Turner Business Review: Creative To The Core - Spring 2020 Issue

Business Turner

Commerce & Technology Review

Volume 7 - Spring 2020

“CSU has done an outstanding job being innovative in the educational realm of cyber security. The new degree program has greatly expanded my horizons to how higher education has changed over time, and the impact that can come from continuing this innovation. My coursework introduced me to many technologies and applications that are currently used to secure information and systems. It is vital that this relevancy occurs in the educational field as students enter the technical workforce.� Jacob Worthington, B.S. Computer Science ’18

IN THIS

ISSUE New Turner College Faculty

1

Dean Linda Hadley elected to lead AACSB

2

Student and Faculty Trailblazers

3

Turner Trailblazers

6

Student Completes Research Internship at Carnegie Mellon

11

Maximizing the Student Experience

12

The State of the Middle Class in Columbus

14

Business Plan Winners on ‘Shark Tank’

18

Executive Speaker Series Recap

20

New course offering: Health Economics

21

Book Review: A Terrible Efficiency: Ent Entrepreneurial Bureaucrats and the Nazi Holocaust

22

8th Annual Business Plan Competition

23

Focus on Research

25

Tu r n e r B u s i n e s s C o m m e r c e & Te c h n o l o g y R e v i e w

New Turner College Faculty Alisha Horky has joined the Turner College as an assistant professor of marketing. Professor Horky comes to CSU from the marketing faculty in the Love School of Business at Elon University, where she has taught operations and supply chain management. Professor Horky’s research interests include issues in retailing and distribution strategy. Professor Horky’s research on marketing technology has appeared in the Journal of Business Research, Marketing Management Journal, Journal of Services Marketing, and the Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing. Her recent research on the effects of gift card programs on company revenue and profit appears in the Journal of Services Professor Horky earned a Ph.D. in marketing from Mississippi Retailing and Consumer Services.

State in 2014. In the process of completing that degree program, she received the MSU College of Business Outstanding Doctoral Student Research Award in 2012. That same year she won the Steven J. Shaw Best Conference Paper Award from the Society for Marketing Advances.

Amy Rebecca Jones has joined the Turner College as an assistant professor of marketing.

Professor Jones comes to CSU from the doctoral program in the Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management at the University of Memphis. While completing doctoral studies at the University of Memphis, she also earned a Cognitive Science Graduate Certificate and a Biometric Research Certification. Professor Jones’ research interests include advertising, sales promotion, biometrics, consumer behavior, sensory marketing, humor, and non-profit donations. Prior to entering the Ph.D. program, Becca worked for Macy’s, Inc. as a relationship management specialist. She o earned an M.S. in organizational leadership at Columbus State University and a B.S. in marketing at Reinhardt University, where she played collegiate softball for four years, earning the status of an All-American Collegiate Student Athlete.

Introducing the

Center for Financial and Quantitative Analysis Students returning to the Turner College of Business for fall 2019 classes could not avoid noticing the transformation of Room 305 in the Synovus Center for Commerce and Technology. The former classroom is now the Center for Financial and Quantitative Analysis, complete with a stock market ticker that spans the length of one wall of the room, just above two large electronic displays that can be used to provide current financial data and information, or visual aids to enhance presentations or lectures. “The transformation of this learning space will provide enhanced experiential learning opportunities for our students and better prepare them for career success. The lab was funded by gifts directed to the project as part of the University’s First Choice comprehensive campaign” said Dean Linda Hadley.

According to Bret Cotten, associate professor of finance, "the new CFQA will be a dual-purpose room, with the front portion setup as a classroom, where the stock ticker and two Rise displays are located, while the back of the room includes a conference table and computer workstations, along with large screen televisions for live financial news." As Cotten explained, the ticker will display major stocks from national exchanges, including stocks of local interest, such as Synovus, Aflac and Global Payments. “When not in use for teaching courses in investments, financial markets and institutions, and international finance," Cotten added, ''the displays will show sector heat maps, graphs for major indices, most active stocks, gainers and losers, key interest rates, world markets, exchange rates, and world news." The CFQA will offer students a place to research and analyze firms as part of course assignments, the CFA Research Challenge and an annual trading competition that will be offered by the Turner College.

To enhance its value as an educational hub for finance students, the Turner College's Center for Economic Education has gifted the CFQA subscriptions to several academic journals, including the American Economic Review and the Journal of Economic Perspectives, among others.

1

Dean Linda Hadley elected to lead AACSB –

The world’s premier accrediting body for business schools Linda U. Hadley, Hadle Dean of the Turner College of Business assumed the position of Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect of AACSB International – the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business on July 1, 2019. AACSB is the world’s largest business education alliance and the premiere accrediting body for business schools around the globe.

Hadley’s work with the organization spans more than 15 years of dedicated service. She has played an active role in the AACSB accreditation process by serving as a member and/or chair of more than 30 peer-review teams in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia. She was previously elected to serve two three-year terms on the Board of AACSB representing U.S. Schools. She will take the helm as Chair of the Board of Directors on July 1, 2020.

AACSB connects educators, students, and business to achieve a common goal: to create the next generation of great leaders. Synonymous with the highest standards of excellence since 1916, AACSB provides quality assurance, business education intelligence, and professional development services to over 1,500 member organizations and more than 785 accredited business schools worldwide. AACSB’s global headquarters is located in Tampa, Florida. It serves Europe, the Middle East, and Africa through its Amsterdam office, and the Asia Pacific region through its Singapore location.

The Turner College had its last accreditation review in March of 2019. The visiting team deemed that the College was in compliance with all accreditation standards and cited no issues to be addressed prior to the next review in 2023. The review team commended the College for the strength of its partnerships with local business and industry..

Expanding Cybersecurity Education The University System of Georgia Board of Regents recently approved two new bachelor’s degrees to be offered by the Turner College of Business, pending approval by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. The new degrees are a bachelor of business administration in cybersecurity management and a bachelor of science in cybersecurity. Both will help train students for the booming cybersecurity industry, wherein, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment growth is projected at 28% annually through 2026 – a growth rate that is much faster than average for all other occupations. The proposed B.S. in cybersecurity consists of 120 credit-hours, while the B.B.A. degree is 123 credit hours. Students will learn how to protect critical information infrastructures by developing, implementing, and maintaining appropriate cybersecurity policies and practices to help prevent, detect, and eliminate security threats. Graduates will have the opportunity to join the local, state, national, and international cybersecurity workforce as well-qualified professionals. “The field of cybersecurity touches every aspect of our lives. technolog banking, insurance, health These degree programs will prepare students to take on leading roles in financial technology, care and other industries that deal with data. Graduates from this program will have a significant impact on how we conduct business on a daily basis,” said Deborah Bordelon, CSU’s Provost and Executive Vice President.

Turner College of Business Dean Linda Hadley added that “the demand for effective measures to combat the diverse threats we face from fraud has rapidly increased, and so has the demand for skilled professionals to implement them.

These new degree programs were created in direct response to regional employers’ unmet demand for cybersecurity professionals to protect their information and infrastructure.” Columbus State University is a leader in Cybersecurity education, with a program that was developed within the TSYS School of Computing to meet the needs of the fastest growing area of job growth in America. U.S. News & World Report ranked a career in information security analyst fourth on its list of the ten best technology jobs and 40th out of the 100 best jobs in general for 2019. CyberSeek, a program of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, projects that there are more than 314,000 unfilled cybersecurity jobs in the U.S. with 11,377 of those located in the State of Georgia. During a recent visit to CSU, Georgia State Senator John Albers, an alumnus of Harvard University’s cybersecurity program, put the number of unfilled cybersecurity positions in the state much higher at approximately 24,000.

Turner Business

2

Student and Faculty

Trailblazers 2019 Turner College Honors Convocation

Beta Gamma Sigma Inductees Dean Hadley also presented the 2018-19 Beta Gamma Sigma honorees. This past academic year, 29 Turner College undergraduate and graduate students were inducted into Beta Gamma Sigma.

Rohith Kumar Atimamula Pinaki Banerjee The Turner College of Business held 2nd Annual Honors Nathan Catching Convocation on April 26, 2019. Associate professor of Elizabeth Chess marketing, Ed O’Donnell, served as the Master of Ceremony, James Clark and departmental awards were presented by Turner College Alexander Coker Dean Linda Hadley and Michael Anselm, the faculty Drake Davis advisor to the Turner College’s chapter of Beta Gamma Katlyn Deyhle Sigma, the only honor society recognized the by the Matthew Edmunds International Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Mya Freeman Business (AACSB), the premier accrediting body of colleges Angel Gray and schools of business worldwide. Fourteen students took Nakia Guy home various departmental awards in accounting, computer William Harper science, finance, information systems, management and Alexandra Hawks-Sanchez marketing.

Charles Hill Michael Bowen Nathan Catching Gabrielle Chan Sade Dantzler Kayla Henderson Johnathan Kimbro Charles Little Robert McGoey Nina Nguyen Michael Oresteen Daniel Rockwell Rachel Stehlow Autumn Wilson Kristen Wright

3

Cybersecurity Award M.S.O.L. Award Marketing Award Management Award Accounting Award Games Programming Award Information Technology Award M.B.A. Award General Business Award M.I.S. Award Applied Computer Science M.S. Award Applied Computer Science Award Finance Award Software Systems Award

Arlyn Hott Warren Jones Johnah Langston Mariah Massey Roberty McGoey Samantha Miller-Gurski Kanij Momin Nina Nguyen James Ositis Drashtiben Patel Hannah Reed Tatseyana Taylor Christopher Thornton Mehkya Wilcox

Dean Hadley concluded the ceremonies by inducting two Turner College business scholars – Tesa Leonce and Neal Thomson -- into Beta Gamma Sigma. Leonce is an associate professor of economics in the Turner College, and recipient of the Turner College’s Outstanding Teaching Award in 2018.

Thomson is a professor of management, and recipient of the Turner College’s Outstanding Service Award in 2018.

2019 Turner College Faculty and Staff Awards A number of faculty and staff awards were announced at the Turner College of Business’ annual faculty and staff retreat on May 15, 2019. Assistant professors of economics Fady Mansour and Wen Shi were named co-winners of the 2019 Excellence in Teaching Award. The 2019 Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award was presented to Kevin Hurt, an associate professor of management in the Turner College.

Economics professor Frank Mixon received the 2019 Excellence in Research Award, while Ben Blair, the Director of the Butler Center for Business and Economics Research and professor of economics, was presented the 2019 Excellence in Service Award. The 2019 Embry Spirit Award was presented to both Rodrigo Obando, an associate professor in the TSYS School of Computer Science, and Boadu the Turner College’s Director of Student Sonya Boadu, Services and Graduate Programs Coordinator.

Spring 2019 Beta Gamma Sigma Inductees

Educator of the Year Award Hadley Recognized for Athletics Philanthropy The recent 2019 Columbus State University Hall of Fame Banquet was a big one for the Turner College of Business.

Linda Hadley, the Dean of the Turner College of Business, was presented the Charles M. Morrow Humanitarian Award for her passion and support of CSU Athletics. In being selected for the award, Hadley was recognized for her belief in the value of collegiate athletics, and for having been a long-time advocate for Cougar student-athletes professionally and personally. The Charles M. Morrow Humanitarian Award is named after the philanthropist, who proudly supported the Columbus community for decades.

The CSU baseball and softball clubhouse is named in his honor. Among other luminaries in CSU athletics, Hadley was joined on stage by another CSU faculty member, Glenn Stokes, who received the Sonny Clements Athletic Director’s Award for his work serving as the Faculty Athletic Representative for Columbus State Athletics for over 30 years. “The success of Columbus State Athletics is supported by outstanding behind the scenes individuals, and all . . . of our recipients portray unique traits that make them indispensable to our University,” added CSU Director of Athletics Todd Reeser. “We congratulate and thank them for their continued dedication, support, and enthusiasm for Cougar student-athletes.”

Turner College professor of accounting and finance, Uma Sridharan, won CSU Educator of the Year Award at the 2019 Scholastic Honors Convocation. This award is voted on by CSU students and sponsored by CSU’s Student Government Association.

Joining Sridharan on the stage were Turner College students Julissa Santoyo, winner of the Student of Excellence Award in the Department of Accounting and Finance, Gabrielle Chan, winner of the Student of Excellence Award in the Department of Management and Marketing, and Gabriel Bello, winner of both the Student of Excellence Award in the TSYS School of Computer Science and the Scholarly Activities in Professional Studies Award in CSU’s Honors College.

Bello was also named as one of only four finalists for the 2018-19 CSU Faculty Cup, the most prestigious award given to a CSU student.

Finally, three Turner College faculty – John Finley, Rania Hodhod and Laurence Marsh – were inducted into Phi Beta Delta, an honor society founded in 1986 that recognizes the scholarly achievements of international students and scholars who have studied abroad, and faculty who are involved in international activities. Finley and Marsh are associate professors in the Department of Management and Marketing, and Hodhod is an associate professor in the TSYS School of Computer Science.

Turner Business

4

CSU Cybersecurity Team Places 2nd in Cyber Defense Competition Columbus State University's cybersecurity team placed 2nd out of 31 teams at the 2019 Southeast Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition Qualifiers. “I am very happy about the win because our students got rewarded for their hard work,” said CSU computer science professor Yesem Peker, who coaches the team. “These types of extracurricular activities are great learning experiences for our students. They get to apply what they learn in academic classes and build, not just technical, but professional skills such as teamwork, communication, and time management.”

The Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition simulates a corporate IT environment, in which the team is tasked with completing service requests as if they were the IT team of a company. The team provides common IT business services such as email, web, database, reporting, and more.

They must also manage simulated cybersecurity attacks, in which they must identify and fix the vulnerabilities in their systems, detect any intrusions, prevent the threat from entering their systems, and complete and submit reports on the incidents.

In preparing for the competition, the team met with professionals at and outside of CSU to gain insights into the tasks typically completed by IT professionals. CSU alumni who participated in previous competitions also shared their experiences and advice on the competition. “Overall this was great teamwork!” said Peker. The team consisted of co-captains James Ericsson and Tyler Staut, as well as team members Brandon Corn, Matthew Bowen, Eloghosa Obasuyi, Justin Sewell, Matthew Warner-McKinley, and Christopher Wilson.

Turner College Faculty Big Winners at 2019 Awards Ceremony TSYS School of Computer Science associate professors Alfredo Perez and Rania Hodhod were big winners at the 2019 CSU Faculty & Staff Recognition and Excellence Awards held in CSU’s Lumpkin Center last May. Perez won the 2019 Faculty Research and Scholarship Award, given annually in recognition of outstanding efforts by faculty members in research and scholarship. Hodhod received the 2019 Teaching Excellence Award, which recognizes a faculty member whose commitment to teaching is demonstrated through activities designed to advance the quality and practice of teaching and learning, teaching strategies that enhance student learning, and a strong commitment to fostering the academic success of students through interaction with students outside of the classroom. With this recognition, Hodhod moved on to represent CSU as a finalist for the Felton Jenkins Jr. Hall of Fame Award, which is conferred by the Georgia Board of Regents.

Joining Perez and Hodhod on the awards stage were TSYS lecturer Hillary Fleenor and MIS professor Jennifer Pitts. Fleenor won the 2019 Teaching Innovation Award, which recognizes and rewards the efforts of faculty members who develop and practice innovative methodologies in pedagogy. Pitts received the 2019 Excellence in Online Teaching Award, which recognizes an online faculty member who is strongly committed to quality online teaching and learning as evidenced by teaching, service and scholarly activities designed to advance the quality of online teaching and learning. Pitts is the first CSU faculty member to be Quality Matters-certified for online instruction.

5

Kayla Henderson

2018 - 2019 outstanding accomplishments in Accounting

#TurnerTrailblazers

Cultivating

Creativity While attending CSU I can say we had the opportunity to build or create what we wanted to see. At the time the collegiate FBLA chapter didn't exist and we were supported by the administration when starting the program. I also remember being introduced to subject matter experts along the way if I was looking for information on areas of study. I continue to cultivate those relationships today!

Columbus State University has a culture that promotes open communication and innovative thought. Small class sizes make it easy for more intimate interactions between students and faculty, facult thus cultivating an open environment in which creativity can flow. The diverse courses, as well as extracurricular activities, instilled in me the ability to engage in inventive ways to overcome challenges in both my professional career and personal life.

What you put in is what you get. CSU was a great environment to polish your skills for the real world including your creativity. I was able to amplify my leadership skills, communication skills, and business acumen by simply participating on campus and thinking outside of the box when it came to challenges.

A lot of the real world is how creative you can get with solving problems.

7

CSU was pivotal in terms of inculcating a culture of open discourse and exchange of ideas.

Professor and student engagement were important facets for opening a dialogue conducive to cultivating creativity and independent thought. This closely ties with inspiring collaboration as well. Through various group projects and class discussion there was a spirit of free ideas and deliberative discussion, everything a university of top tier academic excellence should provide.

Many of my classes at CSU allowed me to think outside of the typical bounds of the classroom, which catalyzed creative thinking to solve real-world problems. I was able to creatively scope my projects to solve multiple industry issues and set the stage for future research on the topic. The Turner College of Business provided that platform for me to elevate my creativity to find purposeful and novel solutions to projects.

My time at CSU fostered the desire to cultivate creativity in my workplace. Principles of love, inclusivity, integrity and serving others were introduced in a way that changed the trajectory of how I approached my career. caree I learned that management was a ministry and not a position to take lightly.

Business is about people, the way we treat others both inside and outside the organization can give you the competitive advantage. I’m so thankful CSU provided this amazing program because it helped shape the leader I am today.

Would you like to share your story?

Email Sean Russell at Russell_Sean@ColumbusState.edu, subject line: “Turner Trailblazer” for more infomation.

I stumbled on CSU because of the military. You always had to collaborate with people in your courses. This forced me to be more open-minded to diverse thoughts of mind. CSU helped me get comfortable with working and leading teams of talented individuals. One of my proudest moments was working with my team in Business Strategy. We struggled in the beginning but through communication and commitment were able to pull an amazing presentation and deliverable, that I still keep on display to this day.

My involvement with campus organizations allowed me to collaborate with people from all walks of life. Whether you are a first year student, commuter student, international student, non-traditional student, student-veteran, or anything in between, Columbus State has a place for you! By interacting with my peers, I had the opportunity to engage in impactful group research projects, participate in student led discussion panels, and develop lifelong friendships.

My time at CSU helped inspire collaboration because all of those group projects actually simulated real life!

You have to be able to communicate effectively with others, balance competing priorities, and build relationships when working with others, no matter what industry you're in. And when you are able to find the wins for everyone involved, that is what makes collaboration towards a common goal really magical.

There were several classes which encouraged students to work as a team to solve a problem, create a proposal, or rely on each other's strengths to accomplish a goal. Dr. Finley's class on computer applications was the best example. Our textbook was a reference, but Dr. Finley involved the entire class in finding a creative way to solve a problem. The material was potentially quite dry, but his approach to finding a solution got the whole class involved and forced everyone to think creatively and collaboratively.

I was afforded so many opportunities at CSU to collaborate with professors, business professionals, and fellow students. The spirit of collaboration has followed me through the years to my current position with the Columbus Sports Council. We follow the T.E.A.M. approach in Columbus for recruiting events to our community.

(T.ogether E.veryone A.chieves M.ore) We are grateful for partners that believe in the vision which helps create a winning team!

Large open source projects are a fast-paced and collaborative effort, usually leveraging the most cutting-edge ideas and technology. At CSU, we practiced software engineering every day like we do on the field. We solve real problems and we worked together to do them. At Mozilla, I was ready to ask questions and start a discussion, which is exactly what the open source community is about! As a child I was never much of a team player, but now as an engineer I collaborate with lots of different minds and CSU helped to prepare me for that.

Inspiring

Collaboration Turner Business

8

Reimagining

Education Initially, I was a fine arts major with a plan of getting into graphic design, but my passion for constant interaction with the public led me to changing my major to Business – honestly, with some reluctance since I felt I was giving up on my creative spirit. However, to my surprise, the business department at CSU possessed great diversity in the student body. There I found a place to combine the two for a strong career foundation.

Going back to school as a mid-30s student was a little daunting. I had not been in school in a long time, but CSU made it easy. From the registration process, to the schedule, financial aid, all were smooth and assisted me in starting back on the right track. I really did not know what to expect but was rewarded beyond my imagination. My time at CSU was amazing. The people in the classes and the professors were all wonderful.

Education opens doors to the whole world! I was blessed with Professors that inspired and challenged me to see new perspectives and opportunities. This encouraged me to create an environment in my career field that focuses on education and creativity, and ultimately also lead me to be an educator. The world is limitless with knowledge on our side!

9

More stories will be featured on Facebook every Tuesday. #TurnerTrailblazers

It was just another Tuesday morning 8AM class with Dr. Bryant. Out of nowhere he does a handstand while still teaching the class. It was both visually funny and physically impressive. When asked what he was doing he paused, flipped right side up, and simply said, “Life is all about perspective.” After class I spoke with Dr. Bryant and he encouraged me that sometimes all you need a slightly different perspective to see things differently. I learned one of the most valuable lessons about reimagining education that day.

CSU created a boutique learning environment that was massively impactful on me. The small class sizes, the incredible professors and the diversity of the student body contributed to an experience that has helped me continue to grow and learn ever since. CSU valued individuals; you weren’t just a student number, and that encouraged me to learn more and more. I have taken this with me into every position and leadership role I have had since.

CSU taught me to reconsider how I envision my educational experience. For example, one of my most impactful moments was when I joined the upstart American Marketing Association.

The experiences during that time period played an integral role in the development of who I became as a professional and as a person.

From study abroad in Ireland to real life ad simulations in the classroom, I was able to gain experiences that I would have not likely had the chance to experience elsewhere. I feel this gave me the upper hand in job interviews because it was rare for a student to come out of college knowing exactly how to run ads and interpret the results.

Columbus State University takes pride in expanding our minds in regards to being culturally intelligent, and I am thankful for that. The coursework was always presented with a global scale in mind. In the Negotiations course, we regularly discussed concepts by looking through the filter of different cultural and social norms. My biggest takeaway in this regard was that we must recognize and respect each other’s differences and be super mindful of the uniqueness of people that we interact with day to day. Each person is the product of their culture and experiences.

Among other things, my time at CSU really helped me to expand my world. There is a wide variety of student organizations and extracurricular activities.

The class selection is also great, including study abroad options that are available for course credit. By taking advantage of everything that is offered, you can definitely “Create You.”

The CSU Turner College of Business Department of Finance provided exceptional foundation and knowledge in strategic business. Adding my CSU B.B.A. Finance degree with my professional experience in Customer Support Service Management expanded my choices in career paths. The quality of my CSU education and the challenges of the D. Abbott Turner College Of Business Finance program have directly contributed to promotional advancements through five levels of management.

Expanding

Worlds

CSU has helped me expand worlds academically by encouraging cross disciplinary studies outside of my marketing major. I enjoyed interacting with professors outside of my discipline and doing research in fields like biology in order to expand my knowledge and skillset. Personally, the organizations that I joined at CSU have connected me with people from all different backgrounds and majors.

Having the experience of working with a diverse team has certainly helped me become more open minded and receptive to different ideas.

Going through the M.S.O.L. program and learning about differing leadership theories helped shape my understanding of servant leadership and the importance of helping employees find value and purpose in their work. Becoming a leader that understands that people are more important than "tasks" and the value of active listening has shaped my core philosophies of kindness and stewardship. The education I received at CSU truly expanded my world.

I am from India and coming to US was a culture shock for me.

But with all the warmth from everyone at CSU I felt at home. This created an opportunity for growth and development while I got to interact with many people which gave me certain soft skills that are ideal for my workplace. Overall CSU helped me become a better, more well-rounded person.

Turner Business

10

Student Completes Research Internship at

Carnegie Mellon University Elijah Neundorfer, a computer science student at Columbus State University, spent last summer in Pittsburgh for a prestigious research opportunity at Carnegie Mellon University. Neundorfer is one of only about 30 students nationwide selected to participate in CMU's Human-Computer Interaction Institute. As part of the 10-week program, he completed a research internship D Jason Hong, who is under the mentorship of Dr. recognized as one of the top researchers in the area of privacy and mobile security, with his work being cited more than 20,000 times.

The specialty of human computer interaction is one of great interest to Neundorfer, who is also minoring in psychology. Following his expected graduation in 2020, he hopes to continue his education in a master’s or doctorate program. “This research [opportunity] . . . give[s] me more experience as to what a master’s program will look like," said Neundorfer. “It . . . also provide[d] me with contacts and allow[ed] me to get more experience under my belt.”

In the summer of 2018, he completed an undergraduate research experience with CSU’s computer science department. In that role, he participated in research in Android security and worked to find ways to protect Android devices from a particular type of cyberattack called a “logic bomb.”

In his time at CSU, Neundorfer has also been involved in Phi Kappa Tau, Honoris Causa, and Servant Leadership.

CSU computer science department “The faculty at CSU’s really helped me to get to this point – especially with the stuff I did [in the] summer [of 2018],” said Neundorfer.

“It helped me learn more about what other opportunities are out there, and advisors in the Honors College helped me with workshops and preparing a CV.” Originally from Newnan, Neundorfer is the second in his family to attend CSU. His sister is an art major on the RiverPark campus, which he says helped to influence his decision to come to CSU. “The ability to custom-make my college journey is what really drew me to CSU,” said Neundorfer. “You really get to choose your own path here.”

11

What is a Logic Bomb?

Norton.com defines a logic bomb as the malicious code that is inserted into a program and designed to lie dormant until a specific event occurs, such as a specific date being reached or a user typing a specific command.

At this time, the logic bomb triggers, usually to destroy or modify data without the knowledge or authorization of the computer user.

10010 01001 11011 10101

Julissa Santyo stands proudly with fellow Spring 2018 Beta Gamma Sigma initiates.

Maximizing the Student Experience at Turner College In May of 2019, Turner College of Business student Julissa Santoyo walked across the stage in the Lumpkin Center and received a bachelor’s degree in finance. During the four years leading up to that moment, she maximized her experience in the Turner College of Business. Julissa graduated suma cum laude, earning a 3.98 grade point average (that’s all As and a single B). Just before graduation her academic achievements were recognized through receipt of the Department of Accounting and Finance’s 2019 Student of Excellence Award. Julissa was also inducted into Beta Gamma Sigma, the honor yea signifying her placement in the top ten percent of all Turner society for business majors, at the end of her junior year, College students. Each of these honors was achieved while also working numerous hours assisting Turner College students as a member of the tutoring staff of the Turner College’s Tutoring Center. Julissa sat down with Turner Business for a brief chat about how she maximized her Turner College experience, and what she would say to high school seniors who may be considering spending four years as a Turner College student.

TB: What two or three experiences do you think influenced you most during your time studying at the Turner College?

JS: First, being president of Financial Management Association and Beta Gamma Sigma taught me how to be a true professional. Through my FMA presidency, I was able to attend the Quinnipiac Game Forum in New York where I was able to learn from Wall Street professionals. I also got the opportunity to attend the Beta Gamma Sigma leadership conference in Chicago. I learned a lot about communication, leadership skills, and more. Second, being able to study abroad twice, once in England and once in Ireland, allowed me to embrace other cultures and raised my awareness of how ab business occurs nonstop. Oftentimes people tend to think of business with only a domestic mindset. Studying abroad was a great experience to open my eyes towards a global mindset. Finally, being able to be included in research projects with Turner College faculty was a really awesome way to get advanced level preparation for future opportunities.

TB: What would (do) you say to people considering Columbus State University as their college choice?

JS: I would say that Columbus State University offers a large enough campus to allow you to enjoy the college experience, yet it is also small enough to still feel like a family. The Turner College of Business is exceptional and has prepared me to be successful in my future endeavors.

Julissa Julissa’s hard work and perseverance paid off, as she is now employed in the Accelerated Banking Program at Synovus.

In that position she is focusing on retail banking and learning from top professionals in the field. “I hope to obtain tons of information, both educational and practical, to prepare me for my journey ahead,” Santoyo added. “I am going to also pursue, in the future, my M.B.A. and C.F.A. to further my education and increase my professional opportunities.”

Turner Business

12

11

The State of the

Middle Class in Columbus and its Outlook for 2020

By Dr. Benjamin Blair Looking in the mirror at the beginning of each year shows me the toll that the previous six weeks always has on my body. From Thanksgiving buffets, stresses of holiday shopping, large family meals, sitting and watching endless bowl games, travel, and New Year celebrations, the impacts are unmistakable. This is especially noticeable around my midsection, which becomes significantly larger and softer through weeks of neglect. I know that a strong core is important for good balance, stability, flexibilit flexibility, and the prevention of pain and injury, especially as I grow older, and so each year I make a series of resolutions to reverse the trend and strengthen my core before I inevitably relapse again when Thanksgiving rolls around.

Just as a strong core is important for personal health, a strong core, i.e., a strong middle class, is important for the health of a local economy.

Research indicates that a strong middle class is key to fostering economic growth by promoting the development of human capital and a well-educated work force, creating a stable source of demand for goods and services, and developing the next generation of entrepreneurs. In addition, a healthy and strong middle class can help a community to weather employe economic storms such as a recession or the relocation of a major employer.

As we begin this new year, it is a good time for us to look in the mirror and see how we look. How strong is our core? How healthy is our middle class?

How Strong is Our Core?

Exactly who is included in the middle class depends on who you ask.

Some definitions are based on occupation or education and others are based on cultural attitudes. Most common are definitions based on income, i.e., the middle class are those households who “fall in the ‘middle’ – that is, in the middle of the income distribution.” However, even definitions based on income don’t agree upon what constitutes the “middle.” For the purposes here, we define the middle class as those households with incomes within 50% of the median US household income. In 2018, this would include households with incomes between $30,970 and $92,900.

Turner Business

14

The chart below illustrates the percentage of households in the middle class for the US and Columbus from 2014 to 2018.

The Percentage of Households in the Middle Class, US and Columbus

For the entire US, the size of the middle class remains relatively constant at slightly over 42% of households.

However, in Columbus, the size of the middle class varies greatly from year to year as local economic conditions change.

Columbus had a larger middle class than the US in 2014 and 2015 but then shrank below in 2016 and 2017 only to grow larger in 2018. These fluctuations are no doubt related, at least in part, to one of the main drivers of our local economy, defense spending. The Columbus economy not only benefits directly from defense spending at Fort Benning, but also indirectly as purchases are made from local businesses throughout the supply chain and as the income generated is spent on local goods and services. The graph below illustrates the relationship between defense spending and the size of the middle class in Columbus.

US Defense Spending ($ billion) and Percentage of Columbus Households in the Middle Class

Since 2016 our middle class has grown larger and is now larger than that for the US. What does that mean for Columbus?

15

The State of the Middle Class in Columbus and its Outlook for 2020

What Does a Strong Core Mean for Columbus?

A strong middle income core in Columbus promotes the development of human capital and a well-educated work force.

One way to measure changes in human capital is to look at the composition of our work force with respect to educational attainment. Over the last 5 years, the percentage of our work force with at least a high school diploma averaged 87.3%. Even though, this was an increase from the previous 5 year average of 85.4%, our ranking within the state decreased from 27th to 30th.

This would be cause for concern were it not for the fact that, over the same time periods, the percentage of the work force with bachelor degrees or higher increased from 22.6% to 26.2%, increasing our ranking within the state from 30th to 25th. Not only is our work force becoming more educated, it is becoming more highly educated than other areas in the state.

A strong middle income core in Columbus creates a stable source of demand for goods and services.

Columbus Workforce

87.3% 26.2%

High School Graduates College Graduates

Estimated Local Taxable Retail Sales ($ billion)

Based on annual sales tax disbursements from the Georgia Department of Revenue, estimated taxable retail sales in Columbus declined steadily from $3.47 billion in 2014 to $3.35 billion in 2017. From 2017 to 2018 taxable retail sales increased over 5% to $3.53 billion.

Somewhat surprisingly, the relationship between the level of local incomes and retail sales is rather weak, however the size of the middle class does have a significant impact. A 1% increase in the size of the middle class increases annual retail sales by about $30 million and local 4% sales taxes by $1.2 million.

A strong middle income core in Columbus helps to develop the next generation of entrepreneurs.

According to Merriam-Webster, an entrepreneur is someone who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise. Columbus has a rich history of very successful entrepreneurs and its economy has been boosted by investor returns on the businesses started here or businesses with strong local ties such as Aflac, Synovus, and TSYS to name a few. Entrepreneurship remains strong in Columbus as indicated by the multitude of small businesses started and operated here. In addition, with the opening of StartUP Columbus, the development of the next generation of entrepreneurs has been made a local priority.

See page 18

StartUp Columbus entrepreneurs, SlumberPod on SharkTank

Turner Business

16

The State of the Middle Class in Columbus and its Outlook for 2020 Finding a way to measure and compare the development of entrepreneurial activity at a local level is challenging. As a rough estimate, we use data from the Census Bureau on so-called nonemployer businesses as a proxy for developing entrepreneurship. These are businesses with no paid employees and are subject to federal income tax. Most are self-employed individuals operating sole proprietorships, which may eventually expand into employee hiring businesses.

Using the latest data available, in 2017 Columbus had nearly 13,000 nonemployers and revenues of nearly $425 million.

This was the 13th highest in the state, indicating a significant level of local entrepreneurial activity. The sector with the greatest revenue was the real estate and leasing sector at nearly $113 million, ranking 9th largest in the state. Four local sectors ranked 5th in the state in terms of revenue: Professional, scientific, and technical services which includes lawyers, accountants, and private consultants ($39 million); Health care and social insurance including health care and child care workers ($35 million); Administrative and support services including office, security, and landscaping services ($23 million); and Accommodation and food services, e.g., bed and breakfast owners, caterers, and food truck owners ($10 million). The size of the self-employed sole proprietorship sector of the economy indicates a significant level of local entrepreneurial activity.

What is the Outlook for our Core in the Upcoming Year?

As described above, the size of our middle class is dependent in part on defense spending. Assuming this relationship continues to hold, the middle class in Columbus is expected to grow larger and stronger as national defense spending is projected to grow by $100 billion over the next five years.

Projected Federal Defense Spending 2019 – 2024 ($ billion)

• The unemployment rate has dropped to a historic low of 3.6%.

• The number of jobs in Columbus increased by over 500 during the first 6 months of 2019 compared to the previous year.

• Total Part-Time and Full-Time Employment has increased since 2016 reversing a downward trend that began in 2012.

• Over the last 3 years, real weekly wages have reached their highest levels since at least 2001.

• In real terms, total wages paid in Columbus increased by over $14 million from last year and over $200 million since 2016.

• Real GDP, the value of all goods and services produced in Columbus, reached an all-time high of $9.7 billion in 2018, the 8th largest county economy in the state. Real GDP has increased 5.5% since 2016 reversing a formerly downward trend.

• The population in Columbus increased in 2018 for the first time since 2013.

“ We expect our core to remain strong and grow stronger throughout the year.”

Ben Blair, Director of the Butler Center for Business and Economic Research

Given all of these positive indicators, our outlook for the Columbus economy is positive for 2020. We expect our core to remain strong and grow stronger throughout the year. This, in turn, will have positive impacts on local retail sales, investment in human capital and education, and the development of new entrepreneurs.

17

Business Plan Competition Winners

Secure $400,000 on ABC's 'Shark Tank' Lou Childs and her daughter Katy Mallory were 2nd place winners of the 2017 Business Plan Competition at Turner College for the invention of SlumberPod, a portable sleeping area for young children.

The duo recently mastered of a business competition of a different kind, appearing on a Jan. 5 episode of ABC's "Shark Tank." On the show that features investors, or "sharks," listening to pitches from entrepreneurs, Childs and Mallory made a deal with investor Barbara Corcoran for a 20 percent stake in their business for $400,000.

Turner College is no stranger to the SlumberPod story; in addition to being a Business Plan Competition winner, Childs was a presenter during the spring 2019 Executive Speaker Series. She talked about co-founding SlumberPod, which has reportedly reached over $2 million in sales since 2016. You can watch her presentation and other executive speakers on the Turner College Youtube Channel.

Search SlumberPOD on our channel

Youtube.com/TurnerCollege

Turner Business

18

Internships

In Coll spiring abo rati on

Since our last issue, the students of Turner College have been inspiring collaboration in the community through their internships, co-ops and professional careers. Is your company interested in growing new partnerships with fresh perspectives? Consider the current students and graduates of Turner College.

Contact Michael Anselm today. Phone: 706.507.8669, Email: Anselm_Michael@ColumbusState.edu

19

Executive Speaker Series 1

Turner Colleges Executive Speaker Series is an opportunity to bring the board room to the classroom. Each semester we offer a platform for thought leaders and industry professionals to share their experience.

In 2019 our guests included executives in banking and finance, entrepreneurs and even marketing professionals. One key takeaway included developing a personal brand while students are still in college.

2

"The more you define what you are great at, the more magnetic you and those dream companies are going to be." Stephen Brown, CIO of Cookerly PR Spring 2019 1. Paul Amos, Director, JBA Capital 2. Lou Childs, Co-inventor, SlumberPOD 3. Stephen Brown, Chief Innovation Officer, Cookerly PR

3

Fall 2019 4. Zack Bishop, EVP, Technology & Operations, Synovus 5. Greg & Lori Auten, Owners, Tidal Wave Auto Spa 6. William Taylor, Owner, Taylor CPA & Associates, PC

4

5

6

Turner Business

20

Mixon Named to Editorial Board Turner College professor of economics Franklin Mixon was recently named to the editorial board of Economies, an international academic journal whose editorial offices are housed in the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany. Economies is published by the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI), which is located in Basel, Switzerland. Other U.S.-based academics currently serving on the editorial board are affiliated with Cornell University, University of California – Irvine, Syracuse University, University of Connecticut, Iowa State University, University of Arkansas, and the University of Missouri – St. Louis.

New Course Offering: Health Economics Economics faculty in the Turner College are now offering a new course in health economics. That course (ECON 3146) provides students with an understanding of the United States’ health care system, and with knowledge of the characteristics and the incentives of the production and consumption of health care. Students in this course also gain exposure to the analytical tools used to evaluate health policy and management options. The course, which is open to all CSU students, supports the College’s growing minor option in economics, and will enrich academic programs in other areas of CSU, such as in the College of Education and Health Professions. In support of this course, the economics faculty are generating new academic research in health economics, with recent studies appearing in Managerial and Decision Economics and Applied Economics. The first of these uses a Medicare database to analyze the hospital characteristics that are associated with higher average costs and charges for various medical procedures, such as venipuncture, computerized axial tomography scans, and electrocardiograms. The second, which is coauthored with faculty in the School of Public Health at the University of Alabama – Birmingham, uses data from the Kaiser Family Foundation to e isolate the effect of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 on small firms.

21

A Terrible Efficiency:

Entrepreneurial Bureaucrats and the Nazi Holocaust - by Frank Mixon

The scale of the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by bureaucrats in Nazi Germany, such as Reinhard Heydrich, Adolf Eichmann and innumerable others, from the late 1930s through the mid-1940s is almost beyond comprehension. How could the Nazi Holocaust bureaucracy, with Adolf Hitler at the top and officials such as Eichmann near the middle echelons of the hierarchy, have achieved such a “terrible efficiency” in their execution of these crimes? As pointed out in a new book by Turner College economics professor Frank Mixon titled A Terrible Efficiency: Entrepreneurial Bureaucrats and the Nazi Holocaust (Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2019), this is a crucial question because Eichmann and the other Nazi functionaries who were tried for crimes against humanity at Nuremberg and elsewhere claimed to be cogs in a massive bureaucratic machine who were simply following orders, and, therefore, should not be found guilty of the criminal counts brought against them. The prosecuting attorneys and the various war crimes tribunals were all confounded, at least to some degree, by this defense la because of their reliance on a traditional model of bureaucracy positing that in large bureaucratic organizations orders typically emanate from the top and are implemented through a chain of command by subordinates at lower echelons of the organization.

Reliance on this model makes it difficult to assign individual responsibility for the crimes to anyone except the one or the few at the very top, particularly in cases where it is difficult to draw a line between the perpetrators of the crime and their victims – a difficulty that arose when some of the killing in the Nazi death camps was perpetrated, under threats of torture or death, by captives.

Mixon’s application of the modern theory of bureaucracy to the Nazi Holocaust tackles directly the confounding “following orders” defense that was mustered by nearly all of the accused by providing numerous examples demonstrating how superiors and subordinates in the Nazi Holocaust bureaucracy engaged in voluntary trades with one another, thus constituting a form of competition. According to this model, superiors in the Nazi Holocaust bureaucracy sought to purchase “informal services” from their subordinates – the kinds of services that cannot be codified in formal documents and that are the result of the initiative and enterprise of the subordinates – in order to advance their own ends. In return, the superiors were willing to make “informal payments” to their subordinates, which often included more rapid promotions, better offices, travel and signing privileges, use of a “company” car, and so on, all quid pro quos that are not part of formal contracts. As Mixon points out, when superiors and subordinates in a large organization exchange, they engage in a form of competition, and the type of competitive structure represented by the Nazi Holocaust bureaucracy relied heavily on trust between superiors and subordinates.

Ultimately, the competitive system fostered by those at the top of the Nazi Holocaust bureaucracy led to competition between bureaus, and between networks in the bureaucracy, for resources, as well as to competition between bureaucrats for jobs. What features of the Nazi Holocaust bureaucracy promoted competition among its various bureaus? The modern theory of bureaucracy emphasizes the usefulness of overlapping lines of command, a confusion of jurisdictions, and duplication of responsibilities of bureaus. As one example of evidence of these features, Mixon reports that representatives of at least 11 di different bureaus within the larger Nazi bureaucracy were invited the infamous Wannsee Conference, where the “Final Solution” to the so-called “Jewish question” was devised. The decision to have so many bureaus represented was, as Mixon explains, calculated by those at the top of the Nazi Holocaust bureaucracy as a way to foster intense competition in the provision of informal services to those at the top of the bureaucracy.

Competition in services in the modern model of bureaucracy also takes the form of coming up with new ideas, new initiatives, new policies, or projects that advanced the aims of those at the top of the bureaucracy, leading to what is often called Schumpeterian competition or entrepreneurship. The process of competition in the Schumpeterian framework is evolutionary in the sense that it begins with innovation, is followed by emulation of the entrepreneur’s innovation by others, and ends with the “survival of the fittest” notion of creative destruction. Major innovations by those in the Nazi Holocaust apparatus often resulted in the creation of new branches within bureaus and sometimes in new bureaus, just as in the market sector. secto Mixon reports, for example, that the bureaucratic competitiveness and innovativeness exhibited by Eichmann between 1938 and 1939 resulted in the creation by him of three new SS bureaus, each of which succeeded, at least for a time, in capturing a significant place in the Nazi Holocaust bureaucracy. Based on this principle of competition, the concept of “cogs” in the traditional model of bureaucracy is, as Mixon explains, replaced by that of “entrepreneurial bureaucrats,” like Eichmann, whose zeal in satisfying e the aims of those at the top of the bureaucracy both explains the terrible efficiency of the Nazi’s apparatus of murder and establishes their own individual guilt as participants on the process of genocide.

Turner Business

22

From left: Amanda Miller, Melanie Phillips, Dr. Kirk Heriot, and Juan Pinto.

8th Annual Business Plan Competition Melanie Phillips, an academic dean at Columbus High School, was the big winner of the 8th Annual Business Plan Competition sponsored by the Turner College of Business at CSU. Phillips’ plan provides a holistic program geared toward the “transitional independence” of intellectually-challenged young adults. In awarding Phillips the top prize, which is accompanied by a cash gift of $3,000, Professor of Entrepreneurship Kirk Heriot praised the quality of Phillips’ proposal, particularly the “exceptional financial plan” that was provided to the judges of the competition.

Capturing second place, and a cash gift of $2,000, was Juan Pinto, whose plan for JP Flight School aims to address the commercial pilot shortage in the U.S. by developing a “value-based” pilot training program in the Columbus area. Pinto’s entrepreneurial concern fills a gap in the local market by employing full-time flight instructors and staff in the training of pilots. Placing third among the three finalists, and receiving a cash gift of $1,000, Amanda Miller’s proposal establishes a long-term plan to offer the public the opportunity to pick fruits and vegetables, and Christmas trees, from a local farm.

Miller recently earned an M.B.A. from the Turner College. The top three proposals emerged from a field of 69 submissions from both the CSU and Columbus communities.

In its eighth year, the Turner College’s business plan competition is also open to high school students, with a separate competition held each January for submissions from the Muscogee County School District. Each submission consists of a two-page proposal that is judged by a panel of educators and local business leaders. Turner College Dean Linda Hadley expressed thanks to Ray and Evelyn Crowley for providing the original financial donation that established the competition, and to the judges who spent a number of hours over a three-week period during the spring of 2019 evaluating the submissions.

23

...and coming soon to Columbus State

Turner College Launches

New Minor in

Entrepreneurship During the summer of 2019 the Turner College of Business launched a new minor in entrepreneurship and small business. According to Dr. Kirk Heriot, the Ray and Evelyn Crowley Endowed Chair of Entrepreneurship, the new minor “. . . is available to students majoring in [academic programs that are] not offered in the College of Business.” The minor is one of e many CSU efforts to support and encourage entrepreneurship.

Each year, the university hosts a business plan competition, in which students and community members compete for an opportunity to win cash prizes. CSU also collaborates with the Greater Columbus Georgia Chamber of Commerce on ways to support entrepreneurs and currently hosts the Chamber’s StartUP Columbus program on CSU’s RiverPark campus.

StartUp Columbus is a service for prospective entrepreneurs to discuss their ideas and attend workshops. Given its expected value, Heriot urges CSU faculty and advisors to “[p]lease let your students know about this new opportunity.” For more information, please contact Dr. Heriot at: heriot_kirk@columbusstate.edu.

Value Creation and Sustainable Entrepreneurship The Turner College of Business is excited to announce the publication of Volume 12(2) of the American Journal of Entrepreneurship. The current issue includes an article by Michael H. Morris and Donald F. Kuratko, two of the most prominent scholars in the field of entrepreneurship. In their article, “Addressing Major Challenges Associated with Sustainable Entrepreneurship in Established Companies,” Drs. Morris and Kuratko look at the challenges faced by established firms as they attempt to pursue corporate entrepreneurship in order to achieve a sustained competitive advantage.

“Entrepreneurial companies are ones able to continuously leverage new opportunities for value creation.” They find that implementing such a strategy for entrepreneurship is a significant issue. Implementation requires that a number of challenges must be addressed. The challenges include conceptualizing entrepreneurship, framing the innovation; developing the internal architecture; coordinating across managerial levels; nurturing entrepreneurs within, managing expectations regarding outcomes and failure; and imposing ethical standards.

Georgia Inventures Competition High School Winners Announced On December 18, the winners were announced for the high school Business Plan Competition. Columbus High School swept the field, with four teams placing first, second and tying for third: First Place: Second Place: Third Place: Third Place:

Period. by Noor Abdullah and Ishika Samantari World Language by Xianjie Wu Vitualso by Anselm Wisdo Supply by Aryaman Singh, Ramon Xie, and Anirudh Yadlapalli

Last spring Hannah Turner and Mary Harrell were the first Columbus State University team to participate in the inaugural statewide Georgia InVentures competition.

As “ChemAid,” they pitched their web-based computer application that allowed visually impaired students to scan a code on chemistry instruments, such as flasks and pipettes, to hear an explanation of the device and how to use it.

Turner Business

24

Focus on Research

Computer Science Professor

Joins the Fight against

Breast Cancer In their recent study titled “Elastographic Tomosynthesis from X-Ray Strain Imaging of Breast Cancer,” TSYS School associate professor of computer science Suk Lee and colleagues from the University of Richmond, Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York, and Imaging Software LabNano-ray Company in South Korea investigate a relatively new method of visualizing the elasticity of soft tissues known as x-ray tomosynthesis.

X-ray tomosynthesis offers a higher resolution than conventional single-shot mammography, potentially allowing practitioners to distinguish more elastic healthy breast tissue from stiffer cancerous tissue, while also posing less radiation risk to the patient than x-ray CT. To explore the potential of x-ray tomosynthesis, Lee and his co-authors tested two phantoms – a physical phantom and a silico phantom – and the error rates using the procedure were small or negligible.

According to Lee, the study, which appears in a 2019 issue of IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health & Medicine, “has the potential to be used as an aide for practitioners during biopsies in an effort to improve the accuracy of breast cancer diagnoses.”

X-ray elastography method using an ultrasonic wave to create the force on the region of interest.

This diagram shows how an elastogram is captured for viewing.

A Case for Follower-Focused Military Leadership In their article titled “How Christian Should an Army Officer Be? The Answer may Lie in Servant Leadership,” Turner College associate professor of management Phil Bryant and MSOL graduate student Ian Quinn point out that Christian military officers may face conflicting imperatives between moral obligations of military service and discipleship. The Army’s currently preferred leadership style – transformational leadership – is based on the idea that the transformational leader’s allegiance is to the organization, not to its followers, and that transformational leadership is charismatic.

Each of these tenets of transformational leadership is at least somewhat inconsistent with the Christian view, as “Jesus was follower-focused” and the Christian’s attitude is one of “denying the self and giving all glory to God.” In their study appearing in a 2019 issue of Servant Leadership: Theory & Practice, Bryant and Quinn argue instead that the tenets of servant leadership, as conceptualized by Robert Greenleaf and others, “[better] allow Christians to satisfy their moral imperatives as committed followers of Christ and leaders of Soldiers.” These tenets involve six key characteristics, humilit authenticity, interpersonal acceptance, providing direction, and namely empowering and developing people, humility, stewardship, that are compatible with both the Army’s leadership requirements and general Christian practice.

Arguing in favor of the efficacy of the servant leadership approach, Bryant and Quinn conclude, “Christian officers who are servant leaders . . . comprehend that both servant leadership theory and Army doctrine allow great latitude in personal pursuit of leadership, and seek out tenets . . . that, like those [six] above, meet the standards of each framework and of their faith.

25

Spilling the Tea on Consumer Purchase Intentions in China In their 2019 study published in Journal of Agribusiness in Developing and Emerging Economies, Turner College assistant professor of management Mark James, associate professor of economics Tesa Leonce, and their colleague Zhimin Hu from the University of Bologna (Italy) examine the factors that influence Chinese consumers’ intentions to purchase organic tea. In explaining the origin of the research idea, James indicated to Turner Business that “China implemented economic reforms during the 1980s and it has only been recently that a large middle class ‘consumer’ population has emerged in China, while it is has been o over the last 10 years that organic foods have been promoted in China.” The study, titled “Predictors of Organic Tea Purchase Intentions by Chinese Consumers,” is built around a survey of 202 shoppers in China’s Guangdong Province. Analysis of the survey data reveals two significant results: Chinese consumers perceiving organic tea as a healthy option and as a status symbol are more likely to state organic tea purchase intentions. The investigation also revealed that younger respondents and respondents with higher educational attainment reported greater organic tea purchase intentions. In terms of the survey results, James stated o that “in our paper we [also] found that organic tea for some consumers is potentially seen as a status symbol.” Among the non-significant predictors of organic tea purchase intentions were respondents’ knowledge of organic tea through media exposure, their gender and income.

According to James, the future of this research program appears bright. “Tesa and I are currently looking into Chinese consumers’ attitudes towards milk products in light of the tainted milk scandal that occurred there in 2008 that led to Chinese consumers having a strong preference for foreign milk,” James added.

With organic foods occupying a progressively larger portion of Chinese diets and budgets, this research fills in some of the knowledge gap by examining how the social norms of status symbols influence Chinese consumers’ purchase intentions of organic tea.

Turner Business

26

5

10

d r a C t f Gi 5

10 10

Bonus Gift Cards – Blessing or Curse?

In their 2018 study of retailers’ use of bonus gift cards to entice custumers to buy additional regular gift cards, Turner College assistant professor of marketing Alisha Horky and her co-author Tim Norvell of Elon University point out that most retailers do not understand the potential for cannibalization of revenue and profit when gift card redeemers use a bonus card for a purchase they would have made without it, nor do they know what proportion of redeemers represent these cannibalized sales versus the proportion of redeemers that represent incremental purchases. In their study appearing in International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, Norvell and Horky indicate that bonus gift cards typically provide $5 or $10 of free credit to a customer at the firm’s expense, with the two most common offers by retailers being a $5 bonus card with $25 worth of gift card purchases and a $10 bonus card with $50 worth of purchases.

The research uses an in-market study with a large national restaurant chain in order to evaluate the effect of bonus gift card programs on revenue and profit. Norvell and Horky find that although bonus gift cards provide incremental revenue, they can significantly reduce profit, particularly in certain retail segments. For retailers wishing to implement a bonus gift card program, Horky advises that they “focus their efforts and messaging on persuading existing customers to gift the bonus cards to friends or family who may not have been previous patrons of the firm in order to deter some of the profit cannibalization eeffects that can occur as a result of existing customers using the bonus cards.” Horky also indicated to Turner Business that “service establishments can have their sales staff focus on upselling in times when gift cards are most often redeemed in order to increase revenue and minimize the negative effects that bonus cards can have on profitability.”

The Wisdom of Managing Crowds A recent entry in the Coolfire Solutions Blog (www.coolfiresolutions.com) points out that “large public gatherings . . . present a number of challenges to law enforcement agencies and private security teams, ranging from the merely inconvenient frustrations like foot traffic congestion to the threat of terrorist attacks.” A recent study by associate professor of computer science in the TSYS School, Alfredo Perez, and his co-author Sherali Zeadally of the University of Kentucky concurs with the issues raised in the Coolfire Solutions Blog by indicating that effective crowd management can be the di difference between life and death in emergency and disruptive scenarios, such as those contemplated by public officials in the post-9/11 environment. In fact, the study by Perez and Zeadally proposes a support infrastructure for effective crowd management during emergency and disruptive scenarios that they refer to as Communication Architecture for Crowd Management (CACROM). It is in these cases that there is risk to human life and/or infrastructure, and that the value of CACROM is highlighted. For more on their approach to effective crowd management, see “A Communication Eme Architecture for Crowd Management in Emergency and Disruptive Scenarios,” which appears in a 2019 issue of IEEE Communications Magazine.

27

“Sugar Daddy U” - Study Attracts National Attention Recent research by Turner College professor of economics Franklin Mixon explores a relatively new and particularly risqué form of financing university education, known as “romantic arrangements,” that is being chosen by a non-trivial portion of female student bodies of some universities. These relationships typically involve wealthy older male companions, referred to as “sugar daddies,” who provide financial support in return for intermittent companionship. Such arrangements, whose popularity has spawned television movies and series, are often facilitated by internet companies, with the largest being SeekingArrangement.com.

Mixon’s study, which is published in a 2019 issue of Applied Economics, finds that the universities contributing the largest numbers of female students to this particular internet company are large, high-cost universities that are located in urban centers with relatively high rates of unemployment. The study also indicates that those institutions that are chosen by more physically attractive female students, and those that are considered “party schools,” are also generating the greatest numbers of female student entrants into this particular industry. As one might expect, given its topic Mixon’s study has attracted a good deal of attention.

The study’s Altmetric™ score – which measures public attention garnered by a scientific study – is at the 94th percentile of all studies its age. Mixon’s study is mentioned in Marginal Revolution, which is the top-ranked economics blog (published by Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok, both of George Mason University) on the web, and details about the study were discussed by Twitter users in the U.S., U.K., Spain, Mexico, Colombia and Chile. According to the study, the universities contributing the largest numbers of students to SeekingArrangement.com’s services include New York University, Arizona State University, University of Texas, and the University of Central Florida. Other prominent universities in this arena include Temple University, University of South Florida, Tulane University, and Kent State University.

Time-Driven Approaches to Keeping Marketing Costs Low In their 2019 study titled “Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing Systems for Marketing Decisions,” Sungwoo Jung, a professor of marketing in the Turner College, and his colleagues Yonpae Park and Yousef Jahmani, both of Savannah State University, point out that activity-based costing (ABC) systems emerged as a management accounting innovation in the mid-1980s in response to dissatisfaction with traditional management accounting techniques and heightened international competition. They also indicate, howeve however, that although ABC provides many advantages for managerial decision making, it is becoming outdated and is being replaced by time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) systems.

As Jung and his colleagues state in their study appearing in Studies in Business and Economics, TDABC requires estimates of only two parameters – how much it costs per time unit of capacity to supply resources to activities and how much time it takes to perform each activity, thus allowing it to incorporate variation in the time demands made by different types of processes as well as a representation of all possible combinations of activities that a process performs. Jung and his co-authors extend the usefulness of TDABC by describing how it can be employed to calculate marketing costs in a way that reduces marketing resource costs and supports effective marketing decision making in various contexts, such as marketing processes restructuring, marketing mix choices, customer profitability and price differentiation for customer classes.

Dr. Sungwoo Jung

Turner Business

28

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 44 faculty have combined to exceed 14,750 Google Scholar citations. In fact, the College’s 44 faculty have garnered a cumulative total of 14,979 Google Scholar citations, for an average of 340 per faculty.

The Department of Accounting and Finance, which also includes economics faculty, has produced a total of 4,736 Google Scholar citations. With 13 faculty in that unit, this total generates an average of 364 per faculty. The Department of Management and Marketing, which includes management information systems faculty, leads the College with 6,523 total Google Scholar citations. With its 18 faculty, this unit averages about 362 citations per faculty. Lastly, the 13 faculty in the TSYS School have combined to produce 2,960 total Google Scholar citations, for an average of 228 per faculty.

Business Major Field Exam: Top 1% Marketing major Be’Jon Rudder and Finance major Swyam Karsaliya are two of the best and brightest in Turner College.

Rudder scored in the Top 1% in the nation while Karsaliya managed to outperform 98% of the students that took the ETS exam.

The ETS Business Major Field exam is a national standardized exam developed by the Educational Testing Service that is given to graduating seniors in business programs all over the country.

Our students’ scores are compared to over 500 other business schools in the nation who also administer this exam each semester. In addition to factual knowledge, the test evaluates students’ abilities to analyze and solve problems, understand relationships, and interpret material.

29

Be’Jon Rudder, Top 1%

Working Hard, and Hardly Working In their 2019 study appearing in Simulation Modelling Practice & Theory, the TSYS School’s Anastasia Angelopoulou and her co-authors Sean Mondesire of St. Thomas University and Shehan Sirigampola and Brian Goldiez of the University of Central Florida, point out that several organizations and domains, including the defense, energy and financial sectors, have turned to high performance computing (HPC) in order to run their interactive simulations. Their exploration of the feasibility of extending HPC to a Cloud-based service to support multiple simulations, titled “Combining Virtualization and Containerization to Support Interactive Games and Simulations on the Cloud,” focuses instead on a key segment of the entertainment sector – video gaming. As Angelopoulou, an assistant professor of computer science in the Turner College, indicated to Turner Business, “We tested the performance of the Cloud, as an alternative to a server, in supporting video gamers in simultaneously participating in a massive multi-player online game without experiencing slow response times, lags or other forms of performance loss.” In doing so, Angelopoulou and her co-authors explore four HPC load-balancing techniques through virtualization, software containers, and clustering to simultaneously and optimally analyze, schedule, and execute video game-based simulation applications. According to Angelopoulou, “The experimentation demonstrated that multi-player games can be hosted on the Cloud, however the overall performance, robustness and security of the Cloud-based service depends on the selection of the deployment technique.” Deployment selection should, as explained in the study, depend on the availability of cluster resources, the number of competing software jobs, and the type of software to be scheduled.

Meet Global Supply Chain Agent, SCMaster

and 2% Nationally

Swyam Karsaliya, Top 2%

Recent research by Turner College assistant professor of management information systems Yoon Lee and Riyaz Sikora of the University of Texas – Arlington addresses the growing complexity of the global supply chain through the design, implementation and testing of an intelligent agent for handling procurement, customer sales, and production scheduling in a supply chain environment. As indicated in their study titled “Application of Adaptive Strategy for Supply Chain Agent,” which appears in a 2019 issue of Information Systems and E-Business Management, the supply chain agent is called SCMaster, and it uses dynamic inventory control and various reinforcement learning techniques, such as Q-learning, Softmax and ε-greedy, in order to dynamically respond to changes in the global supply chain environment.

In order to test the efficacy of their design, Lee and Sikora developed a multi-agent simulation environment in Java that is modeled after that of a former global trading agent competition. As Lee indicated to Turner Business, “Most of the competing agents employ a mathematical optimization strategy, while SCMaster uses a machine learning technique. The weakness of the former is its inability to adapt to changes, while our machine learning approach allows for collection and processing of data during a simulation in order to select the best strategy.” According to Lee, SCMaster outperformed, in each case, two other agents that were modeled after past winners of the former global trading agent competition.

Turner Business

30

Join the

Conversation @TurnerCollege

ion.

Create Innovat

R E B Y C T S 1 RANGE IN ronment where A hands-on envi ployees will students and em defense skills. hone their cyber

TSYS Cybersecurity Center

The TSYS Cybersecurity Center... prepares a strong cyber workforce, promotes technological innovation, expands cutting-edge cyber research capabilities and fosters industry partnerships that influence the development of effective cyber practices in the financial sector. Since 2011, the National Security Agency (NSA) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have designated CSU as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense.

Create your Cyber Career today!

- Nexus Degree in Cybersecurity of Financial Technology - Beginning Spring 2020 - B.B.A. in Cybersecurity Management - Summer 2020 - B.S. in Cybersecurity (Interdisciplinary) - Summer 2020 - B.S. in Computer Science - Cybersecurity - M.S. in Cybersecurity Management (Interdisciplinary) - M.S. in Applied Computer Science - Cybersecurity - Graduate & Undergraduate Certiicates in Cybersecurity To learn more about our Cyber options visit: https://cs.columbusstate.edu/cyber

Business Turner

Commerce & Technology Review

Business Turner

Commerce & Technology Review

D. Abbott Turner College of Business | Columbus State University | Spring 2020