Department News

Articles about activities within the academic departments


Enhancing Corporate Strategy

UConn Management Professor Timothy B. Folta (Nathan Oldham/UConn School of Business)
UConn Management Professor Timothy B. Folta (Nathan Oldham/UConn School of Business)

International Conference Organized by Professor Folta Yields Strategic Management Book

An international conference about resource redeployment in multi-business or multi-product firms, organized by UConn management professor Timothy B. Folta, has yielded a new book on the subject. Continue Reading


Answers to Your Questions About the Interest Rate Increase

UConn Today– The Federal Reserve Board announced Wednesday that it would raise interest rates just in time for the new year. During its meeting on Dec. 14, the Federal Open Market Committee voted for a 0.25 percentage-point increase, raising the federal funds interest rate to 0.75 percent. It was the first increase since an identical rate boost at this time last year, which was the first increase in almost a decade.

Yaacov Kopeliovich, assistant professor-in-residence in the Department of Finance, discusses what the increase means for the economy and consumers. Kopeliovich recently left a career in industry to join UConn. Now he instructs students on such current issues as the microstructure of specific markets and the contemporary way that financial institutions manage their financial assets and set their targets.


Towards Sovereign Equity

Stanford Journal of Law, Business, and Finance, Vol. 21, No. 2 (2016)

Stephen Park, Tim R. Samples

Sovereigns are unique market participants in the global financial system, and sovereign debt markets largely operate in a legal and regulatory void. This Article adds an important and timely perspective by examining the concept of equity in sovereign debt finance. Governments, unlike corporations, rely almost exclusively on debt to externally finance their investments and operations. GDP-linked securities, which provide interest payments indexed to the sovereign issuer’s rate of growth, are sovereign debt instruments with certain equity-like characteristics. This Article considers whether innovation towards sovereign equity can help mitigate problems associated with sovereign debt crises. To address this question, we analyze the use of GDP-linked securities in recent sovereign debt restructurings by Argentina, Greece, and Ukraine. Drawing on this analysis, we explore more broadly the legal implications of sovereign equity, and conclude that these applications offer opportunities to help manage sovereign finance in the absence of readily enforceable international financial regulation. Full article.



‘Beloved By All His Students’

Accounting professor Francis Ryan will be honored through a new scholarship that bears his name.
Accounting professor Francis Ryan will be honored through a new scholarship that bears his name.

Accounting Professor Francis Ryan Would Be Pleased with New Scholarship in His Honor

A beloved accounting professor who never regretted trading in the bustle of New York City for the tranquility of Storrs, will be honored through a new scholarship that bears his name.

Francis E. Ryan joined the faculty at the School of Business in 1949, founding and leading the accounting department for more than 20 years. His former students recalled that he taught them not only accounting, but also about hard work, dedication and honesty. Continue Reading


Contracting for Innovation and Innovating Contracts

Journal of Strategic Contracting and Negotiation (2016)

Thomas D. Barton, Gerlinde Berger-Walliser, Helena Haapio

This special issue of the Journal of Strategic Contracting and Negotiation (JSCAN) is devoted to “contracting for innovation and innovating contracts.” From the inception of planning for the issue, the co-editors hoped to attract contributions from a full range of professionals engaged in contract theory and practice: research academics, contract managers, corporate executives, and legal counsel, plus what JSCAN Editor-in-Chief Tyrone Pitsis told us are called “pracademics:” those who straddle research and commercial environments, making concrete contributions through collaborative projects, experiments, interviews, software development, or theory-building. JSCAN is a natural publication outlet for such partnerships, since so many of the 40,000 worldwide members of the International Association of Contract and Commercial Management (JSCAN’s parent organization) are thought-leaders in every aspect of commercial contracting. Full article.


Demand for Healthcare IT Specialists Prompts New, Online Program

HCIT

The School of Business is launching a new, nationally recognized, online certificate program in Healthcare Informatics and Technology. Beginning in March of 2017, the program is designed to meet the growing demand for experts in that field.

“The field of healthcare IT is not only changing, but also expanding rapidly as changes take place in the industry, including the widespread use of the electronic medical record,” said Emeritus Professor Jeffrey Kramer, who specializes in the study of healthcare organizations and who designed the program. Continue Reading


Tableau: An Introduction to Data Analytics

The Dean’s Office at the UConn School of Business sponsored a workshop on Tableau data visualization software for students in the Business Connections Learning Center (BCLC). The two-hour workshop took place on the morning of Thursday, December 1st, with 20 students in attendance, the majority of whom were freshmen.The workshop was co-taught by two faculty members in the Operations and Information Management (OPIM) Department – Jon Moore and Ryan O’Connor.

The purpose of the workshop was to introduce freshmen and sophomore undergraduate students to data analytics technology and data visualization. The workshop allowed students to learn more about the Management Information Systems (MIS) major and potentially spark their interests in the subject.

The instructors walked students through basic data visualization on the Tableau software and allowed students to experiment with different data sets. The workshop finished with an open-ended problem that asked students to find different stock price data sets and visualize them. The goal was to allow students to visualize and connect the data sets to real world business problems.

Moore said that the workshop allowed students to learn more about how to use technology in their respective majors. A variety of majors were represented, including MIS, Marketing, Accounting and Finance.

The event was voluntary and Moore was pleased with the turn out. He said that it was very rewarding to see the amount of students that expressed interest in the subject. Following the workshop, O’Connor gave students resources to learn more about Tableau going forward.


What is Internet of Things technology?

The final technology workshop for the Fall 2016 semester put on by the Operations and Information Management (OPIM) Department on Internet of Things (IoT) took place on Friday, December 2nd. Approximately 20 students attended the workshop in the Gladstein Lab.

Professor Ryan O’Connor gave an interactive presentation to the group, explaining IoT and how it is used in business. His goal was to make IoT technology tangible for students and to teach them more about how it applies to different areas of business.

According to O’Connor’s presentation, the concept of Internet of Things refers to the ever-growing network of physical objects that feature an IP address for internet connectivity, and the communication that occurs between these objects and other Internet-enabled devices and systems.

O’Connor said he became interested in IoT because he is involved in network design and application. He used the Amazon Echo named Alexa as an example of IoT technology during his presentation.  Using voice commands, Alexa controlled other devices in the room through Internet connectivity. Other devices shown were the Awair air monitoring system, Flower Power plant sensor, and LIFX smart light bulbs.

Students in attendance were impressed with the presentation and many said they learned many things about IoT in such a short time. One student said he was very interested in the presentation and wanted to continue exploring IoT after the workshop. He said that O’Connor’s presentation was extremely informative and sparked his interest in the topic even further.

When asked why IoT technology is so important, O’Connor answered simply, “Because it’s the future!”


Adventures in Solitude: Two Tales of Life in Isolation

WNPR– As social creatures we know that isolation can be emotionally difficult, but research shows that it can be psychologically damaging as well. So why then, would anyone live this way by choice? This hour, we hear two such cases of isolated living.

The first involves six scientists who lived in a dome on a secluded island for a year to simulate conditions settlers may one day find on Mars.