Faculty Affiliates are division-based Leeds faculty members whose work seeks to advance social responsibility education among Leeds students, our community, and throughout the world. Affiliates’ efforts include research, teaching, and service activities contributing to the areas of ethics, social responsibility, sustainability, and corporate governance, among other topics that CESR embraces.
The CESR Faculty Affiliates Program was designed to feature this great work of Leeds Faculty in a single location. CESR is proud to offer thumbnail sketches of affiliates’ biographies and summaries of their exciting activities, updated each semester. For more information on the work of individual affiliates, readers are invited to contact faculty directly through the live links provided in the descriptions below.
Sanjai Bhagat is a professor of finance at Leeds. He has worked previously at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Princeton University, and University of Chicago. He holds an MBA from the University of Rochester and a Ph.D. from the University of Washington. Bhagat has published extensively in the leading Finance and Law academic journals. Bhagat serves as an expert on litigation arising in the context of M&A and other corporate transactions, corporate governance and the duty of care, valuation of minority interest and controlling interest in privately held companies, economics of sub-prime mortgage, the impact of litigation on shareholder value, and corporate finance strategy.
CESR Relevant Research, Teaching and Service
Bhagat’s research focuses on bank compensation structure and capital structure reforms. Recently, the Wall Street Journal has agreed with his view that large banks should have significantly more equity than small banks. In his courses, Bhagat speaks about bank capital structure in the context of his personal research.
Last year, Bhagat spoke for the US Department of Treasury and US Securities and Exchange Commission about corporate governance and corporate finance. Specifically, he addressed the evaluation of how well a corporation is governed. In fall of 2011, Bhagat presented about executive compensation reform at Vanderbilt University Law School.
To learn more about Bhagat, and to see videos detailing his research, visit his website.
David B. Balkin is a Professor of Strategy and Organization Management in the Management and Entrepreneurship division at Leeds. Dr. Balkin earned his PhD at the University of Minnesota. His research interests include the relationship between pay policies and firm strategy, human resource management in high technology firms, and corporate governance and the innovation process.
CESR Relevant Research, Teaching and Service
Balkin’s most recent research focuses on giving pay that encourages ethical behavior rather than unethical behavior. For example, a company can give an employee rewards that encourage collaboration and teamwork, instead of separating the individual from the team and thereby creating obstacles to teamwork. When employees anticipate individual rewards, they tend to think only about themselves and sacrifice the goals of the team. Balkin’s ethics of pay paper also covers performance evaluation. Assessments based solely on outcomes encourage cheating and cutting corners to achieve performance numbers. Instead, employers can recognize behaviors, including the manner in which employees achieve goals and how they treat one other.
Balkin has also constructed a paper on crafting sustainable work and the importance of long term employment. Balkin suggests that employers should view work as a sustainable resource, creating jobs that offer long term opportunities for employees. By respecting humans as a non-disposable resource, the employer will create sustainability for the individual.
Within the classroom, Balkin instructs on the ethics of pay, an area in which he can incorporate his work on rewards. As part of the BCOR 3010 team he updates cases and helps the other instructors prepare and collaborate to lead a social responsibility course focused on ethical issues relevant in today’s society.
Cathleen Burns is the Director of Executive Education and Senior Instructor of Accounting at Leeds. She has developed and delivered custom executive education programs for Boeing, Shell, Molson Coors, Basic American Foods, KPMG, DigitalGlobe, Crestone Financial Advisors, Key Equipment Finance, and Deloitte. Over Cathleen’s twenty-year teaching career, she has received 14 local, state, regional and national awards for teaching at three different universities. Cathleen received her PhD from New Mexico State University and is a licensed Certified Public Accountant (CPA) in Colorado, Missouri and New Mexico.
CESR Relevant Research, Teaching, and Service
Burns has taught ACCT 6350, a graduate level capstone course, for the past seven years and integrates social responsibility reports into this class. Burns will also partner with CESR Director Donna Sockell in spring 2012 to teach ACCT 6850 Reporting for Non-Financial Performance, an experimental graduate level course for MS Accounting and MBA students. For the past two years, she has served on a panel at the Annual Meeting of the American Accounting Association, demonstrating how to integrate corporate social responsibility into the accounting curriculum.
In addition to integrating CSR into the accounting curriculum, Dr. Burns is currently writing a classroom case with Frank Selto and another colleague on the City of Boulder’s negotiations with Xcel Energy. Burns presented the embryo case at the North American Case Research Association annual meeting in San Antonio in October of 2011.
One of the professional development programs that Leeds offers is called CUBIC, the CU Business Intensive Certificate, for non-business students. This year, Burns introduced a module on corporate social responsibility to CUBIC. Using Chipotle as the CUBIC cohesion case for the program, Burns developed and will continue to teach the CSR module. This three week program mirrors the Business School experience of Leeds students, focusing on career development and a business plan project.
Margaret C. Campbell is an Associate Professor of Marketing and teaches in the undergraduate, MBA, and PhD programs at Leeds. She earned her PhD at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Professor Campbell’s research focuses on questions of how consumers interpret the marketplace and how their interpretations influence their responses to other consumers, companies and brands. Her work has been published in numerous journals including the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Marketing Research, and the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
CESR Relevant Research, Teaching, and Service
Campbell’s research focuses on consumers’ perceptions of unfair or illegitimate marketing tactics, such as manipulative marketing and unfair pricing. She is currently looking at stereotypes of materialism and body weight, studying how the body image of a cartoon character affects children’s consumption habits. In a current study conducted at a Fort Collins school, Campbell and her team found that, when exposed to an overweight cartoon character, children’s cookie consumption almost doubled in comparison to exposure to a normal weight character. She is currently waiting on approval for similar studies involving packaging and other associations with cartoon characters, such as the potential for an athletic character to limit consumption.
Research on product placement within context, such as a branded box of cereal in a television show, also fills Campbell’s time. Currently, many countries are asking whether disclosure of product placement should be required in public media settings. Since consumers treat things they know are commercial speech differently than they treat noncommercial sources, Campbell is interested in learning about whether consumers actually respond to brand disclosure, and whether disclosure at the beginning or end of a presentation affects their response.
Apart from her research, Campbell teaches an undergraduate advertising and promotion course and an MBA marketing communications course. Throughout the semester, her classes talk about consumers’ negative perceptions of marketers and ethical issues regarding marketing actions. Campbell discusses how marketers can balance their profit needs with their responsibility to society and how to avoid crossing the line into unethical territory.
Maw-Der Foo is an Associate Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at Leeds and Visiting Professor at Ghent University (Belgium). His work places him at the forefront of research on the role of emotions in organizations. He also applies management and psychological concepts to understand how entrepreneurs identify, evaluate, and implement business opportunities. Maw-Der teaches courses in Management and Entrepreneurship and serves as Director of the Leeds School Doctoral Program in Strategic, Organizational and Entrepreneurial Studies.
CESR Relevant Research, Teaching, and Service
He emphasizes the importance of linking the triple bottom line in his research, focusing on individual well-being, resilience, work motivation, and proactiveness. In particular, his research confirms the benefits of positive emotions on individual and firm outcomes. These emotions help entrepreneurs recover from stressors and result in entrepreneurs exerting more efforts in their ventures. His studies also confirm the benefits of positive emotions on favorable service outcomes. Interestingly, he found that consumers, through their actions, influence service providers that in turn impact customers’ perceptions of service outcomes. In essence, customers create their own service experiences.
Beyond research on work related emotions, Maw-Der studies how individuals can receive career and psychosocial assistance by building relationships with mentors within and outside their organizations. Benefits of having mentors include job satisfaction, meaningful work experiences, faster promotions, and less burnout. Maw-Der frequently breaks down key take home points of his research and shares these insights with his students. He emphasizes that a supportive work environment complements an organization’s efforts to improve its bottom line.
To learn more about Maw-Der, visit his website.
Bret R. Fund is an Assistant Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at Leeds. His research interests incorporate a network perspective in the examination of the social capital of founders and venture capitalists in start-up environments. Bret teaches several courses in his areas of expertise including Entrepreneurship, Strategic Management and Venture Capital Due Diligence.
CESR Relevant Research, Teaching and Service
In his research, Fund looks at the social capital of the founders and investors involved with startup companies. He explains that social capital is interesting in the realm of social responsibility as companies determine whether an environment is conducive to a startup company. Fund is a believer that startup corporations need to leverage social and professional networks to be part of an honest and trustworthy environment, adequate for an early stage venture. He is currently publishing a paper on new venture finance and entrepreneurship through acquisition. This work explains the system wealth benefits of acquiring and growing a company rather than starting from a blank sheet.
Fund teaches an Entrepreneurship and a Venture Capitalist course at the MBA level. Within this course, he discusses the factors an investor would consider when financing an early stage company. Students in Fund’s course choose companies to lead through the first due diligence phase of investment qualification, after which they pass eligible companies on to the Deming Center Venture Fund, of which Fund is the Director. Each year, Fund leads 4 MBA and 4 law students to choose 2-3 companies deserving of investment. Although social responsibility is not a mandate for investment, ethical topics often arise in this selection process.
Within the Boulder Community, Fund works with Techstars through the Deming Center Venture Fund. He also sits on the board of 3 local startup companies, Spyder-Lynk, Snugg Home, and Ultimate E.
Mathew Hayward is an Associate Professor in the Management and Entrepreneurship division at Leeds, teaching organizational behavior, strategy, and negotiations. His research examines the application of behavioral decision theory to the decisions and actions of executives. Hayward’s work has been published in most of the major management journals and has been featured in the Economist, Harper’s magazine and the New York Times. He has consulted major organizations worldwide including Dell, Ericsson, Intel and Pearson. Full Bio
CESR Relevant Research, Teaching and Service
Hayward’s research investigates the manner in which organizations represent themselves to stakeholders, particularly investors. He examines the methods companies can use to authentically represent their financial position and the aspirations of their managers. After studying the presentation of firms’ financial statements, specifically earnings, Hayward takes three approaches to understanding the data. First, he examines the level of precision firms use to convey the credibility of their financial position. Second, he looks for evidence of overconfidence in the form of over-promising and under-delivering. Finally, Hayward observes the how young companies report their practices and performance, including to what extent they get caught up in public status.
Currently, Hayward is working on an award winning project about impression management and the various ways a company can report bad news to the public. He suggests that CEOs should have a peer report to the public on their behalf, instead of ineffectively representing themselves in a self-serving manner.
Within the classroom, Hayward teaches topics in ethical negotiating to MBA students. He is also working on an upcoming project with a doctoral student examining the manner in which corporations use social media to inform the public. For example, he studies how a company such as Walmart can responsibly communicate its objectives of making money and mitigating public fallout while simultaneously recognizing its effect on local communities.
Tracy Jennings is a Senior Instructor in the Management Division at CU where she teaches undergraduate and MBA courses. She holds a degree in Religion from Williams College and a PhD in Cognitive Psychology and MBA from the University of Denver. Jennings worked as a Senior Product Developer for both US West Advanced Technologies and YIPES Communications. Her research interests are focused on the potential for on-line education in business schools.
CESR Relevant Research, Teaching and Service
This summer, Jennings spent 2 weeks visiting Musana, a school and orphanage in Uganda founded by CU student Andrea Pauline. Jennings helps Musana with hiring projects and other odds and ends. As a Senior Instructor of management and entrepreneurship, she teaches both individual team and organizational development. Students from her class lead cross cultural training, which volunteers complete here in the United States before traveling to work in Uganda. In her senior courses, Jennings strives to highlight the importance of ethical decision making above all else.
Jennings is currently conducting research on eLearning to improve educational access. One potential outcome of this research is the identification of the best practices that may be applied to improve educational access. She is also involved in local non-profits, as well as numerous Leeds clubs. Currently President of the Board of Directors for the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, she has also filled other roles within the organization over the last eight years. Additionally, Jennings is President of the Foundation Board for the Mental Health Partners Foundation, the largest non-profit in Boulder County from a budgetary standpoint. On campus, she assists with the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), CU GLBT Leaders Alliance, and Biz Chicks.
Kai Larsen is an associate professor of management and entrepreneurship at Leeds. As Director of the federally supported Human Behavior Project, he is conducting research to create a transdisciplinary “backbone” for theoretical research that predicts all aspects of human behaviors. Dr. Larsen’s research uses automatic text mining technologies to create an integrating framework for predictors of human behavior. The research has implications for our understanding of all human behaviors, including technology utilization, investor decisions, cancer prevention behaviors, and high school dropout rates.
CESR Relevant Research, Teaching and Service
Larsen’s research focuses on the collection of information on drivers of human behavior in order to create large scale sustainability models. Understanding the individual human level of decision making will provide insight into mechanisms that may reveal sustainability levers. Larsen explains how the creation of a sustainable planet model is difficult because the outcome is dependent on millions of individual decisions. Since humans make decisions consistently, Larsen and his team search for patterns that can ultimately lead to possible incentives for people to consider sustainable actions as useful. By understanding the psychology behind the workings of the human head, Larsen strives to better understand why humans make certain decisions, knowledge that can then be applied to sustainable decision making. He has found that ease of use and “usefulness” of a practice influences human decision making.
In addition to his research, Larsen teaches Business Intelligence and Privacy in the Age of Facebook. His privacy course delves into the ethical issues of information sharing, now one of the fastest growing industries. Larsen questions whether our society is approaching a point where the ability to track information is ruining lives, the very question that drives him to research sustainability topics.
Steve Lawrence is an associate professor of management and entrepreneurship at Leeds. Lawrence recently stepped down from his position as Academic Director of the Deming Center after four years in order to return to full-time teaching. His notable achievements include facilitating the creation of the Cross Campus Entrepreneurship Certificate, the growth of the Center’s role in cleantech commercialization, and the expansion of the MBA entrepreneurship curriculum.
CESR Relevant Research, Teaching and Service
Recently, Lawrence has sharpened his focus on renewable energy. His research projects emphasize storage on a smart grid and the impact of carbon costs on electricity generation. Although Lawrence led the Sustainable Entrepreneurship course in the past, he now teaches a graduate level course on renewable energy that is offered to students across campus. Off campus, Lawrence offers an executive development course called RETool. This set of four workshops brings community members up to speed on renewable energy.
Additionally, Lawrence is a fellow of RASEI, a joint institute between CU Boulder and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. RASEI works to “expedite the energy industries of the 21st century by advancing renewable energy research, engineering, and analysis”. Lawrence explains that the institute hopes to form a relationship comparable in strength to other well-known institutes on campus, such as the Nobel Laureate producing NIST.
Sharon Matusik is an Associate Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at Leeds. Her current research focuses on entrepreneurial and venture capital firms and on innovation and knowledge sharing in established firms.
CESR Relevant Research, Teaching and Service
Matusik has conducted research on gender issues, specifically related to the psychological consequences for women of being in male dominated work environments. Some of her current research also includes issues related to knowledge and innovation in developing countries and what determines where the value from innovation efforts accrues in these economies. She spent last fall in Santiago, Chile, where the government is trying to raise the standard of living by stimulating the economy through innovations and entrepreneurship; this stimulated her research interest in this area.
Matusik also teaches a core strategy course and an entrepreneurship elective for MBAs, in addition to PhD courses. She integrates different social responsibility philosophies into her teachings by using cases and examples that include noneconomic considerations. For example, when covering market entry strategy and timing, she has drawn on examples of products
Nathalie Moyen is an associate professor of finance at Leeds and an affiliated faculty at the Department of Applied Mathematics at CU, teaching in the undergraduate, MBA, and Ph.D programs. Professor Moyen investigates the financial decisions that corporations make and how these financial decisions can influence economic decisions such as capital investments and hiring. Her research has been published in several journals, including the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control and the Journal of Finance.
CESR Relevant Research, Teaching and Service
Moyen supports the Leeds initiative to teach sustainability in all aspects of business. Some would say that finance is inherently “sustainable” because businesses must manage their funds to avoid bankruptcy, maintain profitability, and contribute to the viability of an economy. Apart from this fundamental definition, finance may not be typically considered directly relevant to the field of social responsibility. However, Moyen strives to incorporate sustainability in her teaching by opening each derivative securities class with a discussion of current events relating to the material and its broader impact on our society. For example, discussion of climate change derivatives heightens awareness of ethical issues surrounding financial contracts in the face of adverse developments in the world.
In addition to her interests in teaching, Moyen has completed research related to financial decisions affecting the survival of an individual firm. In her research for which she received the 2007-2008 Charles H. Guiney Professorship Award for Innovative Research, Moyen quantifies the debt overhang problem to remain important in economic highs. As the recent financial crisis shows, firms may choose to increase their leverage in economic booms, making themselves more vulnerable to bankruptcy and underinvestment in productive capital investment projects. Moyen concludes that the overhang on capital investment created by debt may be present in all stages of the business cycle.
Frank Moyes gained his management and operations experience while living in Europe for 18 years. There, he founded Cambridge Computer Graphics. Frank works closely with start-up companies in Colorado providing management advice and investment capital. He is an Entrepreneurship Scholar in Residence and has taught both graduate and undergraduate entrepreneurship courses in the Leeds School of Business. In addition he is now responsible for the Cross Campus Entrepreneurship Education initiative and teaches courses in entrepreneurship open to undergraduate students in all of the colleges and departments on the CU campus.
CESR Relevant Research, Teaching and Service
Each summer, Moyes teaches a class in which he, along with two other professors, lead about 20 students to Cape Town, South Africa to work with local entrepreneurs in the village township. This six week experience combines American students with students from the University of Western Cape and then pairs teams of four students with two early stage entrepreneurial ventures. These businesses range from hair dressers to tourist companies to security services, each having employees and sales but seeking advice and training on growing a sustainable firm. In addition to these for-profit businesses, Moyes has guided students to assist a few non-profit preschool establishments in Cape Town. He also leads entrepreneurial workshops around the world, instructing teachers in impoverished areas, such as Egypt and Dubai.
Currently, Moyes teaches entrepreneurship and venture plan writing courses to non-business students on the CU campus, frequently focusing on the nonprofit sector. In his three courses, Moyes lends his advice on sustainable ventures, in which a non-profit is more self-reliant, rather than depending on donor funding. He describes how, to be successful as a nonprofit, a business must operate very similarly to a for-profit by marketing, recruiting management, and funding the business. The day to day operations of a non-profit are nearly identical to that of a for-profit, with the exception of fundraising, a continuous process for non-profits.
Naomi Soderstrom is an associate professor of accounting at Leeds. Her research investigates how institutional and environmental factors influence managers’ decisions. Her work has appeared in major journals both in the U.S. and Europe. Dr. Soderstrom has presented her research at universities and conferences on four continents and has been a visiting scholar in Germany and Australia. Her primary teaching interests are in the areas of managerial accounting and control systems. Full Bio
CESR Relevant Research, Teaching and Service
Currently, Soderstrom is working under a Leeds School Sustainability Grant to study clean development mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol. As stated in the abstract of her most recent paper, Financial Analysis Used in Clean Development Mechanisms: Fact or Fiction?, Soderstrom’s team “explores incentives for companies to bias financial investment analyses of projects under the auspices of the United Nations’ Clean Development Mechanism Program”. Developing countries typically host these projects to receive carbon emission permits to offset emissions and satisfy EU requirements. Soderstrom and her colleagues found that “on average, the financial analyses contain items that tend to downwardly bias the value of the project, to increase the probability of UN approval”.
Soderstrom also teaches in the MBA program. During the class, she uses environmentally focused cases that she has developed. Her courses emphasize “the importance of understanding both the strengths and limitations of accounting information and its proper use relative to other information for decision making”.
Xin “Eva” Yao is an assistant professor of management and entrepreneurship and teaches courses in entrepreneurship (undergraduate) and research methods (graduate). Eva’s research examines the sociological and psychological aspects of the startup process. Her recent work covers topics such as venture capital (VC) investment in the Cleantech sector, entrepreneurs’ networking cognition and strategies in different cultures, and entrepreneur identity and motivation. Full Bio
CESR Relevant Research, Teaching and Service
Yao recently completed a research project investigating VC firms’ investment behaviors into the clean energy sector. Through this first of a four-study project, Yao wanted to understand the factors that influence a VC firm’s entry into the clean energy sector. Yao and colleagues examined all US VC transactions between 1990 and 2008 and identified those VC firms that entered the clean energy sector during that period. This study holds importance because, as the clean energy sector is growing, startups and investors alike have a need to understand the pattern of equity financing in the sector. The three follow-up studies will look in greater detail at how venture capital firms invest, the motivations behind their investments, and the intricate details about clean energy startups and entrepreneurs.
For the past five years, Yao has served as the executive secretary/ treasurer of the International Association for Chinese Research Management, an academic organization with over 2000 members world-wide that promotes research and knowledge sharing about managing organizations in the Chinese context. Locally, she volunteers with Intercambio – a Boulder-based non-profit organization that serves the immigrant population – on community outreach projects.
Each year, Yao invites local entrepreneurs into the classroom to speak about their personal experience starting businesses. She considers such exchange between her, the students, and the entrepreneurs a critical step toward building an economic ecosystem. On the one hand, the speaking engagement offers the entrepreneurs an opportunity to give back to the community, increase awareness of their business, and identify future interns and employees. On the other hand, students learn valuable lessons about the intricacies involved in starting a business from the founders directly. This represents a sustainable model in which different parts of the community help each other and connect through education.
Jeffrey G. York is an Assistant Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship. His teaching and research are focused on environmental entrepreneurship, the simultaneous creation of ecological and economic goods. Professor York has received numerous awards for his research on the green building and renewable energy industries, authored six case studies, and appeared in the Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Business Ethics and Journal of Management. Full Bio
CESR Relevant Research, Teaching and Service
York’s research focuses on entrepreneurial behavior in relation to environmental problems and the utilization of renewable and green technology. He looks at why entrepreneurs start businesses related to sustainability and the implications of these startups. One major project York has undertaken is the relationship between policy and entrepreneurship and how they come together to promote green building. An additional project focuses on the drivers of innovation in renewable energy. York also works with several PhD students at Leeds to investigate the role of identity in social entrepreneurship and the diffusion of green technology.
Although much of York’s time is spent on his research, he also teaches an MBA Sustainable Venturing course. In this course, York addresses ways to create businesses that simultaneously produce economic and environmental benefits. His MBA students have had the opportunity to assist with his research, even helping with a case study published last year on the emergence of wind energy in Colorado. York encourages his students to stay up-to-date on rapidly evolving renewable energy topics by bringing knowledge and the latest information to class. He advises students on sustainable entrepreneurial ventures and strives to create a memorable entrepreneurial experience for his undergraduate students. For example, he created an undergraduate business feasibility competition last year. Within the competition, students can propose businesses in downtown Boulder and receive advice from local store owners, allowing them to meet and network with our city’s entrepreneurs. Additionally, York is currently working on the Sustainability Speaker Series for Leeds, in which he coordinates evening speaking engagements from national sustainability leaders that are open to the Boulder public.