Department News

Articles about activities within the academic departments

Precarious Work: The Need for Flextime Employment Rights and Proposals for Reform

Posted on by Nancy White

Berkeley Journal of Employment & Labor Law, Vol. 37, Issue 1 (2016)

Robert Bird

Millions of Americans are under intense pressure to balance work and family responsibilities. The feeling of overwork is rampant, with nearly half of employees feeling overworked or overwhelmed by their workplace responsibilities. This Article argues for a suite of legal protections that would allow working families, especially single-parent and low-income families, basic access to the rights and protections of flexible work. These protections include amending FLSA rides to better protect non-exempt workers from intrusions into their non-working time, as well as expanding the use of the FMLA to encourage more use of flexible leave. This article also recommends adoption of right-to-request legislation, enabling employees to request a flexible schedule and have that request meaningfully evaluated by their employer without fear of retaliation. Full article.

Facebook Group Urges Preservation of Old Stanley Buildings

Posted on by Melissa Ferrigno

New Britain Herald – When it was announced that Stanley Black & Decker was planning to demolish all nine buildings it owns east of Curtis Street and south of Myrtle Street, some residents celebrated an opportunity revitalize the corner, while others were upset that their beloved city would be losing a bit of its history.

Turning Corporate Compliance into Competitive Advantage

Posted on by Nancy White

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law, Vol. 19, No.2 (2017)

Robert Bird, Stephen Park

Compliance is a core concern for corporate governance. Firms devote tremendous amounts of money, personnel, and attention to ensure compliance with regulatory mandates — and yet compliance failures proliferate. This is because the current static and binary view of compliance hinders both efficient compliance by firms and effective regulation by government. Understanding the reality that compliance is both dynamic and driven by efficiency empowers firms to evolve past mere conformance and into wealth maximizing innovation. This Article develops an efficient investment-risk (EIR) model of compliance that captures the tradeoffs between cost and risk, parses the oft-commingled concepts of technical efficiency and allocative efficiency, and enables firms to obtain a competitive advantage through compliance. We also turn our attention to regulators, and highlight how the EIR model can enhance regulatory design, foster regulator-firm cooperation, and advance the mutual goals of business and society. Full article.

Gender Equality: Are We Making Progress?

Posted on by Claire Hall
Management professor Gary Powell has spent most of his 41-year UConn career as an expert on gender differences in the workplace. (Nathan Oldham/UConn School of Business)
Management professor Gary Powell has spent most of his 41-year UConn career as an expert on gender differences in the workplace. (Nathan Oldham/UConn School of Business)

Retiring Professor Gary Powell, Expert in Gender Equality in the Workplace, Recognizes Some Progress in 40+ Years, But Not Enough

Management professor Gary Powell has spent most of his 41-year UConn career as an expert on gender differences in the workplace, and is widely recognized as a pioneer in the field.

Powell announced his retirement on June 1, but will remain active at the University, teaching in the fall semesters and continuing to add to a lengthy list of research achievements. Continue Reading

There’s One Major Thing Everyone Gets Wrong About Amazon and the Retail Apocalypse

Posted on by Melissa Ferrigno

Business Insider – Amazon and the rise of online shopping have been repeatedly blamed for the staggering rate of store closures and bankruptcies disrupting the retail industry in the US.

But e-commerce accounts for only a small fraction of the problems pushing many American retailers to the brink of death, according to Doug Stephens, a retail-industry consultant.

Foxwoods June slots revenue climbs 2.7%

Posted on by Melissa Ferrigno

Norwich Bulletin – Foxwoods Resort Casino’s slot-machine revenue for June rose 2.7 percent compared with a year earlier but was down compared with May.

Mohegan Sun reported an 8 percent revenue gain for June, making it the first time in three months that both casinos reported revenue gains in the same month. But don’t break out the champagne just yet.

The increases say more about the strength of economies in neighboring states than about Connecticut’s situation, said Fred Carstensen, a University of Connecticut finance professor who is director of the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis.

What Do Measures of Real-Time Corporate Sales Tell Us About Earnings Surprises and Post-Announcement Returns?

Posted on by Melissa Ferrigno

Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation – Namho Kang is Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of Connecticut. This post is based on a recent paper authored by Professor Kang; Kenneth A. Froot, Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research; Gideon Ozik, Affiliate Professor of Finance at EDHEC Business School; and Ronnie Sadka, Professor of Finance at Boston College Carroll School of Management.