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College of Business
Copeland Hall
1 ĢƵ University
Athens OH 45701-2979

Research

Business professor talks and walks through a classroom while students listen

More than outstanding teachers, the College of Business faculty include internationally recognized researchers and thought leaders in their fields. Our faculty engage in relevant, impactful research that yields important insights into the complex problems facing businesses today. Their research advances both the science and practice of their business disciplines.

Through their research, our faculty members model intellectual curiosity and problem-solving. Known for their dedication to teaching, our faculty leverage their research insights in the classroom to provide an enriched learning experience.

Department Spotlight: Finance

Research highlights from the Department of Finance

  • Dr. Ryan Flugum, Assistant Professor of Finance, researches hedge fund activism, corporate governance, and financial intermediaries. Ryan’s recent article, published in the , focuses on the firms’ public communications content. Traditional finance proposes that the focus of corporate managers should be on making decisions that enhance the value of the firm for shareholders. Recent thought has broadened this focus to enhancing “stakeholder” value, encompassing what many have argued is a more comprehensive constituent base impacted by the firm, yet a more challenging benchmark to use in assessing manager performance. Ryan investigates the usage of this narrative by corporate managers in their public communications. He finds that firms falling short of earnings expectations are more likely to cite stakeholder-focused objectives in their public communications following earnings announcements. This behavior is consistent with managers preferring to be evaluated by subjective stakeholder-based performance criteria when falling short on objective shareholder-based measures. This increased use of stakeholder language is most evident among firms narrowly missing earnings estimates and appears unrelated to a firm’s actual environmental, social, and governance (ESG)-related activity. They also find stakeholder language influences the evaluation of CEOs, as turnover–performance sensitivity is lower for managers citing stakeholder value. The study findings align with concerns that stakeholder objectives reduce managerial accountability for poor performance and question the need for the recent push away from the traditional shareholder value framework.
  • Dr. Markus Broman, Associate Professor in Finance, researches investments, asset management, institutional investors, and international finance. His recent article, published in the , investigates factor funds. Despite the widely recognized importance of factors strategies in stock markets, there is surprisingly little evidence to indicate that institutional investors in practice make successful factor bets after accounting for real-world implementation costs. In fact, institutional investors often lose money on such trades. In the study, Markus assessed whether the least constrained mutual funds (Hedged Mutual Funds, or HMFs) follow factor strategies, and what the performance implications are both before and after costs. The study compared HMFs with factor-based Exchange-Traded Funds, which is a cheaper alternative for retail investors with tighter investment constraints. The study found evidence of superior performance by HMFs that were linked to their use of factor strategies, and in particular, the ability to short sell. By contrast, factor-based ETFs underperform the underlying factors that they aim to replicate. The study results suggest that overly tight investment constraint can prevent institutions from successfully trading on factor strategies.

Special Merits and Accomplishments
  • Nick Panagopoulos, O'Bleness Professor Marketing, has been named a Highly Ranked Scholar in the Sales discipline, where he is ranked #12 for his lifetime contributions to Sales (top 0.05% of all scholars).
  • COB Sales faculty research has been recognized for its impact and quality by ScholarGPS, where ĢƵ University is ranked #1 (prior 5 years) and #5 (lifetime) in their Global Institutional Ranking of Sales research.
  • Janna Chimeli, Ellen Gordon, Raymond Frost, and Lauren Kenyo, faculty in the Analytics & Information Systems Department, won the Most Innovative Research Paper at the National Business and Economics Society conference for their research, “From AI to TA:  ​How to use ChatGPT to Quickly Create Statistics & Analytics Assessment.”
  • Nick Panagopoulos, O’Bleness Professor of Marketing, was appointed Senior Editor of the Journal of Business Research (JBR) in the tracks of Sales, B2B Marketing, and CSR/Ethics. With an impact factor of 11.3, JBR is considered a top journal in the field of business.
  • Adam Rapp (Ralph & Luci Schey Professor of Sales) has been named a ScholarGPS Highly Ranked Scholar in the Sales discipline, where he is ranked #5 for his lifetime contributions to Sales (top 0.05% of all scholars).
  • Nick Panagopoulos (O’Bleness Professor of Marketing) was named Co-Editor of the .
  • Brian Hoyt (Professor of Management) and Ella Jones’ (Associate Professor of Management) research entitled “The new internship model: Examining skill transfer, project-based learning, and remote internships post-Covid 19” received AURCO Journal’s 2025 Best Paper Award.
  • Greg Obi (Associate Professor of Management at OHIO Chillicothe) received the Regional Higher Education Outstanding Tenure Track Faculty Award, recognizing his excellence in research, teaching, and service. 

Research Seed Grant Recipients

The following members of the College of Business faculty received research seed grants from the Intellectual Contributions Continuous Improvement Team (ICCIT) for 2024-2025. Each recipient will make at least one presentation as part of the College of Business’ Research Colloquia series:

  • Ehsan Ardjmand (Associate Professor of Analytics and Information Systems): “Harnessing Reinforcement Learning for Consumer Influence: Pricing, Advertising and Network Effects”
  • Adam Rapp (The Ralph & Luci Schey Professor of Sales): “Coping with Customer Incivilities Through Rose-Colored Glasses”
  • Tammy Rapp (Robert H. Freeman Associate Professor of Management):  “Overlap in Multi-Teaming Arrangements”
  • B. David Ridpath (Professor of Sports Administration): “Reclaiming American Sport Development: New Strategies for Educational and Elite Sport Pathways”
  • Aaron Wilson (Associate Professor, School of Accountancy): “The Effects of AI on Professional Skepticism”

Research-Focused Faculty Awards

 2025

  • Melissa Davies: Excellence in Intellectual Contributions
    • The Excellence in Intellectual Contributions award recognizes outstanding intellectual contributions in both qualitative and quantitative publications.
  • Adam Rapp and David Boss: Research Impact Award
    • This Research Impact award recognizes faculty members who have distinguished themselves as thought leaders in their discipline or profession on a national or global level. Recipients of this award are able to clearly demonstrate that their body of research and leadership has had an impact on one or more of the following: academic research, student learning, executive education, consulting, and the positive role of business on society and the economy.
  • Raymond Frost: Research Mentor Award
    • The Research Mentor award is given to faculty members who have demonstrated a willingness to serve as a mentor to colleagues seeking to launch or improve scholarship and intellectual contributions or to support undergraduate and graduate research theses, projects, and related activities.  

2024

  • Nick Panagopoulos: Excellence in Intellectual Contributions
    • This award recognizes outstanding intellectual contributions in both qualitative and quantitative publications.
  • Jacob Hiler: Research Mentor Award
    • The Research Mentor Award is given to faculty members who have demonstrated a willingness to serve as a mentor to colleagues seeking to launch or improve scholarship and intellectual contributions or to support undergraduate and graduate research theses, projects, and related activities.
  • Ehsan Ardjmand: Research Impact Award
    • The College of Business Research Impact Award recognizes faculty members who have distinguished themselves as thought leaders in their discipline or profession on a national or global level. Recipients of this award are able to clearly demonstrate that their body of research and leadership has had an impact on one or more of the following: academic research, student learning, executive education, consulting, and the positive role of business on society and the economy.

2023

  • Jitendra Tayal: Excellence in Intellectual Contributions
    • This award recognizes outstanding intellectual contributions in both qualitative and quantitative publications.
  • Nikolaos Panagopoulos: Research Mentor Award
    • The Research Mentor Award is given to faculty members who have demonstrated a willingness to serve as a mentor to colleagues seeking to launch or improve scholarship and intellectual contributions or to support undergraduate and graduate research theses, projects, and related activities.

Research Highlights Report

Summer Research Grant Recipients

The following members of the College of Business faculty received summer research grants from the Intellectual Contributions Continuous Improvement Team (ICCIT) for 2024-2025:

Discover Grant Recipients

The following members of the College of Business faculty received grants to support research that aligns with the Discover Pillar of the OU President’s Dynamic Strategy by addressing either: (a) healthy aging, or (b) energy and the environment.