A New Wave
Attracting seven new faculty members in a highly competitive recruiting environment is a big deal. We’re celebrating the arrival of this new wave of professors by showcasing their research interests against backdrops that reflect something personal about each one.
Paul Calluzzo
Assistant Professor, Finance
EDUCATION: PhD from Rutgers Business School
RESEARCH INTERESTS: Institutional investors, corporate governance, mutual fund performance, empirical asset pricing
WHAT I’M WORKING ON: My research examines the role human interaction plays in financial decision-making. In one project, I identify corporate executives on mutual fund boards and examine the influence they exert on the investment, proxy voting and hiring decisions of the fund. In another, I explore the role teamwork plays in shareholder activism, investigating how individual activists can invoke big changes at target firms by working together.
ON THE PERSONAL SIDE: I made brief appearances in films directed by Spike Lee and Lauren Mucciolo and have produced a short film. I made it 56 percent of the way through the Kingston Restaurant Challenge (to eat at every downtown restaurant before the end of 2014). I’ve given myself an extension and plan to hit the remaining ones by the end of 2015.
Abhirup Chakrabarti
Abhirup Chakrabarti
Assistant Professor, Strategy and Organizations
EDUCATION / PREVIOUS APPOINTMENT: PhD from Duke University; Assistant Professor, Desautels Faculty of Management (McGill)
RESEARCH INTERESTS: Corporate strategy; geographic search, choice, and location; macroeconomic policy environment.
WHAT I’M WORKING ON: I study corporate business dynamics, exploring how firms scan and search for resources, select among alternatives, integrate across business units, overcome institutional constraints, and respond to environmental challenges. I study these questions in the context of asset reconfiguration, where firms reorganize using strategies of business acquisition, internal development, or asset divestiture.
ON THE PERSONAL SIDE: I enjoy playing the slide guitar, reading classics, painting in oil, and listening to country, folk, and 70s rock music.
Evan Dudley
Evan Dudley
Assistant Professor, Finance
EDUCATION / PREVIOUS APPOINTMENT: PhD from the University of Rochester; Assistant Professor, University of Florida
RESEARCH INTERESTS: Corporate finance, hedge funds.
WHAT I’M WORKING ON: I’m investigating why corporations seem to adjust slowly to a target leverage ratio that trades off the tax benefits of debt with bankruptcy costs. My co-researcher and I find that corporations vary debt type instead of debt amount in response to shocks to their operating environment and the supply of credit. Another project studies the effect of volatility on capital structure. We show that financial frictions prevent corporations from de-leveraging in response to unexpected increases in asset volatility.
ON THE PERSONAL SIDE: I’m a big fan of water sports. I enjoy sailing and windsurfing and am looking forward to taking up kite-surfing.
Nicole Robitaille
Nicole Robitaille
Assistant Professor, Marketing
EDUCATION: PhD from Rotman School of Management (U of T)
RESEARCH INTERESTS: Consumer behaviour, judgment and decision-making, morality, social marketing
WHAT I’M WORKING ON: My research interests lie in the areas of consumer behaviour and decision-making and their implications for policy. Specifically, my focus is on understanding how individuals make decisions and why they choose to engage in certain actions, and on discovering ways in which we can help them improve their decisions and behaviours. Within these areas, my interests are diverse, and I have focused on the following topics: moral decisions, financial decisions, temporal decisions, and health decisions.
ON THE PERSONAL SIDE: I am an avid scuba diver. I’ve explored numerous local shipwrecks and have scuba-dived with sharks and dolphins.
Anton Ovchinnikov
Anton Ovchinnikov
Associate Professor, Operations Management
EDUCATION / PREVIOUS APPOINTMENT: PhD from Rotman School of Management (U of T); Assistant Professor, University of Virginia Darden School of Business
RESEARCH INTERESTS: Operations management, management science, intersection of operations with marketing and economics
WHAT I’M WORKING ON: Much of my work is in the area of behavioural operations, a sub-field of management science that integrates the understanding of human behaviour into the study of how organizations operate. One project deals with the implications of behavioural procurement on competition between firms. Another looks at the behavioural aspects of mark-down management, from both consumers’ and managers’ perspectives. I have several non-behavioural projects in the sustainability area. These study how individual firms and competitive industries respond to incentives for adopting green technology.
ON THE PERSONAL SIDE: I was born in Siberia. I love traveling and have been to more than 40 countries. I used to downhill ski competitively, and am also a windsurfing enthusiast, so I’m very excited to be near the lake.
Ryan Riordan
Ryan Riordan
Assistant Professor, Finance
EDUCATION / PREVIOUS APPOINTMENT: PhD from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany); Assistant Professor at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology
RESEARCH INTERESTS: Algorithmic and high-frequency trading, empirical asset-pricing, financial markets, international finance, market microstructure, retail and institutional trading
WHAT I’M WORKING ON: I look at how investors and exchanges use high-frequency trading systems and how these impact financial markets. Too much technology, or its misapplication, can result in markets that are either expensive to trade in or unstable. Not enough technology can impact investors’ ability to meet their investment targets. I’m also looking at whether faster price discovery is better for markets. I’m exploring the impact of ever faster price discovery (information being reflected in the market prices) on other market factors, such as liquidity, short-term volatility, and long-term price discovery and efficiency.
ON THE PERSONAL SIDE: When I was younger, a team paid me to play rugby. After a while, they decided it wasn’t worth their money.
Matthias Spitzmueller
Matthias Spitzmueller
Assistant Professor, Organizational Behaviour
EDUCATION/PREVIOUS APPOINTMENT: PhD from Michigan State University; Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore.
RESEARCH INTERESTS: Organizational citizenship behaviours, helping behaviours, social exchanges, team motivation and performance.
WHAT I’M WORKING ON: Most of my recent research focuses on the study of helping behaviours in organizations. In one study, I investigate how group composition and the ethnicity of the helper influence the consequences of helping others in organizations. My co-authors and I find that sole ethnic minorities on teams experience negative consequences when helping others because majority members attribute these acts as attempts by the minorities to ingratiate themselves. In a second study, I show that helping is most beneficial when performed by employees with certain personality traits.
ON THE PERSONAL SIDE: I’m a football (soccer) fanatic. I’ve played for more than 30 years, most recently for the German All-Stars Singapore. I also worked as a TV commentator and studio analyst in Singapore. I met my future wife Jessica Rangel Rojas in 2002, when we were both international exchange students at Queen’s.