Faculty

Award-winning Professor John Mathieu Combines Humor, High Standards in Teaching Doctoral Students

Posted on by Melissa Ferrigno
Pictured L to R: Margaret Luciano, a 2015 Ph.D. candidate and Professor John Mathieu
Pictured L to R: Margaret Luciano, a 2015 Ph.D. candidate and Professor John Mathieu

John Mathieu, a professor of management who is described as funny, kind, academically demanding and willing to ‘go the extra mile’ for his students, has earned the Edward C. Marth Mentorship Award for leadership and dedication.

The award, given to a UConn faculty member who teaches at the graduate level, is designed to encourage and reward outstanding mentoring of graduate students. Mathieu has been at the University since 1999 and is the Friar Chair in Leadership and Teams.

“It’s flattering to receive this award,” said Mathieu, who has chaired 19 dissertations and participated in 29 dissertation committees during his career. “It’s a privilege and an honor to get to work with Ph.D. students who are growing into scholars and then embarking on their careers.”

Sulin Ba, associate dean at the School of Business, said Mathieu is very deserving of the award. “His graduate students have been extremely successful. Both current and former students, and his faculty colleagues, testify to his commitment to his students and their careers,” she said. “His work is an inspiration to us all.”

Mathieu earned his bachelor’s in psychology from UConn, and both his masters in psychology and doctorate in industrial/organizational psychology from Old Dominion University. He taught at The Pennsylvania State University until 1999, when he joined the faculty at UConn.

“My experience is that the harder I work with graduate students, the harder they in turn work. It’s exhausting but exhilarating,” Mathieu said. “I find out where they are—and then I keep raising the bar. And they respond and do great things.”

Lauren D’Innocenzo, ’14 Ph.D., an assistant professor in management at Drexel University, described Mathieu as the epitome of an outstanding mentor.

“It is no coincidence that John Mathieu’s students present more papers at academic conferences, win more awards, and publish more papers in top-tier journal outlets,” she said. “John demands the best from his students, not only in publishing quality but in terms of professional demeanor and ethical responsibilities.”

M. Travis Maynard, ’07 Ph.D., an associate professor at Colorado State University and one of Mathieu’s former students, agreed. “I am constantly impressed with John’s passion for what he does as an academician. One of John’s greatest strengths is his predisposition to expect quite a bit from his students. The fact that John has such high expectations for us, makes us raise our performance, because we don’t want to let John down.”

David Souder, a management professor and Ph.D. coordinator, said Mathieu also sets the ‘gold standard’ for his faculty peers.

“Everyone knows that John’s seminars are demanding, and yet I often hear laughter coming from the seminar room,” Souder said. “This is because John has a gift for expressing high-level academic concepts in a down-to-earth way.

“John remains a popular choice as a dissertation-committee member because of his clear thinking, methodological expertise and developmental approach,” Souder said. He noted that all of the students advised by Mathieu in recent years have completed high-level publications during their time at UConn and have accepted positions at prominent research universities.

Meanwhile, Professor Gary Powell, former academic director of the School of Business Ph.D. Program, said that Mathieu has tried hard to reduce gender inequalities in the academic profession. He makes sure his students are aware of starting salaries in their fields and encourages them to demand a fair wage.

“I have the utmost admiration for how Professor Mathieu mentors doctoral students,” Powell said. “I cannot imagine anyone doing it better.”

Many of his former students paint a picture of a professor who is genuinely interested in their well-being.

“John genuinely cares about the success and happiness of his students,” added D’Innocenzo. “He is always looking out for opportunities, whether it is to learn a new skill, meet potential collaborators, or aide in finding an academic position.” He goes the extra mile to foster relationships with others in the field, she said.

Margaret Luciano, a 2015 Ph.D. candidate who has accepted a job at the Arizona State University, describes Mathieu as a tireless advocate for his students. “John mentors graduate students to be able to conduct their own research, not merely to help conduct his research,” she said.

Mathieu said one of his first goals when meeting a new student is to find an area of research that is most meaningful to him or her. He said he then looks for opportunities to pair people up on projects, adding that a network can be incredibly valuable in developing skills and career options.

“I must admit that one of the things that I am proudest of, is the fact that there is now a cadre of UConn graduates who help one another. They look out for one another, they collaborate with one another, and they share their networks and their insights,” he said, fondly referring to them as the “Husky Pack.” “I get great pleasure when colleagues from other institutions tell me how nice, professional and skilled my graduates are.”

Mathieu said he enjoys watching them transition to their own program and that it is like a parent watching their children go off into the world.

Maynard said he still contacts Mathieu for valuable advice.

“While it has been seven years since I graduated from UConn, John and I continue to work together and he still is a mentor for me in several ways,” Maynard said. “John is always quick to respond to any question that I may have—be it research-focused of simply career development advice.”

Mathieu said doctoral students have different needs than, for instance, undergrads. Many are juggling their doctoral work with marriage, children and mortgages. “They’ve got bigger life stresses than they did as undergraduates,” he said. “They have real lives and a lot of people depending on them. I feel it is important not only to support the student, but to help the entire person.”

In fact, instead of accepting the $4,000 stipend that comes with the award, Mathieu has requested it be put in a special fund to help doctoral students with expenses related to their studies.

“These adults are going through many of life’s challenges and critical periods—and they are stressed,’ Mathieu said. “And they, in turn, are going to soon be in positions where they influence many other lives. My goal is to also help them to become compassionate and good human beings, not just researchers and classroom teachers.”

D’Innocenzo said she has adopted some of her former professor’s style.

“As a new faculty member, I only hope that I am able to provide the same mentorship for my students as he has done for me,” she said.

Season’s Greetings from the Dean

Posted on by Melissa Ferrigno

The distinct chill in the air tells us it’s that time of year again. As classes come to an end, study areas crowd with students preparing for this week’s finals.

As the year closes, it’s a pleasure to look back at the many accomplishments of our students, academically and beyond. These accomplishments would not be possible without the daily efforts of faculty, staff and students who create and maintain a great environment for learning and growth. Thank you.

Take a moment to watch “Decking the Halls,” featuring President Herbst, Provost Mun Choi, some of our coaches, Jonathan the Husky, and many more, as we celebrate this festive season.

Wishing you and yours happy holidays.

John A. Elliott
Dean

Faculty Research: Consumer Reactions to Round Numbers in Brand Names

Posted on by Brian Kelleher

Marketing Letters (forthcoming)

Kunter Gunasti and Timucin Ozcan.

In a recent research Kunter Gunasti and his-coauthor show that consumers prefer products labeled with brand names including round numbers (e.g., Centrum 100 multivitamins) to those including non-round numbers (e.g., Centrum 103). A systematic investigation of alphanumeric brand names used in numerous product categories indicates that round numbers such as 10, 50, 100, etc. are over-represented in the marketplace. Regardless of the product category, consumers have more favorable judgments and higher preferences of brand names including round numbers.Continue Reading

Faculty Research: A Firm-Driven Approach to Global Governance and Sustainability

Posted on by Brian Kelleher

American Business Law Journal (forthcoming)

Stephen Park and Gerlinde Berger-Walliser.

The multifaceted role of multinational corporations as quasi-regulators is of growing importance to international business. Corporations increasingly participate in two kinds of international rulemaking: (i) non-binding “soft” law standard setting; and (ii) self-regulation through private rules and standards. Soft law and private regulation often fill governance gaps left by incomplete and/or ineffective governmental regulation. One of the most prominent examples is sustainability rulemaking, in which corporations have become increasingly active due to their growing awareness of the directly-borne costs of environmental degradation and the potential strategic benefits of corporate social responsibility.Continue Reading

Faculty Attend Workshop on Brain, Learning; Dartmouth Prof Offers Suggestions on Retaining Knowledge

Posted on by


Faculty WorkshopMany people think of the human brain as like a giant filing cabinet. Just open the right drawer, pull out a folder, and it will be loaded with all the information you need.

In fact, retrieving information is more like going on an archaeological dig, said G. Christian Jernstedt, professor emeritus of psychological and brain sciences at Dartmouth College.

“We find fragments and we assemble them into something meaningful,” he said. “That’s why we rummage around in our brains for the answers. Sometimes there isn’t even a correct answer. It’s the thinking that is the important part.”

Jernstedt spoke to 60 faculty and graduate students Oct. 31 at a workshop titled, “Perspectives on Learning, Teaching and the Brain.” Jernstedt specializes in human learning and speaks around the world about cognitive, social, behavioral and educational neurosciences.

During the full-day workshop, he talked about emerging research on increasing the ability to learn, building effective learning habits, and different ways to evaluate what has been learned.

Management Professor Travis Grosser said the lecture was fascinating. “I wanted to learn more about how the brain works and how to apply that knowledge in the classroom,” he said. “I appreciate that the School of Business is helping us become better teachers and helping us grow and develop our professional skills.”

Some 150,000 articles and books have been written about the human brain in recent years, Jernstedt said. Among his findings is that the more engaged a person is, the more active their learning becomes.

“Memory is constructed, it isn’t a passive situation. If it is an active process, it works,” he said. “The person who is ‘doing’ is the person who is learning.”

That’s why taking notes is more effective than listening; why talking to others is better than learning alone, he said.

What happens when you use an area of the brain a great deal? Before GPS was widely used, London cabbies had to study maps of the city until they knew every road. For them, the centers of the brain that learn place, direction and navigation blossomed. “When you use the brain, it changes,” he said.

But while some changes are universal, every individual learns differently. In fact, the human brain is a bit like a novelist, Jernstedt said.

“Our brain makes up stories about reality,” he said. “Our stories vary by experience. We all see things differently.”

For an example, he showed an abstract picture of a man and woman engaged in an embrace. When the same picture was shown to young children, they saw porpoises in the photo because their frame of reference is different, he said.

“So when we develop courses, programs and schools, it is important to recognize that how people code and retain information varies, depending what’s happened to them,” Jernstedt said.

The human brain contains 20 billion cells just for thinking, he said, yet we are most successful when we tackle one task at a time. “People who say they ‘multitask’ either do it poorly, or are really shifting between tasks,” he said.

Research by a jam-and-jelly company also indicates that too many options are overwhelming. On the days when customers could sample 20 or more types of jam, only 3 percent bought the product. When offered only five varieties, 30 percent of the customers purchased jam. Too many choices leads to indecision, he said.

In another analogy, Jernstedt noted that the tiger beetle runs about 5 1/2 miles per hour, but it does so in bursts, and then freezes, because its brain is filled up and it needs to rest it. Likewise, it is important for humans to take intellectual breaks in the classroom, and for faculty to build in time for students to process and reflect, he said.

The human brain is a powerful tool, he said. “This organ can do extraordinary things when we find out how to use it,” he said. With practice, people can even change the speed at which the brain operates.

Marketing Professor David Norton said he attended the workshop because he was interested in strategies to help his students. “We are asking them to learn a great deal in a rather short amount of time,” he said. “I’m interested in anything that helps to communicate that information more efficiently.”

“The biggest opportunity is to bridge science with practice,” said Management Professor Kevin Thompson, noting that students tend to retain only about 10 or 15 percent of what they hear in a lecture. “I’m here to find out what we can take away to help or improve learning for our students.”

Alternative Sabbaticals In Industry Develop Skills, Says Associate Dean Suresh Nair

Posted on by

Suresh NairHow do credit card companies decide when to boost your credit line or send you a new-card solicitation in the mail?

And how do banks save millions by carefully managing their cash reserves?

Professor Suresh Nair has worked on these, and other pivotal business-research issues, as a means to enhance his knowledge as an educator and as the associate dean for graduate programs at the UConn School of Business.

A project-based, research-focused sabbatical at a large company can be a wonderful alternative to a more traditional academic sabbatical experience, Professor Nair said.

Not only did his sabbaticals in industry save tens of millions of dollars for companies, he has also received research awards, started a company with seed funding from the National Science Foundation, and transformed and strengthened his teaching.

“This is a largely unexplored opportunity for our faculty,” Professor Nair said following his well-received presentation to more than 50 colleagues this fall. “I’ve participated in sabbaticals at General Electric, Merrill Lynch and Booz & Co., and have had excellent experiences.

“I wanted to use my sabbaticals to pick up new skills. Going back to industry helped me stay on top of current issues in financial services, healthcare and entrepreneurship, and also gave me the opportunity to help these companies achieve their goals,” he said. “I left each of my three sabbaticals with new topics to research, and many ‘war stories’ to share in the classroom.”

To a consumer, credit-card solicitations by mail (sometimes derisively called junk mail) may seem like a random process, Professor Nair said. In fact, it is very complex. Who gets offered a credit card, and at what rate, involves complicated analytics, Professor Nair said.

“A company may start out with 10 million contacts and narrow them down to a million or fewer,” Professor Nair said. “The marketing experts want more customers and the risk experts want fewer. If you go to a store and you’re close to your credit limit, and you want to buy furniture, how does the bank determine if it should increase your credit line? If they don’t, you’ll use another card. If they hike it up too much, they risk higher losses if you become delinquent.”

Professor Nair helped create an algorithm—using credit scores and other factors—to determine who would qualify for a credit increase. His work was so sophisticated and unique that it won the coveted Wagner Prize.

During another sabbatical, Professor Nair worked at Merrill Lynch, delving into research of banking reserves.

“The Federal Reserve requires banks to set aside about 10 percent of your checking account balances as reserves. The bank cannot invest these funds and gets very little interest on it from the Fed,” Professor Nair said. “This rule comes from the Depression era, to prevent a run on banks. However, it means that banks have millions of dollars that they can’t invest.”

Professor Nair helped Merrill Lynch optimize its “sweeps” program to save $4 million a year.

The program was so successful that Professor Nair wanted to develop a similar product for smaller banks. He began a successful start-up in South Windsor using a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Science Foundation.

“It gave me a good experience, the satisfaction of making payroll and creating and commercializing a new product,” he said. “It never would have happened without my sabbatical. It gave me a unique perspective as the founder of a company.”

Professor Nair said he began searching for sabbatical opportunities about a year prior to his leave, and that he was selective in the ones he considered. He found that industry was very welcoming, and wondered why more faculty don’t take advantage of similar opportunities. Industry is happy to host sabbaticals, since they are inexpensive to the firm, as long as an educator can demonstrate a skill that will complement and add value to the company.

Professor Nair worked on his sabbaticals without pay from the firm, since UConn continued to pay salary, asking that the corporations only cover his lodging and travel expenses. At the completion of his sabbatical, some of the companies asked that he continue his work as a paid consultant.

“It is difficult work,” he said. “I asked to be treated like an employee, with the badge, the email, the off-site meetings and everything. Sometimes I worked very long hours and I was away from home at least four days a week. It may not be for everyone. But the opportunities you get, and the real-life exposure to business problems and issues, really can’t be experienced any other way.”

After his presentation, many UConn colleagues said his work was eye-opening and that they would consider a similar, alternative sabbatical.

Professor Nair acknowledged that there is some trepidation on the part of faculty, who are under pressure to publish and might find an industry sabbatical a distraction. But Professor Nair has demonstrated that excellent published papers in top journals can result, and allayed some of those fears through his presentation.

“I felt I could navigate a path which would provide both research expertise, topics for publication, and also improve my teaching,” he said. “To me, it hit all the sweet spots I wanted.”

How to Navigate the Five Pathways of Corporate Legal Strategy

Posted on by Melissa Ferrigno

MIT Sloan Management Review (forthcoming)

Robert Bird. Co-author: David Orozco

CEOs, board members and executives are forced to navigate increased regulation, lawsuits, varying international legal regimes, and the greater prospect of liability due to stiffer legal penalties.  Top executives recognize that legal capabilities are a necessary element of long-term corporate success. A Financial Times study found that 24 percent of U.S. companies had lawyer-directors in 2000, and in 2009 that amount notably increased to 43 percent. Corporations generate tangible returns, such as higher stock market valuations, when they employ attorneys who serve as board members, and when top corporate officers have legal knowledge.

Paradoxically, the processes through which corporate legal departments provide competitive advantage remain poorly understood. The law is all too often viewed as a constraint on managerial decisions and is often perceived by executives as a source of costs. This prevailing cost perspective towards the law, while valuable, does not explain how leading companies employ their legal departments to secure long-term competitive advantage for the firm.

Robert Bird and his co-authors explain how viewing the law narrowly as a cost or compliance issue inevitably leads to foregone strategic opportunities, and introduce an actionable framework, the Five Pathways of Corporate Legal Strategy: avoidance, compliance, prevention, value, and transformation. These pathways should enable managers to think about the law strategically and identify value-creating opportunities, thereby creating long-term and sustainable value. Legal rules are not just a checklists to complete, but an opportunity to advance firm goals in a competitive business environment.

“I’m Moral But I Won’t Help You” – The Distinct Roles of Empathy and Justice in Donations

Posted on by Melissa Ferrigno

Journal of Consumer Research, (forthcoming)

William T. Ross, Jr. Co-Authors: Saerom Lee, Karen Page Winterich

Americans tend to think of donating to charitable causes as a moral, prosocial behavior, but understanding what makes people donate is not well understood. Professor Bill Ross and his colleagues examine how moral identity, defined as “how important being a moral person is” affects prosocial behaviors. Usually having a strong moral identity increases how much prosocial behavior the person engages in. However, sometimes individuals with a strong moral identity make lower donations to charitable causes. Four studies demonstrate that someone high in moral identity gives less when those whom they would be helping, the recipients, are seen by the potential donor as personally responsible for their plight, for example if they have AIDS because they shared hypodermic needles while taking illegal drugs.

Further analyses reveal that empathy and justice underlie these effects. Specifically, people high in moral identity increase donations to recipients who they view as not responsible for their plight out of empathy and decrease donations to recipients who they see as responsible for their plight because of justice concerns. Additionally and interestingly, people who are high in moral identity will donate to recipients who are responsible for their plight if donors are made aware of their own immorality, as it causes them have greater fellow-feeling, or empathy, for these recipients. Study results indicate that moral identity, empathy, and justice in communication programs are likely to affect donations.

The Relationship between Consumer Characteristics and Willingness to Pay for General Online Content: Implications for Content Providers Considering Subscription-based Business Models

Posted on by Nancy White

Marketing Letters (forthcoming)

Girish N. Punj.

“People hate, hate, hate to subscribe to things on the Internet” (Bill Gates, 2005)

Over the past decade, there has been a substantial increase in the demand for online content, but there has been little change in consumers’ willingness to pay for it.Continue Reading

The Impact of Local Knowledge on Banking

Posted on by Melissa Ferrigno

Journal of Financial Services Research (forthcoming)

Robert Bird. Co-author: John Knopf

Do geographic factors influence the performance and behavior of modern banks? Advances in technology and global information sharing have seemingly made geographic characteristics irrelevant, but a bank with geographic advantages can have a positive impact on bank performance. A key factor influencing the geographic literature is the concept of local knowledge, i.e., information that influences bank decision making but is not readily transmittable beyond a limited geographic boundary. Banks possessing local knowledge can offer products and services to qualified local borrowers that other less informed banks might overlook, including for example a more diverse portfolio of products and services to start-ups and small businesses.

Using a combination of bank performance data, and differences in state laws allowing employers to require and enforce non-compete agreements, Professor Bird and his co-author find that strong not-to-compete laws restricting employee mobility in a state negatively impact the incidence of new bank charters while benefiting incumbent employers. Restrictions on the mobility of local knowledge decrease labor expenses because workers lack the bargaining power of being able to take a job with a local rival. Results indicate that increases in labor restrictions are positively correlated with profitability for established banks.  Thus, geographically-specific human capital remains an important differentiating factor that influences bank behavior and competition counter to standard theoretical accounts that might imply otherwise.