School of Business Faculty Highlights: Fall 2018
Dr. David Cho (Production and Operations Management) just got his second A-Journal article accepted for this calendar year. The paper, which is titled, “Behavior Aware Service Staffing” got accepted for publication in Production and Operations Management, a flagship, peer-review research journal in operations management in manufacturing and services (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.). Dr. Cho served as the first author in this work, which was a collaborative effort with co-authors, Kurt M. Bretthauer, Kyle D. Cattani, and Alex F. Mills.
The paper presents a study on how workers may speed up or slow down depending on the workload they are given. The authors first show the presence of speedup (increase of service rate) and slowdown (decrease of service rate) in servers behavior in a hospital data set, and then study how these behavioral effects of speedup and slowdown would impact an organization͛s staffing decisions. The authors compare the optimal staffing policy of their model with the fixed workload staffing policy (e.g. maintaining fixed number of patients per nurse in a hospital), which is fairly commonly used in various industries. The authors found that the fixed workload policy is of little value when workers do not speed up or slow down much, but is decent to use when workers speed up and slow down a lot depending on the workload.
Dr. Thuc Doan Nguyen (Marketing) recently had a paper, titled, “Conflict Management –Lessons from a Consumer Behavior Study in Asia” accepted for publication in Development and Learning in Organizations (Emerald) following a peer-review process. In this single-authored paper, Dr. Nguyen outlines four important components of harmonization that help to enhance conflict-management capability. These processes require 1) communicating with others, 2) learning other perspectives, 3) understanding and empathizing with others, and 4) being willing to adjust. The unique contribution of this work is that it applies the concept of harmonization in consumer behavior to conflict management from a wholly integrative and collaborative perspective.
Dr. Joan Marques (Management) had a paper, titled, “Creativity and Morality in Business Education: Toward a Trans-Disciplinary Approach” accepted for publication, following a peer-review process, in The International Journal of Management Education (Elsevier). In this single-authored paper, Dr. Marques, who is also the dean of the School of Business, provides an overview of some recurring and disturbing concerns regarding business education, most specifically business ethics. In addressing the concerns, the paper suggests eight trans-disciplinary approaches that are not only realistic, engaging, and appealing, but also prepare future business performers for upcoming moral challenges, and shape their minds toward constructive and community-advancing, rather than self-centered, problem solving.
In order to reach a non-scholarly audience, Dr. Marques has recently also published a number of short articles , including “Restoring Conscience in Business,” in The San Fernando Valley Business Journal; B-schools: Proactive trendsetters or reactive followers?” in University Business Magazine; “Setting the Story Straight: Restoring Conscience in Business” in TUN, The University Network; and Restoring the Focus of Business Education in GMAC Advisor, the Official Blog of the Graduate Management Admission Council. Dr. Marques also conducted a leadership seminar, titled PROMPT, on November 30th, for an audience in Suriname, South America, and the Netherlands, Europe. The seminar, which was organized by CCPR Suriname. (Center for Communication and Public Relations), and held on zoom, was very well-received. Based on the positive feedback, Joan will conduct a second seminar, titled SABI, which will focus on ethical performance, on December 14th through the same medium.