Newly Funded Research Projects Schulich researchers continue to successfully secure funding from Canada’s federal Tri-Council granting agencies, the major source of research and scholarship funding for Canadian Universities. Schulich researchers predominantly receive funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). In 2020 & 2021, Schulich had phenomenal years in acquiring external funding. Particularly, our SSHRC results were most impressive. We earned a remarkable eighty-five percent success rate. We proudly present some of the interesting work that is being conducted by our researchers.
SSHRC INSIGHT DEVELOPMENT GRANTS
Climate Risk, Information Environment and Cost of Equity Capital Principal Investigator: Kiridaran Kanagaretnum
K I R I DAR A N KA N AGA R E TN UM Professor of Accounting
According to World Economic Forum Global Risks Report, the top five long-term risks were all climate-related (World Economic Forum, 2020). Climate events inflict severe damage to property and infrastructure, devastating local economics and potentially harming national economic output. Climate risk can be categorized into physical and transitional risks. Physical climate risk refers to damage to land, infrastructures, and other physical assets. It impacts firms through their operating costs, impairments, provisions, and business interruptions. Transition climate risk relates to the cost of transitioning to a low carbon economy and entails rising operating costs due to energy related spending, higher R&D investments for transitioning to a low carbon economy and changing market preferences in terms of both supply chain and customer preferences. Given this context, Kiridaran’s objective is to study the relations between climate risk and firms’ information environment (i.e., information asymmetry) and the cost of equity capital in a cross-country setting. This line of research is important to understand the channels through which climate risk can affect the firm’s investment and external funding environment that impacts investors and other stakeholders.
SSHRC INSIGHT DEVELOPMENT GRANTS
Digital Technology Adaptation and Business Ethics: An Exploratory Study of Artificial Intelligence in Canada Principal Investigator: Justin Tan
J U ST I N TA N Professor of Strategic Management/Policy; Newmont Mining Chair in Business Strategy
76 Schulich School of Business
In recent years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been widely used in various aspects of work and life. At the same time, the rapid technology development and its diffusion have received huge criticism for violation of personal privacy and unethical technique utilized. Among the concerns of AI, informative privacy is the top concern of the technology. With the assistance of AI, companies collect a significant amount of data such as the user’s preferences, private information, online surfing history and use the information for business purposes. So far, in most areas of the world, including Canada, there is no specific regulations or laws that protect the user’s information privacy from AI. In this study, Justin will leverage his previous expertise and investigate the theoretical connections between AI technology and its social and ethical implications.
