Health Affairs Blog – We know that when patients are provided with access to their medical records, they feel more in control of their care, understand their health conditions and their care plans better, prepare for their visits, and adhere more to their medications. Despite patient portals’ usability challenges for certain groups of patients and disadvantaged populations, they not only help patients and their care partners but also are a significant means to reducing overhead costs for providers. When physicians are provided with instant electronic access to their patients’ medical data, both quality and efficiency of care radically improve. Overall, an interoperable system across the United States that provides instant access to medical records is estimated to reduce the costs of health care services by $371 billion per year.
Faculty
2017 Top 40 Undergraduate Professors: Cinthia Satornino, University of Connecticut
Poets & Quants for Undergrads – While some are talking about diversifying the student and faculty populations at business schools, Cinthia Satornino is doing her part to help drive change. The University of Connecticut marketing professor is the founding co-chair of the Committee for Hispanic Excellence in Business. In 2016 she developed and implemented a first-of-its-kind program that gathered business schools, employers, and policymakers to address ongoing challenges that are faced by Hispanic college students. Satornino and the initiatives she’s driving are products of The PhD Project, a nonprofit focused on increasing the number of African-American, Hispanic-American, and Native American business school professors. Satornino is also a well-known academic in the field of marketing. Her expertise in firms leveraging their social structures to increase productivity has resulted in an Emerging Scholar status from given to her by Diverse Magazine.
George Plesko Elected to National Tax Association Board
George Plesko, associate professor and accounting department head, has been elected to the Board of Trustees of the National Tax Association.
Fox Annual Ph.D. Research Competition: Second Place for Tom Adams
Thomas D. Adams III, an assistant professor, won a second-place award in Temple University’s Fox School of Business Annual Ph.D. Research Competition in the dissertation category. His research topic was: “Does Adding Accounting Expertise Matter? A Study of Audit Committees in Mergers and Acquisitions.”
David Weber Named a Trustee of the American Taxation Association
David Weber, associate professor, was named a trustee of the American Taxation Association.
Football Season Is Kicking Off And Sponsors Spend Big
Seeking Alpha – Football season is kicking off! So starting opening day (September 7th) the ADS ARE COMING!
Sponsorships in the NFL are big business, in 2016 sponsorship revenue generated $1.25 billion for the year. That was a 4.3% increase over 2015 despite NFL ratings issues (source). Spread out, $1.25 billion was spent over 256 games in regular season and then playoffs.
Read article
New Associate Deans for Business Programs
Professors Day, Souder Assume New Leadership Roles; Strive to Further Distinguish Business Programs
The School of Business has appointed two veteran professors, Bob Day and David Souder, to its top leadership team. Continue Reading
Puerto Rico’s Debt Dilemma and Pathways Toward Sovereign Solvency
American Business Law Journal, Vol. 54, No. 1, 2017
Puerto Rico, as a quasi-sovereign U.S. territory, is confronting a debt crisis of unparalleled legal complexity. This article analyzes the collective action problems in sovereign debt finance in the context of Puerto Rico’s quasi-sovereign debt dilemma. We examine how sovereign debtors engage with their private creditors in the absence of a formal bankruptcy regime and show how various legal incentives, imperatives, and constraints shape the degree and form of creditor engagement. Drawing on this conceptual framework, this article analyzes the role of these factors in the market-based debt restructuring by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) and hypothesizes how these factors may influence the statutory restructuring process underway under the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA). Despite the idiosyncratic aspects of Puerto Rico’s debt crisis, the potential pathways for debtor-creditor cooperation in Puerto Rico provide valuable insights on the various ways that law influences debtor-creditor cooperation in sovereign debt finance beyond the enforcement of state-based public regulation and contract-based private legal commitments. Full article.
Using Proactive Legal Strategies for Corporate Environmental Sustainability
Berger-Walliser, G., Shrivastava, P., Sulkowski, A. Using Proactive Legal Strategies for Corporate Environmental Sustainability. 6 Michigan Journal of Environmental and Administrative Law, 1-36 (2016). Date Published: June 2017
We argue that proactive law can help organizations be more sustainable. Toward that end, this Article first summarizes proactive law literature as it pertains to corporate sustainability. Next, it examines a series of cases on the pivotal nexus between proactive law and corporate sustainability. It then advances novel propositions that connect proactive law to central organizational design elements. The discussion traces further implications and suggests fruitful avenues for research and ways of using proactive law for firms to become more sustainable. Full article.
From Visualization to Legal Design: A Collaborative and Creative Process
American Business Law Journal, Vol. 54, No. 2, Summer 2017, p. 347-392
Although the law remains predominately focused on the written word, a growing body of scholarship and legal practice reflect a dramatic increase in the use of visualization in virtually every legal context. Three starting assumptions underpin our ideas of implementing visualization ideas and techniques into what we call “Legal Design” that may aid contract simplification:
First, we examine the use of images in business documents and in statutes, rather than for advocacy. Moving away from adversarial settings offers several advantages. It permits us to illustrate the use of images in a broader range of practical legal applications. It also enables us to adopt the thinking, values, and methods of a non-traditional approach to lawyering and the law: “Preventive Law” or “Proactive Law” (combined here as “PPL”). Second, we offer guidelines for using images in conjunction with words rather than in isolation, since the law only rarely abandons its verbal expression. Realistically, visualization is almost always used in hybrid ways — combinations of words and images to enhance the effectiveness of communication. That seems unlikely to change, given the need for detail and refinement when the law is imposing duties on people. Finally, our method analyzes variables surrounding choices and consequences about the process of generating, transmitting, and using images to accompany legal language. Examining this dynamic can deepen our understanding of the information conveyed; it can also reveal the potential of visualization for creating spillover value for businesses or regulatory agencies that employ the images to advance legal and organizational effectiveness. Full article.