Research
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: Management
Research highlights from the Department of Strategic Leadership and Management
- Luke Pittaway, Copeland Professor of Entrepreneurship, research topics related to entrepreneurship such as entrepreneurial behavior, networking, and corporate venturing. His recent article titled “Internal corporate venturing: Riding the relational rollercoaster through sensemaking and sensegiving reconfiguration” is published in the International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research. This research focuses on internal corporate venturing, which is one way that large corporations, like Google, engage in entrepreneurship. Such venturing comes in different forms. Internal efforts include skunkworks, individual start-ups within divisions, organizational-wide incubators, and corporate venturing units (CVUs). External forms incorporate corporate venture capital, talent and technology acquisitions, and collaborations with small businesses. His study explores how managers balance the varying demands of a portfolio of such new enterprises within the firm. Luke and his colleagues conducted 42 interviews with CVU managers and leaders of new internal ventures. These managers have a unique role. They must meet the company's demands for a quick return on their investments while protecting internal entrepreneurs, giving the ventures time to flourish. This research provides insight into how managers navigate these challenges (i.e., they simultaneously create a ‘venturing language’ to justify internal entrepreneurship while developing organizational processes to manage the successful launch of ventures) and offers recommendations to help managers cope with the pressures of such CVU management.
- Tammy Rapp (Robert H. Freeman Associate Professor of Management) researches individual and team behaviors within organizations. Her recent article titled “It’s about time (management)!: Role overload as a bridge explaining relationships between helping, voice, and objective sales performance” is published in the Journal of Business Research. This research focuses on organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs), which are “extra” behaviors falling outside employees’ formal job responsibilities that they engage in to be “good citizens” of their organizations. Examples include helping new employees, helping coworkers with their workload, and speaking up about ways to improve their workplace. Although OCBs benefit organizations, they can be “costly” for employees because they can result in work-related strains and consume time that would otherwise be dedicated to job performance. In a study of 302 salespeople and 74 supervisors in a U.S.-based information technology firm, Tammy and her colleagues found that employees who demonstrated more OCBs experienced higher levels of role overload (i.e., a feeling of having insufficient time to complete work tasks), which led to lower levels of job performance. However, employees with strong time management skills were able to offset these effects such that they were able to engage in OCBs without feeling overloaded or harming their job performance. The study helps us to understand which employees are most likely to experience negative consequences when displaying OCBs, and identifies time management skill as a factor that can buffer against those harmful effects.
Special Merits and Accomplishments
College of Business faculty members serve as Editors, Associate Editors, and members of the Editorial Review Board for over 50 academic journals, demonstrating their impact within their specific disciplines.
- 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).
- Adam Rapp, Ralph & Luci Schey Professor of Sales, has been named a Highly Ranked Scholar in the Sales discipline, where he is ranked #9 for his lifetime contributions to Sales (top 0.05% of all scholars), and ranked #3 (prior 5 years).
- COB Sales faculty research has been recognized for its impact and quality by ScholarGPS, where Ohio University is ranked #1 (prior 5 years) and #5 (lifetime) in their Global Institutional Ranking of Sales research.
- Guarav Bansal's research on AI titled “The Ambivalent Nature of Trust in AI” was featured as a “Best Paper” at the 2024 Academy of Management Meeting.
- 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.
- Luke Pittaway, Copeland Professor of Entrepreneurship, was awarded the 2023 Ohio University Presidential Research Scholar Award.
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 2023-2024. Each recipient will make at least one presentation as part of the College of Business’ Research Colloquia series:
- Tammy Rapp (Associate Professor of Management): "Role Enrichment and Role Conflict in Multiple Team Memberships: A Mixed Method Approach"
- Jeffrey Anderson (Professor of Instruction in Management): "Global University Partnerships: Ohio and Pecs, A Case Study"
- Grigorios Livanis (Associate Professor of Management) & Mike Geringer (Professor of International Strategy): "A Network Analysis of Productivity and Knowledge Diffusion in International Business"
Research-Focused Faculty Awards
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.
2022
- Sinan Gokkaya: Excellence in Intellectual Contributions
- This award recognizes outstanding intellectual contributions in both qualitative and quantitative publications.
- Luke Pittaway: 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 2023-2024:
- Sinan Gokkaya (Professor of Finance)
- Tammy Rapp (Associate Professor of Management)
- Liz Wanless (Associate Professor in Sports Administration)
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.
- David Brown (Associate Professor of Instruction in Management): "Lifetimes of Learning: Healthy Aging and Perceptions of Wellbeing in the Professoriate"
- Gaurav Bansal (O'Bleness Full Professor of Analytics & Information Systems): "Understanding the Impact of AI Transparency in Healthcare Settings on Patient Satisfaction"