91ÉçÇø

Please join us in remembering Robyn Fadden, 91ÉçÇø Delve’s Managing Editor since 2021, who passed away in the early hours of September 23, 2024. Robyn was a beacon of light at the Desautels Faculty of Management, a trusted leader and colleague, and – above all else – a friend. Even though she’s no longer here, her spirit echoes through her work and in our hearts. Rest in peace, Robyn.

Activist hedge funds exert their influence in several ways, but recently they’ve been trying something new: acquiring board seats on their portfolio companies. Once there, fund representatives can advise and monitor company leadership to maximize the company’s value. Ipek Yavuz, Associate Professor of Finance at the Desautels Faculty of Management, studied the impact of activist board members who perform advisory and monitoring roles in target portfolio companies. She shares her findings on the latest 91ÉçÇø Delve podcast episode.

Post-doctoral fellow Christopher Luederitz and Professor Animesh Animesh tested different messages that could convince SMEs to go green. Their findings could be useful for governments, NGOs, and other organizations hoping to promote corporate social responsibility among small business leaders. The key takeaway: don’t make your message solely about money.

Taha Havakhor is a Professor of Information Systems at 91ÉçÇø’s Desautels Faculty of Management. In a recent study, he looked at how retail investors used data from a financial API – that’s an Application Programming Interface – to inform their investment decisions. He found that, when using stock pricing data pulled from an API, consumer investors were prone to making riskier investment choices. He tells us why in the latest episode of the 91ÉçÇø Delve podcast.

Professor Ernan Haruvy found that micro-investors who cared about sustainability were more likely to accept financial losses. This goes against conventional knowledge about market participation. Returns are, after all, the whole point. If the goal is to grow your wealth, why are green micro-investors so willing to give it up?

In a recent study, Professor Mehmet Gumus learned that consumers are reluctant to pay more for sustainable clothing. This creates a conundrum for fast fashion companies. Sustainable manufacturing is expensive, so firms want to know their investment will be worth it. But, if they’re going to succeed, major stakeholders will have to join forces to make an impact. Gumus believes companies, consumers, and public institutions can work together to help fast fashion change fast. He joins us on the 91ÉçÇø Delve podcast to talk about how.

How do you build trust between management and warehouse workers? Algorithmic task assignment could help. Professor Bing Bai measured workers’ reactions to receiving tasks from an algorithm-based work assignment process. Her findings show us how algorithms affect perceptions of fairness and worker productivity, and they open the door to an exciting area of algorithmic research in business logistics. Here’s how.

In 2014, a commercial spacecraft crashed during a test flight, killing one pilot and severely injuring the other. What followed was a coming-together of industry leaders, driven by a shared passion for exploration and the need to legitimize a nascent commercial space industry. Through this incident, we learn about the behaviours of nascent industries after an extreme event. We also pick up important lessons in risk-management and stakeholder relations in high-risk fields. Sen Chai, Professor of Organizational Behaviour at the Desautels Faculty of Management, documented it all in a research paper. She joins us on the 91ÉçÇø Delve podcast to talk about it.

Every peer group has its own set of norms, rules, and values, which heavily influences individuals’ behaviours – sometimes more so than the law itself. Within organizations, these social dynamics can enable unethical and illegal behaviour, which in turn can have severe consequences on people and communities. Here’s a look at the concept of social dynamics, how it sometimes enables misconduct in organizations, and how it can be leveraged to deter unethical behaviour.