Research

The research centers and institutes at the DeGroote School of Business rank among the world’s best, and our students — both graduate and undergraduate — reap the benefits of these first-class facilities while they learn from some of the country’s finest researchers and educators.

DeGroote faculty have studied extensively nationally and internationally, bringing their wide variety of experiences and backgrounds to the School of Business success story.

There is a need, and an opportunity, for rigorous and broad-based interdisciplinary research that investigates the creation of value in an enterprise. Such areas include traditional valuation metrics as well as new approaches to the valuation of the development of human capital, product development and innovation, brand development, reputation, customer development, societal and environmental impact, leadership, and crisis management. The Institute will provide future and, indeed, current business professionals with the techniques and expertise to understand and assess business strategies and the tangible and intangible assets that contribute to their value more fully.

The former AIC Institute for Strategic Business Studies in 2007 issued a call for proposals to faculty to conduct scholarly research into the content and process of defining, creating and measuring value in an enterprise. Perspectives and methodologies that go beyond traditional business valuation models and are not anchored in any one specific discipline were encouraged. Recent working papers by DeGroote School of Business faculty and PhD students along this line of research are provided below.

Working Paper Series in Strategic Business Valuation

Michael Lee-Chin & Family Institute for Strategic Business Studies Working Paper Series

This working paper series presents original contributions focused on the theme of creation and measurement of value in business enterprises and organizations.

2023 Working Papers

Social Acceptance of Small Modular Reactors
Anton Shevchenko and Goran Calic | 2023-05 | Download the PDF

[Abstract only. Full text available from the authors] This study explores the complex process of how audiences perceive a novel technology by focusing on small modular reactors (SMRs), a promising nuclear energy technology. Contrary to the idea that acceptance is merely based on technical attributes, this research emphasizes the role of legitimacy perceptions in technology […]

Seeing the Whole: Configurational Cognition and New Venture Resource Mobilization
Goran Calic , François Neville, Santi Furnari, and C.S. Richard Chan | 2023-04 | Download the PDF

[Abstract only. Full version available from the authors] Research is scant on how multiple venture attributes combine as “whole packages” of signals (or cognitive configurations) in resource holders’ eyes, shaping a venture’s ability to mobilize resources. Drawing on a Qualitative Comparative Analysis of 1,395 crowdfunding campaigns, we identified different configurations of signals for high and […]

On Why Women‐Owned Businesses Take More Time to Secure Microloans
Goran Calic , Moren Lévesque, and Anton Shevchenko | 2023-03 | Download the PDF

Examining gender differences in business financing reveals important dimensions on which women- and men-owned businesses differ. Although considerable progress has been made in understanding gender differences in mobilizing resources, the role of time in business financing remains an underexplored topic, particularly among marginalized entrepreneurs, where decisions about and outcomes related to time play an important […]

Collaborating to Innovate: Balancing Strategy Dividend and Transactional Efficiencies
Nehal Elhelaly and Sourav Ray | 2023-02 | Download the PDF

When a firm collaborates with its suppliers, it expands its access to external know-how, and thus, can enhance its innovation outcomes. However, such partnerships also expose it to various transactional hazards including knowledge spillovers and opportunism appropriations. The trade-offs are also underscored by whether the collaboration complements the firm’s strategic resources and directions deployed to […]

Blame it on the Weather: Market Implied Weather Volatility and Firm Performance
Joon Woo Bae, Yoontae Jeon, Stephen Szaura, and Virgilio Zurita | 2023-01 | Download the PDF

We introduce a novel measure of weather risk implied from weather options’ contracts. IVOL captures risks of future temperature oscillations, increasing with climate uncertainty about physical events and regulatory policies. We find that shocks to weather volatility increase the likelihood of unexpected costs: a one-standard deviation change in WIVOL increases quarterly operating costs by 2%, […]