At the Wake Forest University School of Business, our mission to inspire positive change in the world is driven in no small part by an exceptional team of faculty members. More than educators, they are bold visionaries, industry experts and innovative thought leaders who bring unmatched expertise and passion to the classroom. Their commitment goes beyond teaching — they empower students to grow into ethical leaders and creative problem solvers prepared to make a meaningful impact in the business world and beyond. From pioneering research that analyzes the dichotomy between abusive supervision and ethical leadership to leveraging information systems that enhance decision-making and patient care, our esteemed professors continually push the boundaries of innovation and impact. Through their forward-thinking teaching methods and dedication to advancing scholarship and creative endeavors, they embody the Pro Humanitate – "for humanity" – spirit that defines our institution.
In the latest edition of this showcase dedicated to highlighting the human stories behind our revered faculty, you will find a dynamic range of academic expertise, industry knowledge and personalities. It’s my pleasure to, through this publication, continue the work of introducing such a remarkable group of people with colleagues and others invested in our shared profession.
Thank you again for sharing in this celebration of the remarkable contributions and successes of the outstanding scholars at Wake Forest University. Their work not only serves to help shape the future of business education but also reinforces our collective vision for innovation and excellence.
Sincerely,
Annette L. Ranft
Dean and F.M. Kirby Foundation Chair in Business Excellence; Professor
New Faculty
Sherry Moss
Mark Johnson
Sean Hannah
Jennifer Claggett
John Sumanth
Pelin Pekgün
Ajay Patel
Ya-wen Yang
Philip Howard
Anna Cianci
ENHANCING EDUCATION
RECENT RESEARCH
"Examining Cross-border Comovements of REITs Around the World."
Journal of Real Estate Research. (2021) with Alhassan, A. & Naka, A.
Growing up in an entrepreneurial family with parents who owned several McDonald’s franchises, Mark Johnson received early exposure to the ins and outs of the business world. Along with owning a restaurant business, Johnson’s father also worked as a certified public accountant, and he always made sure to iterate the value of continuing education.
“Business and finance were instilled in me at a very young age,” he says. “My parents always focused on academics, and they encouraged us to get advanced degrees.”
Johnson studied finance in undergrad at Florida State University before earning master’s degrees in finance and financial economics from Florida International University and the University of New Orleans, respectively. He continued that study at UNO, earning a Ph.D. in financial economics in 2010.
During his studies, Johnson not only fell in love with finance and economics, but also with academia.
“I love being in the classroom,” he says. “I do research, but the classroom is really where I come alive. Teaching and having fun with the students—it’s the best.”
Mark Johnson
Johnson serves as Faculty Fellow in Investments and Portfolio Management, as well as a professor teaching Faculty
University of New Orleans (Financial Economics)
Florida International University (Finance)
Florida State University (Finance)
"Structuring an EndowmentAllocated Student Managed Fund Course."
Business Education & Accreditation. (2019) with D'Souza, F. P.
" Determinants of Yields in Private Colleges' Revenue Bonds."
The Journal of Wealth Management. (2018) with Shin, Y.
Fellow in Investments and Portfolio Management; Teaching Professor
D, University of New Orleans (Financial Economics)
both undergrad and MBA students about investments. In that graduate class, Johnson’s students get hands-on experience making investments in a way most would never expect.
“It’s an experiential learning course where the students get to manage real money for the school,” Johnson says. “Dean (Annette L.) Ranft has entrusted me and the students with around $900,000 of real money to invest.”
After instructing his students on investing, Johnson allows them to do their own research and present the companies they recommend for investment. The class votes on the best option and invests the money in the fund. Johnson says the class has been a hit among students because it takes finance from the theoretical and gives students real-world experience managing money.
“Students tell me they love this course because it’s real,” he says. “They’re learning about companies they wouldn’t know about otherwise, and it’s more than just earning a grade for them because there is real money on the line.”
“Instead of it being awkward because we’re all taught you’re not supposed to talk about money, in this class, we’re talking about it,” he says. “And it’s OK to have these conversations and ask questions.”
Offering students real-world exposure to the financial world extends beyond Johnson’s classes. He regularly accompanies the Pre‐Wall Street Career Track students on trips to financial centers such as New York City and Charlotte with faculty colleagues Marty Malloy and others. And this spring, he will take a group of Wake Forest MBA students to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Athens, Greece. The students will visit businesses, learning about conducting business abroad and specific topics such as Greece’s economic recovery and the principles of Islamic finance. “They’ll experience a different financial system where charging interest is not permitted under Islamic law” Johnson says. “I want them to see that there’s more than one way to approach finance.”
Johnson says his classes, both for undergraduates and in the MBA program, focus on demystifying finance and allowing students to have conversations about money they might not otherwise feel comfortable having.
Johnson says immersive experiences such as this are only possible due to the support of the School of Business and the greater Wake Forest community. Whether investing university funds or taking students on an eye-opening jaunt across the globe, Johnson says Wake gives him the freedom to use creative methods to teach his students about finance, giving them realworld experience that will take them far beyond his classroom.
“Wake has given me more than I could’ve imagined from a support perspective,” he says. “I have research support, I’m able to travel with our students and go to conferences, and I’ve been allowed to be a steward of the school’s money—it’s a privilege and an honor that I don’t take lightly.”
LEADING ETHICALLY
Second job. Side hustle. Part-time gig. Whatever you call it, School of Business professor Sherry Moss says increasing numbers of people hold multiple jobs, sometimes as many as three or four jobs. And her research has found that, under the right circumstances, rather than being a drain, job juggling can be beneficial beyond the extra money.
Sherry Moss
RECENT RESEARCH
"From synchronizing to harmonizing: The process of authenticating multiple work identities." Administrative Science Quarterly. (2018) with Caza, B.B. and Vough, H.C.
“What our research shows is that if you have multiple jobs and you identify with them (i.e. you believe you are expressing an important part of you while working) , then you are more likely to experience positive personal, relational, and health outcomes. For example, you will be more satisfied with your work, less exhausted and you will report greater well-being and healthy romantic relationships. But if you have one or more jobs you don’t identify with, it detracts from your personal, health and relationship outcomes,” says Moss, who joined the School of Business faculty in 2005. “So, if you have to get a second job to make ends meet, it’s good to get one that you enjoy and that lets you feel like you’re expressing yourself authentically.”
Moss personally knows something about holding multiple jobs — and flourishing while doing so. In addition to being the Benson Pruitt Professor in Business and professor of organizational studies, she is associate dean of MBA programs, and is a consultant
"Jekyll and Hyde Leadership: Examining the Direct and Vicarious Experiences of Abusive and Ethical Leadership Through a Justice Variability Lens" Journal of Applied Psychology. (2024) with Xu, H., Hannah, S., Wang, Z., Sumanth, J., and Song, M..
"Research is set up for bullies to thrive." Nature. (2018)
Associate Dean of MBA Programs; Benson Pruitt Professor in Business; Professor of Organizational Studies POSITION
Ph D, Florida State University (Organizational Behavior)
BS, Florida State University (Management) BACKGROUND
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Multiple Work Identities, Attribution Theory, Feedback, Abusive Supervision, LeaderMember Exchange, Leader Emergence, and Meaningful Work
TEACHING INTERESTS
MBA Organizational Behavior
to industry, conducting training, coaching, and advisory services for local, national and multinational businesses as well as city and county governments.
Unlike the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which doesn’t count self-employment as a second job, Moss and her co-researchers consider a second job to be anything that generates income or has the promise of generating income, such as a start-up. With those parameters, they estimate as many as a third of people across the globe hold multiple jobs.
Moss’ early research on the topic, including an article titled “From Synchronizing to Harmonizing: The Process of Authenticating Multiple Work Identities” that was published in Administrative Science Quarterly, allowed her to expand beyond quantitative and experimental research into qualitative inquiry.
“I had never actually interviewed people for my research, gotten to know them, and been immersed in their stories,” she says. “It became a real passion for me.”
Another key research area for Moss has been abusive supervision, or bullying. After publishing several articles on the topic, she received an email from the journal Nature, whose editors asked her to write a short opinion piece on the topic of abusive supervision (a.k.a. bullying) in the academic sciences.
Having had students who’d approached her over the years saying they were experiencing abusive supervision in a lab or in an academic program, Moss wrote the piece, which appeared on the journal’s first page. “All of a sudden, all these people started emailing me saying, ‘This is happening to me.’ ‘What do I do?’ ‘Can I call you?’ These emails were pages long,” she recalls. Realizing it was an area in need of exploration and intervention, she teamed up with other multidisciplinary researchers to explore the subject
further, particularly in STEM fields. This collaboration has resulted in four international conferences, the most recent hosted by Wake Forest.
Going beyond identifying the problem, Moss and her colleagues are developing training programs to address and prevent abusive supervision.
A recent related line of research published in the Journal of Applied Psychology looks at “Jekyll and Hyde” leadership, in which supervisors flip between being just and unjust. “It keeps people off kilter and emotionally exhausted,” Moss says. “If a supervisor is unjust all the time, at least you know what to expect. But when you are off kilter because your supervisor is fluctuating between being ethical and being abusive, it decreases your performance.”
Moss’ work has been published in academic journals including Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Management, and Academy of Management Executive, and has been featured in the popular media, including the BBC, Harvard Business Review and NPR.
Because research articles can take years to be peer reviewed and eventually published in academic journals, Moss appreciates Wake Forest University’s teacher-scholar model and the more immediate gratification that comes from teaching working professionals in the in-person and hybrid MBA programs at the School of Business’ Winston-Salem and Charlotte campuses.
“They can take what they learn in class and do something with it the next day. And they do. Then they come back and tell me about the experience,” she says. “That’s extremely rewarding.”
DISTINGUISHED TITLES
• Associate Dean of MBA Programs
• Benson Pruitt Professor of Business
BETTERING JUDGEMENT
Anna Cianci’s education isn’t typical of most accounting professors.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Villanova University and a doctorate in accounting from Duke University. But she also earned a master’s degree in pastoral theology from St. Joseph’s College and a master’s in psychology from Wake Forest University.
Anna Cianci
Yet that background is perfect for a researcher whose work focuses broadly on judgement and decisionmaking in accounting. “My overall big umbrella is studying what kinds of things make people do the right thing or the wrong thing,” says Cianci, who joined the School of Business faculty in 2010 and is currently the Thomas C. Taylor Faculty Fellow and an associate professor of accounting. “How do personal and environmental factors — such as incentives, likeability, ethicality, corporate governance — impact decision-making among audit professionals, financial and managerial accounting professionals (e.g., CEOs and CFOs), and students.”
For example, one line of inquiry examines how testosterone levels affect decision-making, a topic
RECENT RESEARCH
"The Impact of Audit Committee
Strength on the Influence of Management Team Likeability" Behavioral Research in Accounting. (Forthcoming 2025)
with Kuselias, S., Lowe, J., & Tsakumis, G.T.
"Trusting behavior following a violation of trust: The immunization effect of control system transparency."
Journal of Management Accounting Research. (2024)
with Reichert, B., Sedatole, K., & Tsakumis, G.T.
"Struggling to meet the bar: Occupational progress failure and informal leadership behavior" Academy of Management Journal. (2021) with Schaubroeck, J. , Peng, A., Hannah, S.T., & Ma, J.
POSITION
MA,
BS, Villanova University (Accounting)
and Decision Making Behavior in Financial Accounting and Auditing Settings
Accounting, Managerial Accounting, and Auditing
Thomas C. Taylor Faculty Fellow; Associate Professor of Accounting
Ph D, Duke University (Accounting)
MA, St. Joseph's College (Pastoral Theology)
Wake Forest University (Psychology)
she says hasn’t been studied in the accounting realm. Preliminary results suggest that testosterone is positively associated with less ethical accounting decisions particularly when a decision maker is oriented toward self-gain.
Cianci’s research has been published in journals including Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory; Accounting, Organizations and Society; Academy of Management Journal; and the Journal of Applied Psychology.
Her current research follows a few strands, with one looking at grit. “Grit is perceived to be a pretty good quality, right? It’s about resilience and persevering through setbacks or disappointments,” Cianci says. “But grit can actually have some negative effects. There can be times when grit can be a hindrance to better decision-making.” Cianci indicates that “Preliminary results suggest that people with a high degree of grit may persevere through an obstacle by making less ethical decisions”.
Another strand focuses on diversity initiatives and whether accounting firms and other companies follow their peers in terms of implementing various diversity initiatives.
“It seems that companies do fall in line with their peers in terms of diversity initiatives, but they don’t seem to want to exceed those initiatives,” Cianci says. “In other words, they want to meet their peers’ initiatives and don’t want to be left behind,” she says, “but they also aren’t looking to get ahead or to be a leader, so there seem to be follower effects.”
“And then we’re also looking at ideological diversity,” she says. “We often think of diversity as gender and race and religion, but ideological diversity captures thought diversity and that’s something different than the other
DISTINGUISHED TITLES
• Thomas C. Taylor Faculty Fellow; Associate Professor of Accounting
• Vice Chair of the Institutional Review Board (IRB), Wake Forest University
• Associate Editor, Managerial Auditing Journal and Current Issues in Auditing
categories of diversity we typically think about.” In that research, she’s using a measure of ideological diversity based on where people earned their undergraduate degrees.
Cianci originally pursued her degrees in accounting as a practical matter and acknowledges that early on, the subject didn’t engage her as much as some others. But a job as an international internal auditor for Rohm & Haas, now part of Dow, showed her how creative and dynamic the field can be. That’s something she tries to convey to the students she teaches in undergraduate and master’s accounting courses. And, in keeping with her research interests, she also helps them to understand their own cognitive biases and the importance of being grounded in ethical principles.
She appreciates that Wake Forest University is studentcentered, “focused on educating the whole person.” “I like the balance of the teacher-scholar model,” she says. “It’s a philosophy that really resonates with me, and I haven’t been at another university that comes close to that model.”
She also values the School of Business’ holistic approach to high-quality research.
“The interdisciplinary culture at Wake Forest is really in tune with the nature of my research which crosses disciplines and involves multiple methods,” she adds. “Collaboration is encouraged by the leadership. The culture is ‘Everybody has something unique to bring to the table and it’s best to work together. In this way, we can all do interesting things and make meaningful intellectual contributions.’”
IMPROVING OUTCOMES
As an associate professor of management information systems, Jennifer Claggett is firmly rooted in the Wake Forest University School of Business, where she studies “how we can use technology to improve organizational outcomes.”
RECENT RESEARCH
"Unpacking the Credibility Assessment of Online Health Information: An Elaboration Likelihood Model Perspective." Information & Management. (2024)
with Kitchens, B., & Paino, M.
“But the majority of my research is specifically in health care settings, looking at how we can use technology to improve health outcomes,” Claggett says. “Health care has so much potential impact and is complex. If you can figure out an issue in healthcare, many times you can implement something similar in other industries.”
Claggett is an AT&T Faculty Fellow at the School of Business while also serving as an associate at the Biomedical Informatics Center and a Champion Member at the Center for Healthcare Innovation as part of the Wake Forest School of Medicine. “To have two great professional schools really enables a lot of my research. It’s been a wonderful fit,” says Claggett, who joined the School of Business faculty in 2020.
As a behavioral researcher, Claggett studies how people and organizations adopt, resist, and use technology. Her work bridges psychology, management, and information systems to design and optimize tools that enhance decision-making and patient care. She explains, “my goal is not just to study technology but to shape it—ensuring that it empowers rather than
"Timely, Granular, and Actionable: Designing a Social Listening Platform for Public Health 3.0." MIS Quarterly. (2024) with Kitchens, B. & Abbasi, A.
"An Infrastructure Framework for Remote Patient Monitoring Interventions and Research." Journal of Medical Internet Research. (2024) with Petter, S., Joshi, A. M., Ponzio, T. A., & Kirkendall, E.
Jennifer Claggett
POSITION
AT&T Faculty Fellow; Associate Professor
BACKGROUND
Ph D, University of Georgia (Management Information Systems)
MS, University of North Carolina – Greensboro (Management Information Systems)
BS, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill (Biology)
RESEARCH INTERESTS
The effect of information systems on healthcare processes, the perception of credibility of online medical information, the psychological effects of wearable devices, and algorithm design for the search of online medical contexts
TEACHING INTERESTS
Data Management, Data Architecture, Data Visualization, Business Intelligence, and Ethical Use of Data Analytics
overwhelms, and that it complements human strengths while addressing real-world challenges.”
Increasingly, her research is delving into artificial intelligence.
“Tools rooted in AI can create highly customized solutions, perhaps providing more customized medical advice, but there comes with it risks of biases and data blind spots,” she says.
Claggett explains, “How do we take a sea of data available to new technologies, say 30 years of electronic health records, and use technology to parse it, interpret it and insert it efficiently into the decision-making process? We’re having an explosion of tools that use machine learning, and we can build them quickly, but how should we build them and how should we use them meaningfully in health care?”
A team that Claggett works with at the medical school created an algorithmic frailty score for older patients that can, for example, help a surgical team determine if a person is a good candidate for knee surgery. “But there are still some important ‘human’ questions around that,” Claggett says. “How do you communicate a frailty score to a patient? How and when do you use these scores? What do clinicians and hospitals need to understand as far as data biases?”
Another research stream focuses on remote patient monitoring projects. For instance, there are technologies that record and transmit frequent blood pressure readings from a person’s home, rather than taking them annually at a doctor’s office.
“More readings — more data — are usually better than a single reading, and a lot of these projects have good medical outcomes, allowing clinicians to finetune medications and better regulate blood pressure,” Claggett says. “But the programs tend to fizzle, often
DISTINGUISHED TITLES
• AT&T Faculty Fellow
• Champion Member: Center for Healthcare Innovation
clinicians can trust it and weave it into their process flow without it costing them any additional time.”
Claggett believes deeply that “health care is so important because we can’t enjoy any of life’s riches without good health.” And that makes seeing clinicians rely on her research particularly satisfying.
Case in point: Claggett examined how an average person assesses the credibility and quality of medical information they find on the internet, and the findings have been published in both business and medical journals.
“I recently had a clinician from The Center for Innovative GYN Care in Rockville, Maryland, contact me,” Claggett recalls. “She was in the process of building an online resource for women in that area to educate them, answer their questions and help them understand their resources. She said, ‘This is my understanding of your papers. How do I apply it to my context? What are the nuances I might be missing?’ It’s always lovely to hear from people who’ve read your papers and know that the research has impacted them.”
PRACTICING PRACTICALITY
Broadly speaking, Ajay Patel’s research for the past three decades has focused on corporate decision-making. As he explains: “Why have people made certain decisions? What are the incentives behind those decisions? What was the information content of those decisions?”
But whether examining cross-border mergers and acquisitions, the impact of security offerings on valuations and firm performance, or factors affecting CEO compensation, Patel wants all his work to have practical value.
“When I first started,” he says, “some of my research ideas came from students in the evening MBA program because they forced me to ask myself, ‘Why am I doing this research? Who cares about this? Will this research be of any use to these students in their careers?’
“I decided if the answer was ‘no,’ I wasn’t going to do that research anymore,” continues Patel, who is the Thomas S. Goho Chair in Finance at the School of Business. “I think teaching in the MBA program made me a better academic because it forced me to think about what’s important and what’s not, what has practical value and what doesn’t. I’ve always brought my research into the classroom, even if it was just a working paper, to gauge students’ responses. If they said it was interesting, I knew I was probably adding value.”
Patel joined the faculty in 1993. In addition to his teaching and research, he has held a number of
Ajay Patel
RECENT RESEARCH
"Effects of Bank Capital and Lending on Leverage, Risk, and Growth of Non-Financial Firms." Financial Management. (2024)
with Baran, L. and Sorokina, N.
"New Evidence on the Role of the Media in Corporate Social Responsibility." Journal of Business Ethics. (2019) with El Ghoul, S., Guedhami, O., and Nash, R.
"The Effect of Cultural Distance on Contracting Decisions: The Case of Executive Compensation." Journal of Corporate Finance. (2015) with Bryan, S. & Nash, R.
MBA, University of Baltimore BS, St. Joseph's College (Chemistry, Botany and Zoology) BACKGROUND
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Compensation and conflicts of interest, cross-border M&A, the impact of security offerings on valuation and firm performance, bank capital, capital structure and risk taking by financial institutions and the liquidity holdings of non-financial firms
Chair of Tenured Faculty; Thomas S. Goho Chair in Finance; Professor POSITION
Ph D, University of Georgia (Finance)
administrative roles, most recently serving as area chair for finance and economics and chair of the tenured faculty in the School of Business.
Patel’s research, widely published in scholarly journals, has won eight awards from academic associations and two from practitioner associations. His early research focused on decision-making when pricing and issuing securities. “I think that research stream has been valued and had an impact in the profession because it was among the early studies in that area,” he says.
Patel says inspiration for a line of inquiry can come from anywhere — chatting with a colleague, reading an article in The Wall Street Journal, a question from a student during class, but he says a number of his research projects are the result of conversations with alumni.
“Early in my career our dean, Charlie Moyer, gave me the opportunity to interact with our Board of Visitors and our Alumni Council, and I was able to talk to them, trying to understand the differences between what academic research suggests corporate leaders do and what they actually do,” Patel says. “I’ve continued such conversations over the years.”
In his current research, Patel has returned to a favored topic of executive compensation, now examining it in terms of environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies.
DISTINGUISHED TITLES
• Thomas S. Goho Chair in Finance
“ESG has been this big topic in the past several years but now some are hammering down on it, and it seems like everybody’s suddenly backing away from using it,” Patel says. “Our question is, if ESG is important, do firms incentivize CEOs using ESG metrics in the compensation structure?”
Patel notes that there is disagreement — including among himself and some of his co-authors — about corporate responsibility for ESG issues, including climate change.
“Some companies have chosen to take it upon themselves to do what they can do to reduce carbon emissions because they honestly believe they have a role in doing so. You’ve got other companies who feel very strongly that their job should be to maximize value for their shareholders. So, we’ve got a debate, but that doesn’t answer the question of what exactly companies are doing,” Patel says. “Companies have been saying ESG is important, so are they incentivizing their senior management to follow through? The next question becomes, if they are doing it, are there hard metrics they are using to evaluate awarding compensation? Are there certain quantifiable targets or is it qualitative and directional, which makes it easier to pay someone even if they don’t hit specific targets?”
Initial data analysis in the US shows ESG compensation is typically based on qualitative factors rather than being metric-driven. We are now investigating whether there are significant differences internationally in the use of ESG metrics in executive compensation among firms across countries and what role cultural differences may play in explaining these findings.
“What’s interesting to me,” Patel says, “is that this isn’t a settled matter in the press or in politics or in academe or in corporate governance.”
Wake Forest University’s teacher-scholar model is ideal for Ya-wen Yang, who enjoys delving into a research question but also wants to share her findings with those who can benefit from the knowledge.
RECENT RESEARCH
"Understanding cybersecurity breach contagion effects: The role of the loss heuristic and internal controls."
International Journal of Accounting Information System. (2024) with Kelton, A.
“I’m a naturally curious person and I like to learn new things,” says Yang, who is the Thomas C. Taylor Faculty Fellow and an associate professor of accounting at the School of Business. “So, on one hand, I can do research. If I’m curious about something, I can learn more about it and look for an answer. On the other hand, I get to tell people about what we’ve learned via the research: I have a chance to disseminate it in the classroom.”
“We talk about the teacher-scholar model at Wake Forest, and I really aspire to be a teacher-scholar,” explains Yang, who teaches both undergraduate and MBA students.
Yang’s broad research interests include how investors and analysts use financial information, the impact of evolving accounting standards and regulatory policies, and corporate governance. She has published in Accounting Horizon, Journal of Accounting & Public Policy, Journal of Accounting & Economics and Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, among other academic journals. And, in keeping
"Board diversity and corporate investment oversight."
Journal of Business Research. (2018) with Harjoto, A. and Laksmana, R.
Ya-wen Yang
"Is other comprehensive income reported in the income statement more value relevant?"
Journal of Accounting, Auditing & Finance. (2018) with Lin, S. and Wang, J.
Ph D, University of Tennessee (Accounting)
MBA, University of Illinois (Corporate Finance) BBA, Tunghai University (Accounting) BACKGROUND
How investors and analysts use financial information, Accounting standards and regulatory policies, Corporate governance, Cyber security
Thomas C. Taylor Faculty Fellow; Associate Professor of Accounting POSITION
with her goal of sharing her findings with practitioners and industry, Yang’s work has been cited in news outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, Bloomberg Businessweek and USA Today.
Her current research focuses on two distinct areas. One is the contagion effects of cybersecurity breaches. A cybersecurity breach at one company typically causes a negative market reaction and decline in its stock price. Yang’s research confirms that such a breach can also cause a negative market reaction toward industry peers, or bystander companies, as investors worry about their vulnerabilities, as well.
But Yang has delved deeper to determine if investors use accounting profits or losses as a reference point (i.e., loss heuristic) when evaluating firms’ prospects. She found that, in the event of a cybersecurity breach at a peer firm, investors would discount bystander firms reporting a loss in the previous year more than bystander firms reporting a profit.
“If I’m an investor, I’ll tend to discount your stock price because I worry you’ll be in more trouble if you experience a breach when you’ve already been reporting a loss,” she says.
Taking it a step further, Yang and her co-authors have investigated what companies might do to limit the contagion effect.
“I’m an accountant and so internal control is very important to me,” she says. “And we have found that internal control quality would mitigate that contagion effect. So, the takeaway message is that internal quality control is important.” Her next, related project looks at social capital and the gender of executives and top management in relation to cybersecurity risk disclosures.
Another current research avenue for Yang is the pricing and mispricing of other comprehensive income (OCI) and is tied to earlier research about the effects of how OCI is reported on financial statements. Changes to accounting standards that now require OCI to be reported as part of the income statement help investors both to price it and to not misprice it, Yang explains. “So, our research shows the standard is achieving its intended positive impact.”
Yang’s mother, an accountant, inspired her to study accounting in college and as she continued her studies, she became enamored with the idea of a career in academia.
“Now that I have tenure, I’m focusing on maintaining a healthy research pipeline,” she says. “I have the privilege of working with people I really enjoy working with–my long-time collaborators– and continuing to explore the research inquiries that matter to me. Research remains one of my passions.”
“One thing I like about the School of Business is the autonomy,” she continues. “I can pick a project I care about, form the research question and design the research method. And when I find the answer I can disseminate it, and not just for an academic audience. You can write a piece based on your findings to disseminate to industry and to the practitioner who will care about your findings. That’s the fun part.”
DISTINGUISHED TITLES
• Thomas C. Taylor Faculty Fellow
EXAMINING LEADERSHIP
Sometimes one moment can change the course of a person’s career and life in unexpected ways. Wake Forest School of Business James Farr Faculty Fellow in Leadership and Organizational Development John Sumanth certainly knows that truism well.
RECENT RESEARCH
"Jekyll and Hyde Leadership: Examining the Direct and Vicarious Experiences of Abusive and Ethical Leadership Through a Justice Variability Lens"
Journal of Applied Psychology. (2024)
with Xu, H., Hannah, S., Wang, Z., Moss, S. E., & Song, M.
After earning a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Miami (cum laude) and an MBA in marketing and management from the University of Florida, Sumanth took a job as a management trainee for Norwegian Cruise Line, spending nearly 18 months rotating throughout the company, working in all of its departments. That rotation complete, Sumanth earned a position in strategic planning, using his marketing and analytical skills to do everything from developing itineraries to negotiating deals with governments and port authorities around the world. The day he returned from vacation, Sumanth received some unexpected news.
“My boss, who was a vice president, told me the company fired him and the other senior manager in the department,” Sumanth says. “So effectively, I went from being fairly challengingly sheltered in the hierarchy to reporting one level away from the CEO.”
The cruise line’s restructuring came right around the same time as the September 11th terrorist attacks, which further impacted Sumanth’s job in ways he never could have
"Generating the moral agency to report peers' counterproductive work behavior in normal and extreme contexts: The generative roles of ethical leadership, moral potency, and psychological safety."
Journal of Business Ethics. (2024)
with Hannah, S., Herbst, K. C., & Thompson, R. L.
John Sumanth
James Farr Faculty Fellow in Leadership and Organizational Development; Associate Professor of Management; Associate, ACLC POSITION
BACKGROUND
Ph D, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Organizational Behavior)
MBA, University of Florida (Marketing)
BS, University of Miami (Industrial Engineering)
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Employee Communication (Voice/Feedback/Whistleblowing), Leadership/Trust, Status
TEACHING INTERESTS
Organizational Behavior, Leadership, Negotiations
"Enhancing employees' duty orientation and moral potency: Dual mechanisms linking ethical psychological climate to ethically focused proactive behaviors."
Journal of Organizational Behavior. (2023)
with Gok, K., Babalola, M. T., Lakshman, C., Vo, L. C., Decoster, S., ... & Coşkun, A.
anticipated. Suddenly, he found himself thrust into a critical leadership role at a major travel corporation during one of the most tumultuous eras of that industry’s history.
“I gained valuable insights into how leaders approach making strategically important decisions and how they lead effectively amid chaos,” Sumanth says. “I also observed fascinating dynamics around decision-making, particularly how leader behaviors influence people to speak up or remain silent in meetings. These experiences have greatly shaped my research, which focuses on how leaders cultivate environments where employees can speak up more freely and better engage.”
After leaving Norwegian, Sumanth worked for a time at Burger King Corporation, contributing to several product launches. By that time, his experience in the corporate world left him curious about organizational behavior—the difficulty of motivating and engaging employees, and the challenges of organizational change. So he decided to pursue a Ph.D. in organizational behavior at UNC-Chapel Hill.
“Through my corporate experiences, I came to realize that managing people is both the most rewarding and the most challenging aspect of any organization,” he says. “Coming from an engineering background with no psychology training, I struggled to understand what drives people’s thoughts, behaviors, and feelings.”
Upon graduation, Sumanth knew he wanted to take the insight he’d gained to the classroom, rather than the corporate boardroom. Having grown up in a family of academics—his father and grandfather were both professors and his mom a teacher—academia felt like a natural fit for
his work. In 2013, he came to Wake Forest to teach in the School of Business.
Sumanth’s research focuses on employee communication, specifically workers’ comfort in speaking up, offering feedback or even whistleblowing, and how leaders influence these critical outcomes.
“One of the things we’ve found pretty consistently is that leaders who model ethical behavior and talk about the importance of ethics and doing the right thing in decision-making have a powerful influence on creating environments where people feel free to speak up,” he says. “This type of leader behavior creates courage, confidence, and a sense of ownership in people that fuels their willingness to speak up with ideas that can be helpful to the organization.”
Recently, Sumanth and several colleagues (including Wake Forest professors Sean Hannah and Sherry Moss) published a paper in the Journal of Applied Psychology on what they call “Jekyll and Hyde leadership”—the idea that some leaders think they can make up for Hydeesque bad behavior by putting on their best Dr. Jekyll face the next day.
“We find that combination is actually worse and more taxing for employees emotionally,” he says. “Instead, leaders need to model ethical consistency if they want to get the best from their people.”
DISTINGUISHED TITLES
• James Farr Fellow
Sumanth strives to model that behavior in his classroom, taking care to create a learning environment where his students - undergraduates, MBAs, or executivesfeel comfortable speaking up, contributing, and even challenging him.
“That’s how you’re going to learn this content best— breeding a safe space where learners can try, fail, and reflect on their experiences is what will help them become successful professionals who positively impact their organizations and beyond ,” he says.
RECENT SCHOLARLY CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOOKS OR OTHER
A Growth Strategy that Creates and Protects Value, by Sumanth, J.
Harvard Business Review. (April 1, 2024)
Leaders Can’t Make Up for Bad Behavior by Being Nice Later, by Sumanth, J.
Harvard Business Review. (November 20, 2024)
OPTIMIZING DECISIONS
One of the most unexpected lessons learned by many Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic was the importance and vulnerability of supply chains. As factory shutdowns and material shortages had people scrambling for everything from toilet paper to disinfecting wipes, the complexity of supply chains they’d likely never thought about became top of mind for many.
But Pelin Pekgün, Thomas H. Davis Professor in Business and Professor of Analytics, was unsurprised. Pekgün’s work over the past two decades has focused on supply chain management and pricing, both in the corporate world and academia. And she says the new appreciation for supply chains has brought more interest in her work.
RECENT RESEARCH
"When do part-time workers increase effectiveness? A study of food banks and the SNAP program outreach."
Journal of Operations Management. (2024)
with L. Sharma, O. Öztürk and S. Ahire
“One positive outcome of COVID-19 might be the heightened awareness of supply chains," she says. "People recognize their importance when everyday items, like toilet paper, are missing from store shelves. I've also noticed an increased interest among my students in learning more about supply chains.”
Pekgün says she always had a passion for mathematics, so studying industrial engineering felt like a perfect fit because it allowed her to optimize decision-making using analytical tools. She earned a BS and MS in the discipline from Bogazici University in Turkey, then went on to earn a Ph.D. in industrial and systems engineering at Georgia Tech. Midway through her Ph.D., Pekgün
"The Competitive Effects of Online Reviews on Hotel Demand." Journal of Marketing. (2024) with Cho, S., Janakiraman, R., and Wang, J.
"Estimating Personalized Demand with Unobserved No-purchases using a Mixture Model: An Application in the Hotel Industry." Manufacturing and Service Operations Management. (2023)
with S. Cho, M. Ferguson, and A. Vakhutinsky
Pelin Pekgün
POSITION
Thomas H. Davis Professor in Business; Professor
BACKGROUND
Ph D, Georgia Institute of Technology (Industrial & Systems Engineering)
MS, Georgia Institute of Technology (Industrial & Systems Engineering)
MS, Bogazici University (Industrial Engineering)
BS, Bogazici University (Industrial Engineering)
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Pricing and Revenue Management, Supply Chain Management, Marketing/Operations Interface, Humanitarian and Non-profit Operations, Behavioral Operations Management
had an internship at JDA Software that turned into a six-year career developing pricing and revenue management solutions.
But Pekgün knew she wanted to return to academia. She began teaching full-time in 2011 at Georgia Tech’s School of Industrial and Systems Engineering as a visiting professor and then served as a professor at the University of South Carolina’s Darla Moore School of Business for 11 years. She came to Wake Forest in January 2024.
Pekgün draws on her industry experience in her research and teaching, combining supply chain management and pricing and revenue management, with a deep commitment to bridging the gap between academia and industry. She has devoted some of her work to supply chain management issues such as buyer-supplier relationships and strategic interactions between the players in a supply chain.
“That also relates to one of my core teaching areas, supply chain analytics, which helps students explore various aspects such as inventory management, network design, coordination issues, and resilient and sustainable operations,” she says.
Much of Pekgün’s private sector work focused on the hotel industry, and she still draws on that experience in her research. Some of her recent work has explored demand modeling and pricing strategies for hotels and how factors such as personalized offers and online reviews can impact customer demand.
“Companies are increasingly designing personalized offers tailored to customer needs,” she says. “I approach this through the lens of demand modeling, focusing on improving demand estimation at the individual customer choice level, even when a company cannot observe customers who choose not to purchase any product.”
Over the last six years, Pekgün has focused on humanitarian and nonprofit operations, exploring how analytics and datadriven decision making can be utilized to address societal issues such as food insecurity, food waste, and access to healthcare.
“Being motivated to address food insecurity and reduce food waste in the supply chain, I’ve worked with food banks to make better decisions with the limited resources they have,” she says. “Their mission is not to maximize profit, but to maximize the number of foodinsecure people they can reach.”
The humanitarian operations domain truly excites Pekgün because it allows her to use analytical tools and operational concepts to make a difference on a societal level.
“This work really taps into my passion for leveraging analytics to make better and smarter decisions for a more equitable world,” she says. This also reflects in her teaching. “I aim to empower the next generation of analytics professionals to see their field not only as a tool for better decision making but also as a means for societal impact.”
DISTINGUISHED TITLES
• Thomas H. Davis Professor in Business
• Secretary, INFORMS Board of Directors and Executive Committee
• Vice President, Industry, POMS Board
• Senior Member, INFORMS
• Member, INFORMS Practice Section Board
• Editor, Special Issue for the Franz Edelman Award, INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics
• Associate Editor, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management
• Associate Editor, Decision Sciences
LEVERAGING ANALYTICS
Philip Howard has always been fascinated by mathematics. As an undergraduate at UNC-Chapel Hill double-majoring in math and statistics, Howard thought he would pursue a career as an actuary upon graduation. But the more he learned, the more he wanted to learn, and Howard made the decision to earn a master’s in statistics with a Ph.D. in the discipline to follow.
But during his master’s degree studies, Howard took a finance class. Suddenly, his trajectory changed.
“That class really piqued my interest, and I decided to jump ships,” he says. “I finished my master’s in statistics, but earned my Ph.D. in finance.”
Howard’s work today both as the Joseph M. Bryan, Jr., Faculty Fellow in Banking and Finance and as a senior research associate at the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise sits at the intersection of his quantitative background and finance, using theoretical models to evaluate monetary policy.
RECENT RESEARCH
"Crowded Trades and Tail Risk."
The Review of Financial Studies. (2022) with Brown, G. and Lundblad, C.
"BKK the EZ Way: International Long-Run Growth News and Capital Flows."
American Economic Review. (2018) with Colacito, R., Croce, M., & Ho, S.
Joseph M. Bryan, Jr. Faculty Fellow in Banking and Finance; Assistant Professor POSITION
Ph D, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Finance)
MS, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Operations Research & Statistics)
BS, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Mathematical Decision Sciences)
Finance, Monetary Policy, Alternative Investments
“It’s thinking about how if theoretically you have a modeled economy and you implement a new policy, what would be the impact?” Howard says. “Because until you actually put a policy into effect and have actual data, you don’t know what that impact will be, but if you can go off the theory, that can give you some guidance.”
One of his most recent projects involves analyzing hedge fund performance databases that inform investors who are allocating capital. Howard says the challenge has been that no one database holds all this information—some eight different vendors offer subscriptions to their data, and to get a complete picture of hedge fund performance, one would likely have to look at all of these sources.
“Historically, these databases have been very expensive, so if you only subscribe to one or two, you’re really missing the big picture,” he says.
So Howard and the team he worked with at the Kenan Institute figured out a way to combine all the lists, creating their own distinct identifiers that allow researchers to easily merge and search multiple lists of data.
on the performance side,” Howard says. “That way we can be certain the results are representative of the entire industry.”
Howard says that his research directly impacts the classes he teaches at Wake, as well. Through this work, Howard says he has gained new insights and methodologies for conducting quantitative research, harnessing new technologies and techniques such as machine learning to garner better results. He says exposure to that process, more so than the results of his research, has been beneficial to his students.
“When I’m teaching my students, I’m not teaching them about hedge funds or activism, I’m focusing on quantitative methods,” he says. “Those same methods I use in my research translate to what my students are learning in the classroom.”
Howard says this ability to conduct ongoing research while also remaining active in the classroom is one of the things he loves most about Wake Forest. And he says that the School of Business’ teacher-scholar model ultimately benefits both professors and students.
“We want to lower the barrier to entry for academics to actually do research in this space,” he says. “And hopefully it will improve the quality of the research because you aren’t missing data.”
Howard says the team also began analyzing the data themselves to produce their own papers. The research has recently followed activist hedge funds, specifically looking at the performance of their actual investments.
“We can take two different regulatory filings—one that identifies hedge funds and one that identifies activists—and intersect it with our private databases
DISTINGUISHED TITLES
• Joseph
M. Bryan Fellow in Banking and Finance
“Every school will say they’re pro teacher-scholar, but when you really look at the culture, it’s usually one or the other,” he says. “But at Wake, when they say teacherscholar, they really mean it. It’s one of the things that attracted me to this school—you’re allowed to excel in both areas.”
EVALUATING ETHOS
RECENT RESEARCH
"Jekyll and Hyde Leadership: Examining the Direct and Vicarious Experiences of Abusive and Ethical Leadership Through a Justice Variability Lens."
Journal of Applied Psychology. (2024) with Xu, H., Wang, Z., Moss, S., Sumanth, J., and Song, M.
After serving for nearly three decades in the United States Army, Sean Hannah knows exactly what makes an effective leader. During his years of active duty as an Army infantry officer, Colonel (Retired) Hannah served in four different combat and contingency deployments, as well as in strategic positions in the Pentagon, received 44 military decorations and was inducted into the Officer Candidate School Hall of Fame.
During his tenure with the Army, Hannah was selected to be a professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point upon completion of his Ph.D. in business management at the University of Nebraska.
At West Point, Hannah served as director of the school’s leadership and management programs before being chosen by General George Casey—Chief of Staff of the Army at the time—to create and lead the Center for the Army Profession and Ethic as its founding director.
“It was an army-wide center responsible for studying character-based leadership across the entire army and providing doctrine, training programs, and research on the Army Ethic and the Army Profession,” Hannah says.
Hannah retired from the Army and came to Wake Forest in 2012 as the J. Tylee Wilson Chair in Business Ethics, leading research teams, teaching in the MBA program and serving as senior scholar in Wake Forest’s Allegacy Center for Leadership and Character. Hannah says his experience in the military prepared him well for the role at Wake.
"Generating the moral agency to report peers' counterproductive work behavior in normal and extreme contexts: The generative roles of ethical leadership, moral potency, and psychological safety."
Journal of Business Ethics. (2024) with Sumanth, J., Herbst, K., and Thompson, R.
Hannah
J. Tylee Wilson Chair in Business Ethics; Professor of Management; Senior Research Associate, ACLC POSITION
BACKGROUND
Ph D, University of Nebraska (Business Management)
MA, Syracuse University
MA, Marine Corps University (National Security Studies)
MBA, Syracuse University
BS, California State University (Political Science)
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Leadership Development; Ethical and Authentic Leadership; Character Development; Ethical Culture; Leadership in Extreme Contexts; Leader Identity, Complexity, Self-Efficacy, and Courage
TEACHING INTERESTS
"Struggling to Meet the Bar: Occupational Progress Failure and Informal Leadership Behavior." Academy of Management Journal. (2021) with Schaubroeck, J. M., Peng, A. C., Ma, J., and Cianci, A. M.
Leadership, Character Development, Business Ethics, Organizational Behavior, High Performing Teams
“In the Army, leadership is the most important thing we do,” he says. “The Army recognizes leadership as the core element of ‘combat power’—you can have the greatest equipment and weaponry and best fighting force in the world, but if you don’t have leaders who can orchestrate that on the battlefield and align everyone around a shared purpose and vision, the best equipment doesn’t matter.”
And in the Army, those leaders are bred, not born. Hannah says the military’s structure instilled a perspective on leadership that levels the playing field—no one starts at the top, and respect and credibility are earned through exemplary leadership.
Research plays a big role in Hannah’s work outside the classroom, with a recent Stanford University study ranking him among the top 1 percent of cited researchers in the world across all sciences and all 8 million global researchers in each of the last three years. As the senior researcher for the Allegacy Center for Leadership and Character, Hannah’s work often examines the intersection between science, exemplary leadership, and leader character. He is also conducting some cutting-edge leadership research.
“You can’t come in as a major—every general was once a lieutenant, every sergeant major was a private,” he says.
That ethos translates from the battlefield to the boardroom. Hannah teaches his students that the military’s bottom-up approach to leadership holds true in the business world, as well.
“Leadership is a process, not a position, and you can be a great leader and not be in a formal managerial position, just as you could be in a managerial position and not be a true effective leader,” he says. “Leadership is something you have to earn. You have to earn that trust and credibility as a leader, and your formal position does not matter in that equation.”
Hannah credits his military service for making him a better teacher and researcher. “When I started studying leadership academically, I was able to take the theoretical and apply it to my practical experience and share those lessons-learned with others.”
Sean also regularly shares his expertise with business audiences through training and consulting engagements across the US, Europe and Asia and is a sought after keynote speaker.
DISTINGUISHED TITLES
• Tylee Wilson Chair of Business Ethics
• Senior Researcher, Allegacy Center for Leadership and Character
• Colonel, US Army (Retired)
“Some of our research is on neuroscience and applying that to leadership,” he says. “We’re brain mapping leaders and studying how brain activity relates to their psychological activity and how that relates to their behavior and leader effectiveness.”
Hannah’s military experience also figures prominently in his research pursuits. While leadership plays an important role in business, it’s even more critical in situations where lives and the fate of nations could be on the line.
“I’m doing a lot of work on leadership in extreme contexts, which fits into my background of understanding how leadership and the demands on leaders can be a bit different when things get extreme,” he says. “I’ve been studying what makes exemplary leadership when leadership matters most, such as in combat, fire departments and situations like that, and also crisis situations in business.”
And whether they lead a company into battle or toward greater profitability, Hannah says great leaders all share one important trait that he ensures his students take from his classroom.
“Every great leader knows their number one job is to develop followers into leaders,” he says. “It’s the only way to sustain a business or a military force over time.”
FEATURED FACULTY RESEARCH
Frederick H. Harris,
Emeritus Professor of Economics & Finance
Does maker-taker limit order subsidy improve market outcomes? Quasi-natural experimental evidence
Journal of Banking & Finance
When NASDAQ slashed trading fees across fourteen stocks, worth US $1.9 trillion in trading volume during the 2015 Fee Pilot experiment, this largest ever controlled market experiment revealed insights about how exchange access fees affect market behaviour, even though the SEC requires that all U.S. trades take place at raw displayed prices.
Lin, Y., Swan, P. L., & Harris, F. H. de B. (2025). Does maker-taker limit order subsidy improve market outcomes? Quasi-natural experimental evidence. Journal of Banking & Finance, 170.
Ajay Patel, Area Chair; Thomas S. Goho Chair in Finance; Professor
Effects of Bank Capital and Lending on Leverage, Risk and Growth of Non-Financial Firms
Financial Management
This paper examines the impact of bank capital on the capital structure of nonfinancial firms, focusing on lenders and commercial borrowers from 2000 to 2019, finding a positive relationship between firm leverage and bank capital with lending serving as a key channel for this effect.
Baran, L., A. Patel and N. Sorokina, 2024, “Effects of Bank Capital and Lending on Leverage, Risk and Growth of Non-Financial Firms,” Financial Management, forthcoming.
Jennifer Claggett, AT&T Faculty Fellow; Associate Professor
Identifying the Peripheral Cues in the Credibility Assessment of Online Health Information Information & Management
This mixed-method study, which combines an online experiment and qualitative analysis, explores how source, tone, and format affect credibility perceptions in health contexts, offering insights that could inform the design of future online health resources.
Claggett, J. L., Kitchens, B., & Paino, M. (2024). Identifying the Peripheral Cues in the Credibility Assessment of Online Health Information. Information & Management.
Stephen Smulowitz, Assistant Professor, Strategic Management
The High Cost of Cheap Talk: How Disingenuous Ethical Language Can Reflect Agency Costs Journal of Management
Does the use of a certain type of ethical language indicate that managers are failing to behave in a socially responsible manner? This paper explores the prediction that “cheap talk” reflects managers being disingenuous with stakeholders about their ethical intentions in order to reduce pressure on corporate social performance (CSP).
Smulowitz, S. J., Pfarrer, M. D., Cossin, D., & Lu, H. (Abraham). (2025). The High Cost of Cheap Talk: How Disingenuous Ethical Language Can Reflect Agency Costs. Journal of Management.
Matthew Phillips, Associate Provost for Strategic Initiatives
Purpose and the Professions Amplify
This paper encourages purpose-driven professionals to reimagine themselves at the center of circles opening up to progressively widening communities, so they can ask how to take setbacks seriously, defy indifference, and reify the joy of tackling what matters most.
Al Ramiah, A., Reydams Schils, G., & Phillips, M. (2024). Purpose and the Professions. Amplify, 37(9), 32–39
John Sumanth, James Farr Faculty Fellow, Sean Hannah, Tylee Wilson Chair in Business Ethics & Sherry Moss, Associate Dean for MBA Programs
Jekyll and Hyde leadership: Examining the direct and vicarious experiences of abusive and ethical leadership through a justice variability lens Journal of Applied Psychology
Examining employees’ direct and vicarious experiences of abusive supervision and ethical leadership, this research advances the theories of justice variability and vicarious leadership and (in)justice while also offering practical insights for managing “Jekyll and Hyde” leadership across organizational hierarchies.
Xu, H. H., Hannah, S. T., Wang, Z., Moss, S. E., Sumanth, J. J., & Song, M. (2024). Jekyll and Hyde leadership: Examining the direct and vicarious experiences of abusive and ethical leadership through a justice variability lens. Journal of Applied Psychology.
Yeongin Kim, Assistant Professor Mass Shooting and Startup Entrepreneurs’ Overconfidence: Evidence from Kickstarter Information & Management
Using data from a leading crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter, this study examines the impact of emotional bias on entrepreneurial decisions in such platforms, specifically considering the impact of mass shootings as exogenous emotional shocks.
Hyejin Mun, Yeongin Kim, Yasin Ceran, Chulho Lee, “Mass Shooting and Startup Entrepreneurs’ Overconfidence: Evidence from Kickstarter.” Forthcoming at Information & Management.
Philip Howard, Joseph M. Bryan Fellow in Banking and Finance Crowded Trades and Tail Risk
The Review of Financial Studies
This paper measures the degree of security-level crowdedness, finding the difference between the average returns on portfolios sorted by high versus low crowdedness portfolios is sizable and the variation in the realized portfolio returns is distinct from other traditional risk factors.
Brown, G., Howard, P., & Lundblad, C. (2022). Crowded Trades and Tail Risk. The Review of Financial Studies.
Ali Zeytoon-Nejad, Iglehart-Lightcap Faculty Fellow, Associate Teaching Professor
The Big Tradeoff averted: five avenues to promote efficiency and equality simultaneously International Economics and Economic Policy
Examining special circumstances in which efficiencyequality tradeoff can be avoided, this paper identifies five such avenues and elaborates on why and how the tradeoff between these two somewhat contradictory societal goals—efficiency and equality—can be deftly averted under the mentioned circumstances.
Zeytoon-Nejad, A. The Big Tradeoff averted: five avenues to promote efficiency and equality simultaneously. International Economics and Economic Policy 21, 933–968 (2024).
Pelin
Pekgün, Thomas H. Davis Professor in Business
Robust Demand Estimation with Customer Choice-Based Models for Sales Transaction Data Production and Operations Management
Prevalent in many industries such as hotels, airlines, and retail, this research develops a novel statistical method to estimate customer choice among a firm's portfolio of offerings when the firm cannot directly observe customers who choose not to purchase any product.
S. Cho, J. Im, M. Ferguson and P. Pekgün, “Robust Demand Estimation with Customer Choice-Based Models for Sales Transaction Data.” Production and Operations Management.
NEW FACES
Jenelle Conaway
Assistant Professor, Accounting POSITION
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Financial and audit issues in an international context, such as multinational audits and reporting, the recent global shift in accounting firm ownership structures to accommodate investment from private equity firms
Having previously taught Intermediate Financial Accounting II and International Accounting at George Mason University, Jenelle Conaway joins the School of Business at Wake Forest University as an Assistant Professor of Accounting.
Conaway completed her B.S. in Accounting from the University of South Carolina and MBA in Finance from Loyola University of Maryland. During this time, she worked as an auditor at Ellin & Tucker, a mid-atlantic regional accounting firm. She later earned her PhD in Accounting from Boston University.
With a focus in financial and audit issues in an international context, such as multinational audits and reporting, Conaway is now exploring the recent global shift in accounting firm ownership structures to accommodate investment from private equity firms. Her work has been published in research journals such as Contemporary Accounting Research, Issues in Accounting Education and the Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance and the Journal of Accounting Research.
RECENT RESEARCH
" Do US Investors Value Foreign Component Auditors?.” Journal of Accounting Research. (2022) with B. Chen.
"Academic Dishonesty in Online Accounting Assessments— Evidence on the Use of Academic Resource Sites.”
Issues in Accounting Education. (2023) with T. Wiesen.
"Has global financial reporting comparability improved?” Contemporary Accounting Research. (2012)
Devon Jefferson
POSITION
Assistant Professor, Accounting
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Audit training mechanisms and audit behavioral research that examines how auditors' well-being and within-team interactions affect audit quality
Having begun her career as an auditor at KPMG LLP in their Federal Audit Practice in Washington, DC, Devon Jefferson is eager to contribute to the renowned scholarship, service and teaching at the Wake Forest University School of Business.
After completing her B.S. in Accounting from North Carolina A&T State University and M.S. in Accounting from Michigan State University, Jefferson earned her Ph.D. in Accounting from Virginia Commonwealth University. During her time at KPMG, she spent 5 years auditing and 2 years on rotation with KPMG Business School developing and instructing training. She then worked as an Audit Manager for a regional public accounting firm, Arnett Carbis Toothman LLP, for
two years where she managed audit engagements for clients in a variety of industries (e.g., oil and gas, construction, hospitality, nonprofit).
Before joining Wake Forest, Jefferson taught Audit courses for 3 years at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her current areas of interest include audit training mechanisms and audit behavioral research that examines how auditors' well-being and within-team interactions affect audit quality.
RECENT RESEARCH
"Supervisor-subordinate communication in the audit environment: a review and synthesis of contextual factors affecting subordinate behavior.”
Journal of Accounting Literature. (2024)
"Wealthy Watches Inc.: The Substantive Testing of Accounts Receivable in the Evolving Audit Environment.” Issues in Accounting Education. (2021) with Andiola, L. M., Downey, and D. H., Earley, C.
" Surviving Busy Season in a Remote Work Environment: Using the Job Demands-Resources Model to Investigate Coping Mechanisms.” Revise & Resubmit at Contemporary Accounting Research. (Working paper) with L. M. Andiola, and P. J. Hurley
Yeongin Kim
POSITION
Assistant Professor, Analytics
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Understanding the value of information technology in healthcare, platform businesses and social media with a strong focus on quantitative methods such as game theory, econometrics, machine learning, and optimization
Joining the School of Business as an Assistant Professor of Analytics, Yeongin Kim’s research centers on understanding the value of information technology in healthcare, platform businesses and social media with a strong focus on quantitative methods such as game theory, econometrics, machine learning, and optimization.
His work has been published in leading information systems journals including MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Decision Support Systems and Information & Management. Kim has also received several prestigious accolades, such as the Best Paper Award from the INFORMS eBusiness Section in 2018 and the Best Theory-Driven Empirical Research Paper Award from DSI in 2024.
Kim's teaching interests encompass Decision Modeling, Computer Programming (C#, Java, Python), Data Mining & Machine Learning and Healthcare Analytics. He earned his Ph.D. in Management Science from the University of Texas at Dallas, an M.S. in Industrial & Systems Engineering from Texas A&M University and a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Inha University, South Korea. Before joining Wake Forest University, Kim served as an Assistant Professor of Information Systems at Virginia Commonwealth University.
RECENT RESEARCH
“Dinner at your doorstep: Service innovation via the gig economy on food delivery platforms.”
Information Systems Research (2024) with G. Sun, Y. Tan, and G. G. Parker
“When IT Creates Legal Vulnerability: Not Just Overutilization but Underprovisioning of Health Care Could be a Consequence.” MIS Quarterly. (2022) with M. Ayvaci, S. Raghunathan, and T. Ayer
"Designing payment contracts for healthcare services to induce information sharing: The adoption and the value of health information exchanges (HIEs).”
MIS Quarterly. (2021)
with M. Ayvaci, H. Cavusoglu, and S. Raghunathan
NEW FACES
Zlatana Nenova
POSITION
Assistant Professor, Analytics
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Operations management, data mining and healthcare analytics
Serving previously as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Business Information and Analytics at the Daniels College of Business, Zlatana Nenova joins Wake Forest with primary interests in the areas of healthcare analytics, data mining and operations management.
In her work, Zlatana leverages big data to develop empirical models, which can be used to improve the management for patients with chronic diseases. Her work has been published in Decision Sciences, Journal of Operations Management, Production and Operations Management and Palliative Medicine.
She completed her B.S. in Mathematics and Accounting at Guilford College. With continued interest in statistics, healthcare decision making and optimization, she earned her M.A. in Applied Statistics and Ph.D. in Business Analytics and Operations from the University of Pittsburgh.
RECENT RESEARCH
"Chronic disease progression prediction: Leveraging case‐based reasoning and big data analytics.” Production and Operations Management. (2022)
with J. Shang
" Machine learning in healthcare: Operational and financial impact.” Innovative Technology at the Interface of Finance and Operations. (2022) with D. Anderson and M.V. Bjarnadottir
"Determining an optimal hierarchical forecasting model based on the characteristics of the data set.”
Journal of Operations Management. (2016) with J. H. May
NEW FACES
Victoria Reibenspiess
POSITION
Assistant Professor, Accounting
RESEARCH INTERESTS
IT identity, IT adoption, impacts of information systems, future of work and digital innovation
Bringing a dynamic blend of research interests including IT identity, IT adoption, impacts of information systems, future of work and digital innovation, Victoria Reibenspiess is preparing students to navigate an increasingly digital world and make a positive impact in their communities.
Reibenspiess earned her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Economics and her master’s degree in Business Informatics from Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. She then completed her Ph.D. in Management (Information Systems) at the University of Innsbruck in Austria.
Having previously served as Assistant Professor of Information Systems at the Carson College of Business at Washington State University, Reibenspiess’ work has been published in Information & Management, the International Journal of Innovation Management, and the proceedings of all major IS conferences like ICIS, ECIS, HICSS, PACIS, and AMCIS. She is the recipient of several awards for her research, including the ECIS Best Research in Progress Paper Award and the SIGADIT Best Paper Award.
RECENT RESEARCH
“Understanding the Role of Innovation Actors' Social Network in the Digital Age: A Literature Review and Avenues for Future Research”
IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management. (2025).
with K. Drechsler, A. Eckhardt, and H. T. Wagner
“Innovation champions’ activities and influences in organisations — a literature review.”
International Journal of Innovation Management. (2021).
with K. Drechsler, A. Eckhardt, and H. T. Wagner
"Explaining consumer suspicion: insights of a vignette study on online product reviews.”
Electronic Markets. (2022).
with T. Kollmer and A. Eckhardt
NAMED PROFESSORSHIPS & honorary titles
HONORARY TITLE AWARDED TO
F.M. Kirby Foundation Chair in Business Excellence
Inmar Presidential Chair in Analytics
J. Tylee Wilson Chair in Business Ethics
Thomas S. Goho Chair in Finance
Peter C. Brockway Chair of Strategic Management
David C. Darnell Presidential Chair in Principled Leadership
Dale and Karen Sisel Professor
Delmer P. Hylton Accounting Professor
Dale K. Cline Associate Dean of Accounting
Kemper Professor of Business
Thomas H. Davis Professor in Business
John B. McKinnon Professor
Benson Pruitt Professor in Business
Thomas K. Hearn, Jr. Professor in Finance
Thomas H. Davis Professor in Business
Citibank/Calloway Faculty Fellow
T.B. Rose, Jr. Faculty Fellow
PWC Faculty Fellow for Teaching Excellence
Thomas C. Taylor Faculty Fellow
AT&T Faculty Fellow
Board of Visitors Faculty Fellow in Marketing
Joseph M. Bryan, Jr. Faculty Fellow in Banking and Finance
Faculty Fellow in Investments and Portfolio Management
Robinson-Lightcap Faculty Fellow
Wall Street Partners Faculty Fellow
Coca-Cola Faculty Fellow
Exxon-Calloway Faculty Fellow
Lambert Family Accounting Faculty Fellow
Caron-Lightcap Faculty Fellow
Hendley-Lightcap Faculty Fellow in Free Enterprise & Entrepreneurship
L. Glenn Orr Faculty Fellow of Financial Services
James Farr Faculty Fellow in Leadership and Organizational Development
Nunnenkamp-Cinelli Faculty Fellow
Dr. Dale Martin Faculty Fellow
Thomas C. Taylor Faculty Fellow
Iglehart-Lightcap Faculty Fellow
McNicholas-Lightcap Faculty Fellow
Annette Ranft
Jeff Camm
Sean Hannah
Ajay Patel
Stacie Petter
Julie Wayne
Pat Dickson
Jon Duchac
Mark Evans
Kline Harrison
Amol Joshi
Norma Montague
Sherry Moss
Rob Nash
Pelin Pekgün
Phil Anderson
Tonya Balan
Tom Canace
Anna Cianci
Jennifer Claggett
Kenny Herbst
Philip Howard
Mark Johnson
Jia Li
Bill Marcum
Justin Martin
Matthew Phillips
Lauren Reid
Stephan Shipe
Michelle Steward
Deon Strickland
John Sumanth
Tilan Tang
Jim Willis
Ya-wen Yang
Ali Zeytoon-Nejad
Greg Stewart
PROVIDING CUTTING EDGE SOLUTIONS TO HELP ORGANIZATIONS PROSPER
EVOLVING WITH THE MARKET THROUGH ACTIVE ENGAGEMENT
