Andrea Dittmann, Assistant Professor of Management and Organization
“Sources of and Solutions to Inequalities in Workplaces and Organizations.”

Dittman’s research focuses on developing theory to better understand the cases of pressing real-world problems and then uses these theories to design and test interventions that can tackle — and potentially solve — those problems. Her work highlights two key streams of research, including shifting cultural defaults to reduce social class inequalities in education, workplaces, and society, as well as improving relationships across coercive power disparities.

“My research seeks to put the ‘real world’ into theories of human behavior in organizations, and the theory into the ‘real world,’” Dittmann described in a summary of her research.

Kristy Jansen, Assistant Professor of Finance and Business Economics
“Demand for Government Debt and Pricing Implications.”

Jansen’s research is at the intersection of institutional investors and asset pricing. She investigates the drivers of institutional investor demand, their impact on financial market dynamics, and the impacts of regulation on asset demand and asset pricing. Together with Marshall colleagues, Wenhao Li, assistant professor of finance and business economics, and Lukas Schmid, professor of finance and business economics, the research project was funded with a NBER Market Frictions and Financial Risks Grant.

When studying the drivers of U.S. Treasury demand and how that impacts the prices of Treasuries, Jansen discovered two key findings: 1. Demand for bonds with specific maturities has large implications for bond yields; and 2. Insight mechanism behind price effect: banks account for price elasticity and absorb the demand shock by long-term investors.

Pavitra Kavya, Assistant Professor of Clinical Business Communications
“Meta Advice: Training Organizational Members to Practice Advice-Seeking with their Immediate Supervisor.”

In her research, Kavya focuses on instructional and leadership communication. Specifically, her work aims to help individuals feel empowered in leadership roles through the development of communicative training tools (e.g. advice seeking) and also cultivate student learning in the classroom by improving instructional immediacy. Incorporating a multidisciplinary approach, Kavya’s current projects pay attention to organizational behavior, instructional communication, and leadership communication.

“I study how people can generate more joy, energy, and satisfaction at their workplace using sense-making, leader-member exchange, social presence, and framing theories,” Kavya described in a summary of her research.

Alex Miller, Assistant Professor of Marketing

Miller studies how firms use experiments and statistics, and develops methods to improve those operations. His empirical work concentrates on business-to-consumer e-commerce retail, while Miller’s methodological work is relevant for statistics and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) when evaluating the effectiveness of a campaign. Focusing on A/B testing, Miller concentrates on three streams of research: p-hacking in e-commerce A/B testing; sample size justification for A/B testing with personalized targeting; and Bayesian calibration of p-values in e-commerce A/B testing.

“Decision-makers can attain close-to-optimal outcomes without the expense of implementing dynamic optimization algorithms — even in scenarios involving high-dimensional data and machine learning-based targeting strategies,” Miller described in a summary of his research.

Gunjan Seth, Assistant Professor of Finance and Business Economics
“Resolution of Bankruptcy and Financial Distress.”

Seth investigated the role of rights offerings in U.S. Chapter 11 reorganizations as a new market-based mechanism for mitigating bargaining frictions. Using hand-collected data, Seth was able to document three novel facts: 1. In the past two decades, rights offerings financed 35% of bankruptcies; 2. They are typically proposed and backstopped by hedge funds; and 3. Their occurrence is highly correlated with stock market performance. Comparing other sources of financing, Seth found that rights offerings increased recovery rates by 30%, caused shorter time spent in Chapter 11, and reduced bankruptcy refiling rates. They also allowed firms to access new capital without resorting to asset liquidations, which are value-reducing.

The results of Seth’s research suggest that by alleviating key bargaining frictions in large and complex bankruptcy cases, rights offerings may improve the efficiency of resource allocation in the economy.

Dennis Shen, Assistant Professor of Data Sciences and Operations
“Causal Inference and High-Dimensional Statistics.”

Shen’s research set out to learn “causality” from “noisy, high-dimensional data.” Using principles from causal inference to identify meaningful correlations that offer a causal interpretation, he leveraged machine learning methods to estimate these complex correlations. One dominant approach to evaluate the causal effect of a treatment is through panel data analysis, whereby the behaviors of multiple units are observed over multiple time periods. In 1988, California passed Prop 99 (treatment), the first large-scale anti-tobacco program in the U.S. Early reports of its success pushed four states to adopt similar anti-tobacco programs and seven states to raise cigarette taxes; the remaining 38 states kept their statewide status quo (control).

To isolate the impact of Prop 99, Shen and his colleagues sought to answer: “What would have happened if California had kept their statewide status quo?” The study’s findings suggested anti-tobacco programs and raised taxes would have similar effects with both leading to a significant reduction in tobacco consumption as compared to the status quo.

Mika Sumida, Assistant Professor of Data Sciences and Operations
“Dynamic Resource Allocation: Applications in Hospitality, Platforms, and Online Services.”

Sumida’s research focuses on developing computationally efficient, provably-good policies for revenue management and resource allocation problems with applications in online marketplaces, delivery systems, and the sharing economy. Sumida designs approximate policies that are both efficient and close to optimal, addressing canonical problems like network revenue management as well as practical settings such as reusable resources.

“By accounting for consumer behaviors often overlooked by traditional models, my work aims to develop frameworks that enhance both revenue management strategies and customer engagement on digital platforms,” Sumida explained.

Jackie Wegner, Assistant Professor of Accounting
“Information Production and Use in Capital Markets.”

Wegner presented multiple streams of research interrelated among the SEC, retail investors, and emerging technologies. Regarding the SEC, Wegner found that retail investors’ perception of the SEC impacts their market participation; they trade and rely on financial information more when that perception is positive. Additionally, the SEC’s choice architecture influences information acquisition and retail trading decisions.

Access to information and how it is distributed also sway investor decisions. The ordering of search engine information influences market reactions to firm events as investors react more strongly when information they deem more likely to be useful is prioritized. Wegner also found that CEO podcast appearances can have positive capital market implications, which prompt investor trading and dampen the effects of bad news.