Lubin Research Seminar Series

12:10 p.m.–1:10 p.m.

Register for Ming Chen

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Ming Chen is an Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Belk College of Business at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Dr. Chen's research interests focus on quantitative marketing and retailing. She is interested in applying statistical models and machine learning methods to examine the influences of consumers' visual attention on their subsequent behaviors and to uncover the underlying factors that affect consumers' eye movement during shopping journeys. Her research has been published in academic journals such as Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Letters, and Journal of Advertising. Dr. Chen teaches Digital Marketing Analytics to both undergraduate and graduate-level (MBA) students. Dr. Chen received her MBA (concentration in Finance) from Johns Hopkins University and has a PhD in Marketing from the University of Houston.

Paper to be presented

"Understanding Shoppers' Attention to Price Information at the Point of Consideration using In-Store Ambulatory Eye-Tracking" (Ming Chen, Raymond R. Burke, Sam K. Hui, and Alex Leykin)

3:25 p.m.–4:25 p.m.

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Dr. Samir M. El-Gazzar is the KPMG Professor of Accounting at the Lubin School of Business. He previously served on the faculties of Columbia University, Rutgers: The State University of New Jersey, Baruch College of the City University of New York, and Tanta University in Egypt. Dr. El-Gazzar's research focuses on capital-market–based accounting issues, information production, and financial contracting. His research appears in top accounting and finance journals such as The Accounting Review, The Accounting Horizons, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance, Contemporary Accounting Research, The International Journal of Accounting, and The Journal of Business Finance and Accounting. Dr. El-Gazzar also contributed to the Encyclopedia of Management, published by Blackwell Publishing, England.

Dr. El-Gazzar teaches financial reporting, accounting theory, research methodology in accounting, cost and managerial accounting, and contemporary issues in accounting courses. He also teaches doctoral concentration seminars in accounting and supervises doctoral students during their dissertation work. He was awarded his PhD in accounting from Baruch College-Graduate School, City University of New York. Dr. El-Gazzar has also consulted with numerous businesses, as well as academic institutions. Business consulting services include reconciliation of financial reporting problems with the SEC, debt contracting for financial institutions, financial reporting information systems' review and evaluation, and data mining and grouping.

Paper to be presented

Corporate ESG Activities and Shareholders' Value Creation Strategic Planning: Are They Contradictory or Complementary Policies? (Samir M. El-Gazzar)

Abstract

This research investigates whether corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) activities complement or contradict with shareholders' value creation strategic planning. For many decades, the shareholders' value creation perspective of finance theory has been dominating corporate practice in strategic planning. Under this strategy corporate operations and investment decisions focus on maximizing shareholders' wealth. Recent developments in the business world require corporations to satisfy all stakeholders' interests: shareholders, debtholders, employees, society, and environment. Satisfying interests of all stakeholders requires firms to adopt programs and devote resources to perform the necessary activities for such satisfaction, which may contradict shareholders wealth maximization. Moreover, activists of sustainable environment and global organizations such as the United Nations (UN) have been asking corporations to take an active role in reducing environmental pollution and devote resources for society and communities' interests. In response to these demands, many corporations have adopted and implemented ESG programs and voluntarily disclose them. Prior research is inconsistent regarding the benefits of corporate ESG activities to the value of the firm. This paper empirically investigates the incremental valuation relevance of ESG activities in the presence of shareholders' value creation strategy.

The base sample for this investigation is the Fortune 1,000 firms for the period 2010 to 2021. ESG data was obtained from Bloomberg database while financial data was downloaded from the COMPUSTAT data files. The results show several important findings: 1) ESG activities (total score) have incremental valuation relevance in the presence of shareholders' value creation strategy; 2) because of the voluntary disclosure of ESG activities, data availability for each of the ESG pillars are not consistent in terms of number of activities and disclosures; 3) when testing for the impact of each individual pillar on firm value, both environment and governance measures have a positive and significant relationship with firm value while the social measure, although significant, is negatively related to firm value which is inconsistent with expectations; 4) the type of industry (polluting versus non-polluting) is positively and significantly associated with firm value; and 5) other control variables such as firm size and profitability are significant but some exhibit unexpected direction, which can be due to data skewness.

12:10 p.m.–1:10 p.m.

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Dr. Mark Rodgers is an Assistant Professor in the Supply Chain Management Department of the Rutgers Business School, where he currently teaches Lean Six Sigma, Demand Planning, and Operations Analysis courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. His research interests include business process improvement, sustainability, power grid expansion planning, simulation-based optimization, and supply chain analytics. Dr. Rodgers holds a PhD in Industrial & Systems Engineering from Rutgers University, MS degrees in Statistics and Industrial & Systems Engineering from Rutgers University, a MEng in Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Practices from Stevens Institute of Technology, and a BS in Ceramics and Materials Science Engineering from Rutgers University. Additionally, he is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt. Prior to joining the Rutgers Business School's faculty, Dr. Rodgers worked in the telecommunications, pharmaceutical, transportation, and management consulting industries in various business process improvement and analytics roles.

Paper to be presented

Building Sustainable Supply Chains: Challenges, Strategies, and Case Studies (Mark Rodgers, Matthew Walsman, and Kevin Lyons)

Abstract

Sustainability is crucial in supply chain management, affecting various areas such as sourcing, production, logistics, and transportation. This talk emphasizes the importance of implementing sustainable practices, with a focus on future trends in the field. The Rutgers University single-stream recycling program is presented as a case study to illustrate the challenges faced by such initiatives, including contamination and high sorting costs. The Rutgers research team has developed a new recycling program to reduce costs and contamination, improving the sustainability and effectiveness of supply chain management practices. Implementing sustainable practices results in cost savings, increased efficiency, better quality, and an improved reputation, making it a necessary consideration for businesses in today's global landscape. Continuous monitoring and improvement are essential for the ongoing success of sustainable supply chain management practices.

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12:10 p.m.–1:10 p.m.

Roy Girasa has been a practicing attorney since 1962 and has taught in the Lubin School's department of Legal Studies and Taxation for the past 43 years. He holds the title of Distinguished Professor and has authored eight law texts (seven published by Palgrave Macmillan with two published in 2022), mainly concerning the law of finance, cyberlaw, and the latest technological advances and the regulation thereof. He has also authored over 135 articles.

Paper to be presented

Latest technological and regulatory trends in artificial intelligence (Roy Girasa)

Abstract

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) has escalated to a degree that most observers believed would take decades to accomplish. Since the last publication of the author’s book on AI in 2020, there have been significant advancements in its applications such as in healthcare, military uses, cybersecurity, and, most recently, ChatGPT. We will discuss summarily the latest progressions of AI including how it is and will affect business and professions related thereto.