systems faculty, leads the College with 7,567 total Google Scholar citations. With its 18 faculty, this unit averages about 420 citations per faculty. Lastly, the 14 faculty in the TSYS School of Computer Science have combined to produce 3,859 total Google Scholar citations, for an average of 276 per faculty.
2
Turner Faculty
Trailblazers
Social Media Messaging and Firm Reputation Recent research by the Turner College’s Joshua Brooks, an assistant professor of Finance, points out that it has now become a normal part of the consumption journey for consumers to share their positive and negative service encounters with firms on microblogs such as Twitter. Brooks’ research, co-authored with Jennifer Barhorst of the College of Charleston, and Alan Wilson and Graeme McLean, both of the University of Strathclyde, explores the comparative effects of positive and negative valence “service encounter microblog word of mouth” (SEMWOM) on receivers’ perceptions of firms’ reputations, and the factors that are particularly salient to receivers’ perceptions of firm reputation upon exposure to SEMWOM.
The study, titled “Service Encounter Microblog Word of Mouth and its Impact on Reputation,” and published in a 2020 issue of the Journal of Services Marketing, includes an experiment that exposed 372 Twitter users to positive and negative valence SEMWOM related to the U.S. airline companies. The research finds that both positive and negative valence SEMWOM affect, to varying degrees depending media type, receivers’ perceptions of airlines’ reputations on exposure.
“Through social media, even relatively isolated individuals can inflict a meaningful amount of damage or benefit to a company's reputation,” Brooks explained. “Our study examined the characteristics of social media mentions that caused the biggest impact on a company's reputation.”
Coral Reef Revenue, or Coral Reef Rash? Recent research by Turner College associate professor of Economics Tesa Leonce addresses particular risk of overexpoitation and extinction faced by coral reefs due to negative externalities from productive sectors such as tourism and fisheries. Her study, titled “Coral Reef Conservation incentives and Revenue Sharing,” and published in Tourism Economics, proposes a community-based approach to conservation based on a bioeconomic model that addresses the difficult trade-offs stemming from increased reliance on tourism revenues.
Leonce’s bioeconomic model explores whether or not effort-dependent revenue-sharing incentivizes local residents to engage in conservation activities. The short answer is that Tesa Leonce revenue-sharing proposals can promote local engagement in coral reef conservation. The key variables leading to this potential include, as Leonce’s research explains, the relative size of reward, the degree of reliance on coral reefs as a source of revenue, and whether the coral reefs are perceived by local residents as a commodity or a nuisance.
3
The Complex Role of Corruption in Mexico’s Formal Economic Sector A new study appearing in Small Business Economics by Kirk Heriot, professor of Management and Crowley Chair of Entrepreneurship in the Turner College, and colleagues Andres Jauregui of Fresno State University and David Mitchell of the University of Central Arkansas, evaluates the impact of corruption on firm births in the formal sector in the 32 Mexican states. The study, titled “Corruption and Formal Sector Entrepreneurship in a Middle-Income Country: Spatial Analysis of Firm Births in the Mexican States,” ultimately finds a strong spatial component to new firm formation using a variety of modeling approaches.
After controlling for socioeconomic factors previously linked to entrepreneurship, Heriot and his colleagues show that corruption is positively correlated with the formation of new formal-sector firms, but that the positive impact of corruption on firm formation diminishes as corruption increases. This finding suggests that there are diminishing returns to corruption with regard to new firm formation in Mexico’s formal sector.
“We believe this [result] implies that some corruption helps entrepreneurs navigate complex rules and bureaucracy [in Mexico], but too much corruption hinders entrepreneurship [there],” said Heriot.
4
Turner Faculty
Trailblazers
The Demoralizing Effect of Workplace Politics In their 2020 study titled “The Impact of Politics on Emotional Exhaustion, Satisfaction and Turnover Intention,” Turner College associate professor of Management Mark James and his colleague Joanne Chan of the University of Macau note that relatively little is known about how organizational politics is related to emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction.
Their study, which appears in Anatolia: An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research, examines how hospitality employees’ experience of organizational politics, emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction, and turnover intention are linked.
Analysis of employees in the hospitality industry, a group that is particularly subject to emotional exhaustion, reveals a complex link between the antecedents of turnover intention. For example, group-level politics are found to be positively linked to emotional exhaustion, yet unrelated to job satisfaction. Individual-level politics, on the other hand, are not significantly linked to emotional exhaustion, but are found to be negatively linked to job satisfaction.
What Drives Intentions to Fexit, and Why do Businesses Care? A new study by Turner College assistant professor of Marketing Alisha Horky appearing in a 2021 issue of the Journal of Business Research explores the impact of waning public trust in Facebook on users’ frequency and intensity of engagement with the social media platform. According to the study, titled “Fexit: The Effect of Political and Promotional Communication from Friends and Family on Facebook Exiting Intentions,” many brands rely on social media, but consumers’ changing behaviors, coupled with Facebook’s algorithm changes, may force brands to switch social media marketing strategies.
Horky’s research, produced in collaboration with Mark Pelletier of the University of North Carolina – Wilmington and Alexa Fox of the University of Akron, uses exiting behavior, social capital, and closeness as theoretical lenses to explore why Facebook users decrease or eliminate their use of the site in the “post-trust era” of Facebook. Their findings suggest that Facebook users feel freer to express themselves and are less likely to leave Facebook over their interactions with non-family than with family. Moreover, some users are exiting Facebook while others are decreasing the intensity and frequency in which they engage with the site.
Alisha Horky
Lastly, while brand-focused and political posts negatively affect future Facebook use, Horky’s research suggests that there are important differences regarding aligned versus opposing political content from family and non-family.
5
Building a 21st Century Cybersecurity Workforce
I
n their study titled “Educational Modules and Research Surveys on Critical Cybersecurity Topics,” TSYS School computer scientists Lixin Wang and Jianhua Yang, along with their colleague Peng-Jun Wan of the Illinois Institute of Technology, develop four course modules on critical cybersecurity topics that can be adopted in college-level cybersecurity courses in which these topics are covered. “Our goal for developing these course modules with the hands-on labs is to increase students’ understanding and hands-on experiences on these critical topics that support cyber skills development for college students,” Wang said. Cybersecurity comprises all of the technologies and practices that protect data as well as computer and network systems. As Yang explains, “The hands-on labs are designed to enhance students’ engagement and provide them hands-on experiences with real-world cyber activities to augment their cyber education of both foundational and advanced skills.”
Lixin Wang
In producing the study, which appears in a 2020 issue of International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks, the scientists conducted surveys on cutting edge research in these critical cybersecurity fields. They Jianhua Yang hope that their work will help university professors enhance and update their cybersecurity course content, activities, hands-on lab exercises, and pedagogical methods, as well as emphasize the cyber skills needed to meet today’s pressing cybersecurity education and build the nation’s cybersecurity workforce.
Servant Leadership and Employee Turnover A new study by Turner College associate professor of Management Kevin Hurt and researchers from the University of North Florida provides insights into the effect of servant leadership on turnover intentions. Hurt and co-authors Tobias Huning and Rachel Frieder of the University of North Florida investigate the mediating effects of perceived organizational support, job embeddedness and job satisfaction on the relationship between servant leadership and turnover intentions.
Based on data collected from the administration of 150 surveys, the study finds that both perceived organizational support and embeddedness are mediating mechanisms through which servant leadership is related to employee turnover intentions. The study is titled “The Effect of Servant Leadership, Perceived Organizational Support, Job Satisfaction and Job Embeddedness on Turnover Intentions: An Empirical Investigation” and appears in a recent issue of Evidence-Based HRM. “[The results] provide answers to the questions of how and why servant leadership affects employee outcomes,” Hurt said. “[The research represents] an important step towards more fully understanding the complex ways by which followers respond to servant leadership.”
6
2020 Turner College Faculty and Staff Awards Congratulations to the 2020 Faculty and Staff Award recipients! Winners were announced at the Turner College of Business’ Fall Faculty and Staff Convocation.
JOSHUA BROOKS
Assistant Professor of Finance 2020 Excellence in Teaching Award
ALFREDO PEREZ
Associate Professor of Computer Science 2020 Excellence in Research Award
7
MARK JAMES
JENNIFER PITTS
Associate Professor of Management 2020 Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award
Professor of Management Information Systems 2020 Excellence in Online Teaching Award
ROBIN SNIPES
DANIELLE NAVARETTE
Professor of Management 2020 Excellence in Service Award
Data Analyst 2020 Embry Spirit Award
Navarrete Wins Top Staff Award
T
he Turner College’s Danielle Navarrete took home the top staff award at the 2020 University Awards Convocation. Navarrete won the President’s Staff Excellence Award, which is presented annually to the staff member who demonstrates consistently superior performance in their position and within the University in a way that contributes to advancing and promoting one or more of the University’s six core values: Excellence, Engagement, Creativity, Servant Leadership, Inclusion, and Sustainability. In describing Danielle’s qualifications and accomplishments, CSU President Chris Markwood remarked that she “. . . is self-motivated and organized, and has consistently demonstrated exemplary performance throughout her time at Columbus State University[, and that [s]he is an asset to not only the Turner College of Business but to CSU as a whole.”
During her time at CSU, Danielle has served on Staff Council, where she held the positions of Financial Officer and co-chair of the Fundraising committee, effectively working to increase funding for staff professional development and staff appreciation. She regularly volunteers for Day of Service and assists with student organizations such as the Accounting Club. Danielle is currently the advisor for Beta Gamma Sigma, a national honor society for AACSB Accredited Business Schools, and for the last two years, she has accompanied students to the annual Global Leadership Summit in Chicago. As a critical member of the Turner College, Danielle is the assistant to the Chairs of the Accounting & Finance and Management & Marketing departments, and she was recently given the position of Data Analyst in the college. Danielle is the only staff member serving on the TCOB’s Assurance of Learning committee, and she was selected to attend an Adobe software conference and present at CSU’s Welcome Week events at the beginning of the academic year. She is a certified administrator of the Watermark Digital Measures software for the College and is now assisting in its universitywide implementation. Markwood concluded this portion of the Convocation by noting that Danielle is “always willing to enhance her skills and knowledge, she tirelessly attends conferences, and works towards certifications in areas related to her job duties. She has proven to be consistently exceptional and efficient in the workplace and is devoted to the mission and values that represent Columbus State University.”
Turner College Economist Making Mark in Health Economics
A previous issue of Turner Business reports on the Turner College’s development of a new course in health economics, provided to CSU students by Fady Mansour, an assistant professor of Economics. Mansour’s research program is largely geared toward health economics, and in the past two years it has been quite successful. His 2019 study, appearing in Applied Economics, measured the impact of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) on employer-sponsored health insurance, and found the ACA provisions reduced health insurance coverage take-up rates in small firms by more than 2.5 percentage points (compared to large firms).
A 2020 study by Mansour investigates the effect of certificate-of-need (CON) regulation on the quality of care in the U.S. nursing home industry. The study, which appears in Healthcare, reports that the presence of CON regulation leads to a substitution of lower-quality certified nursing assistant care for higher-quality licensed practical nurse care, regardless of the type of nursing home under consideration. It also finds that health survey scores for nursing homes computed by healthcare professionals are about 18 to 24 percent lower in states with CON regulation. Mansour’s 2021 publication in the Journal of Economics and Finance reports that, after passage of the ACA, employee take-up rates on employer sponsored health insurance plans are almost 10 percent greater for grandfathered plans (compared to non-grandfathered plans).
Lastly, a new study by Mansour set for publication in the Journal of Insurance Issues investigates the impact of automatic enrollment on employer-sponsored health insurance coverage take-up rates. It finds that if all eligible firms opted to use automatic enrollment, 8.7 million more individuals would retain private health insurance coverage (through their employers).
8
Angelopoulou Wins 2020-2021 Teach Access Award
A
nastasia Angelopoulou, an assistant professor of Computer Science in Turner College’s TSYS School, was named one of 10 winners of a 2020-2021 Teach Access Curriculum Development Award, each of whom received a $5,000 award.
Anastasia Angelopoulou
According to Teach Access, “These awards will be used to develop modules, presentations, exercises, or curriculum enhancements or changes that introduce the fundamental concepts and skills of accessible design and development in existing, classroom-based courses.”
In winning this award, Angelopoulou joins faculty from the University of California – Irvine, Tufts University, Seton Hall University, and the College of New Jersey, among others.
Teach Access is a unique collaboration among members of higher education, the technology industry, and advocates for accessibility whose goal is to make accessible technology ubiquitous. A new venture, Teach Access was conceived by the accessibility teams at Yahoo! and Facebook, and became a reality when the program was adopted by other leading exemplars of accessible products in the tech industry, with strong encouragement of advocates within the disability community. The founding members of Teach Access include leaders from Yahoo!, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Adobe, PayPal, Intuit, LinkedIn, AT&T, Stanford University, Carnegie Mellon University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Washington, AAPD, Deque, and the Paciello Group.
Correcting the Record
A recent study by Gisung Moon, associate professor of Finance in the Turner College, is the first to thoroughly investigate the long-run stock returns of the firms that re-state financial statements by fully considering the firm size effect. Moon and his co-authors--Hongbok Lee of Western Illinois University and Doug Waggle of the University of West Florida-use the re-statements data from the United States Government Accountability Office to measure the long-run stock performance of re-stating firms with the buy-and-hold abnormal returns, for holding periods of one to five years after the announcements of re-statements.
9
The study, titled “Long-Run Equity Performance of Firms that Restate Financial Statements” and appearing in a 2020 issue of Managerial Finance, finds that re-stating firms significantly underperform in the long run compared with their peers matched by industry, size and book-to-market. It also reports that the negative long-run abnormal performance of restating firms is primarily driven by large firms. Lastly, Moon and his colleagues also show that self-prompted restatements and improper revenue accounting-triggered restatements result in worse long-run abnormal performance.
Local Entrants Share Turner College Business Plan Competition Prize
C
olumbus State University student Shannon Eshman and local residents Suhyoon and Daniel Wood were the big winners of the 9th Annual Business Plan Competition sponsored by the Turner College of Business at CSU. The 2020 co-winners each received a check for $1,500.
Sharing the top prize, Eshman presented a plan for Able-Fi, an app that uses visuals, written step-by-step instructions, and behavioral rehearsal to teach functional daily living skills to people with disabilities. Eshman’s app also includes progress monitoring software that can assist teachers and parents in evaluating the progress made by users of the app. “I am so appreciative that I got to present the business plan for Able-Fi at CSU’s Turner Business Plan Competition,” Eshman said. Joining Eshman in the winner’s circle were Suhyoon and Daniel Wood, who presented a plan for Beejou Craft Kombucha. Their business plan focused not only on their product, but also on the current market and how the success of their business would bring economic diversity to Columbus. Since the initial competition, the Woods have opened a brick and mortar location and have enjoyed consecutively successful months that have exceeded their initial expectations.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the 2020 Business Plan Competition was held virtually, with the two finalists presenting their plans to the judges via video conference. The 2020 judges were Rod Barham, Lou Childs, David Mitchell, Jack Goldfrank, and Steve Taylor. Barham, a retired U. S. Army Brigadier and Turner College of Business alumnus, co-owns Bookkeeping Illuminations, Inc., a local company. Childs is the co-founder of Slumberpod, a company featured on the popular television show “Shark Tank.” Mitchell is the director of Enterprise Development at CSU. Goldfrank is the executive-in-residence in the Turner College of Business. Taylor is a retired entrepreneur and Turner College of Business alumnus.
10
Angelopoulou Awarded NSF Grant for COVID-19 Project Anastasia Angelopoulou, a Columbus State University assistant professor of Computer Science, was recently awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to conduct a study related to COVID-19. Angelopoulou will use data from Twitter, including hashtags, ages, and locations, to determine the public’s compliance with social distancing and public health guidelines. “Most of the COVID-19 projection models are based on assumptions about how willing the public is to comply with social distancing,” said Angelopoulou. “This study collects data based on different hashtags to see how exactly the public views and complies with mitigation strategies, particularly among different age groups and locations.” The one-year study will collect data every month. The data will form the basis of a multi-paradigm simulation model of how individuals in the U.S. react to certain mitigation strategies and public health guidelines. The findings will be publicly available at the end of the project, and health agencies could use it to improve their models. Angelopoulou is working in collaboration with Drs. Konstantinos Mykoniatis and Alice Smith, professors at Auburn University.
TSYS School Student Wins Inaugural Shark Tank Contest TSYS School Computer Science major Elijah Neundorfer and his partner Shannon Eshman, a Special Education major at CSU, took home the $500 first place prize in CSU’s Inaugural Shark Tank competition, held in the Synovus Center of Commerce & Technology in February 2020. Their product, referred to as Able-Fi, is an app that assists students who have intellectual and developmental disabilities in learning skills that enhance their independence in day-to-day activities through literary-based behavioral interventions.
In taking first place, Neundorfer and Eshman bested two other Turner College students, including Valencia Coleman, a Computer Science major whose game simulation invention, SimBa, helps users determine their business management styles; and Marketing major Cameron Stone, who invented Convenient Port, an accessible, portable charging station that offers multiple, individual charging pods. Stone teamed with Maxine Rose Sanchez, an Art major at CSU, in producing this product. CSU’s Shark Tank was organized by a group of CSU faculty and advised by StartUp Columbus. The competition’s judges included Lou Childs, co-founder of SlumberPod; Ben MacMinn, director of StartUp Columbus; David Mitchell, director of Enterprise Development at CSU; and entrepreneurs Steve Taylor and Russ Carreker.
11
Turner Books WAR MOVIES AND ECONOMICS
Lessons from Hollywood’s Adaptations of Military Conflict
Turner College professor of Economics Frank Mixon published an edited volume of essays in 2020, titled War Movies and Economics: Lessons from Hollywood’s Adaptations of Military Conflict. Co-edited with Laura Ahlstrom of Oklahoma State University, and published by Routledge, the volume includes eight essays describing the economics principles embedded in the plotlines of famous war movies, such as Dunkirk and The Dirty Dozen. An essay by Mixon and Rebecca Chambers of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia explains how the core economic concepts of production possibilities, specialization, and division of labor are central themes of the motion picture Memphis Belle, which focuses on the U.S. bombing campaign over Nazi Franklin Mixon Germany during World War II. Another essay, by Mixon and Ahlstrom, discusses the private provision of public goods against the backdrop of the television series Spartacus, which covers the Third Servile War.
Mixon contributed five essays to the volume. In addition to the two mentioned above, these include an essay with Kamal Upadhyaya of the University of New Haven that discusses behavioral economics concepts contained in two World War II movies/min-series – Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers. A fourth, co-authored with Carlos Asarta of the University of Delaware, focuses on game theory concepts that saved the life of Marcus Luttrell, one of four U.S. Navy Seals who became surrounded by Taliban forces during a secret mission in Afghanistan. Luttrell’s harrowing story is told in the movie Lone Survivor. Other war movies discussed in the volume include Schindler’s List, Valkyrie, Conspiracy and Stalag 17. In addition to the institutions listed above, contributors to Mixon’s book are affiliated with Boston College, West Virginia University, and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
YouTube Views, Academic Rankings and Economics Textbooks Research by Turner College Economics professor Frank Mixon was recently highlighted in a Vox.com news video titled The Electoral College Explained. The 8:08 length video was produced by Madeline Marshall, a Vox Video News producer, and was uploaded to YouTube on October 31, 2020, during the run-up to the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.
Since that date, the video has garnered 6,184,600 YouTube views. In other news, a 2021 article published in The American Economist indicates that Mixon ranks 36th among all economic education scholars worldwide. This ranking is based on publications in the field’s leading journal, the Journal of Economic Education, which launched in 1969. A 2020 study published in the International Journal of Social Economics indicates that Mixon ranks 20th worldwide in terms of scholarly productivity in the area of social economics. Lastly, Mixon published his first economics textbook, Principles of Microeconomics, in July of 2020. He is currently revising the first edition of that text for subsequent publication, and later this year his second textbook, Economics and Finance for Leaders, will hit the market.
12
