Research

Dr. Liying Wang, assistant professor of finance at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln College of Business, examines how the corporate bond offering price evolves in the primary market, where securities are created, before underwriters, who determine risk levels on transactions, allocate the bonds to investors. While a popular view is that corporate bonds are easy to price so that underwriters know all information they need, her research suggests this is not the case.

Gender pay information affects retail investors’ perceived fairness of a company’s compensation policies, which leads investors to anticipate economic consequences to the company. Retail investors are more willing to invest in a company with gender pay equity and retail investors do not appear to punish a company that disclose a typical gender pay gap. Moreover, retail investors attribute about half of the actual U.S. pay gap to gender discrimination.

Public correctional facilities play an important role in operational execution of several public health programs, including screening and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases. However, because of lack of capacity and resources, public health programs using correctional facilities are questioned by policy-makers in terms of their costs and benefits. We developed a computational epidemiology model to support public health policy making, and used data from Douglas County, Nebraska, to investigate and evaluate the effects of potential universal screening within the jail system. This study contributes to the computational epidemiology literature by presenting an analytical framework to guide effective simulation experimentation for policy decision making. The presented methodology can be applied to other complex policy and public health problems.

Some companies may intentionally hire managers with “dark personality traits” that are associated with unethical or questionable tendencies. In certain situations where an organization needs to report earnings aggressively, companies may seek to hire candidates who exhibit these dark personality traits over those who have a stronger ethical foundation and may be better qualified for the position.

Side-hustles, income-generating work done outside of full-time jobs, can empower employees and enrich performance in their main careers. Dr. Amy Bartels, assistant professor of management, examines the positive effects of having a side-hustle and its influence on work performance in full-time jobs.

Amy Bartels, associate professor of management, and her co-authors walk through the powerful role emotions play in the dynamic of the leadership-follower relationship through daily interactions. Displays of emotion from a leader can ripple throughout an organization and influence follower performance, the relationship between a leader and follower, and the leader’s behavior.