Each year the Babson Faculty Research Fund provides Course Releases, Summer Stipends, and funds for research-related expenses to faculty members on a competitive, peer-review basis. The deadline for proposals for major awards and course releases for the 2008-2009 academic year and 2008 summer stipends is Wednesday, October 17, 2007. Click here for application information. Application information and forms are available online at K\faculty\BFRF\forms. If you have additional questions, contact the BFRF office, x5339.
The following awards were made for the 2007-2008 academic year. Click here for prior academic year awards.
Fall 2008 Course Releases
The following faculty members will be using their BFRF Fall 2008 Course Releases to advance their research agendas.
Elizabeth Goldberg, Arts and Humanities
"Plotting the Human: Black (African) Man and White (European) Women in Caryl Phillip's Cambridge and A Distant Shore"
Danna Greenberg, Management
"Private to Public: Pregnant Women and the Negotiation of Identity in the Workplace"
Lori Houghtalen, Mathematics and Science
"Fairness Considerations in Allocation Mechanisms for Carrier Alliances"
Dennis Mathaisel, Mathematics and Science
"Implementing a Lean Enterprise Approach to Achieve Business Excellence"
Dessislava Pachamanova, Mathematics and Science
"Simulation and Optimization Modeling in Finance"
Denise Troxell, Mathematics and Science
"On the distribution of holes of optimal L(2,1)-labelings and the minimum range of L(2,1)-labelings without holes"
In addition, Yunwei Gai, Economics, has a major BFRF award that includes a 2008 Summer Stipend and a Fall 2008 Course Release for his project, "An Empirical Analysis of the CON Comparative Review."
2008 Summer Stipend Awards
The BFRF has awarded 2008 summer stipends to the following faculty members.
Lisa Colletta, Arts and Humanities
"J.B. Priestly: From Hollywood to the BBC."
This essay will examine J. B. Priestly’s politically-oriented writing for the BBC as well as his work on the 1941 Committee and the Common Wealth Party.
Stephen Deets, History and Society
"The Institutions and Unfulfilled Visions of the Saami."
This research will examine efforts by Saami to institutionalize their community in order to consider practical and theoretical implications of trans-sovereign governance.
Lisa DiCarlo, History and Society
"Observations of Ebru."
DiCarlo will analyze the Turkish public’s reactions to and the Turkish media’s coverage of Ebru, an exhibit on Turkey’s ethnic diversity, in an attempt to discover whether the original Republican ideas about ethnicity have been internalized by the general population of Turkey.
Jon Dietrick, Arts and Humanities
"Blood Money and Bad Pennies: Monstrous Money in Sidney Kingsley’s Dead End."
Dietrick will investigate Depression America’s attitudes toward economic life by considering two metaphors that dominate Kingsley’s 1935 play Dead End: one that associates money with the monstrous, and one that associates money with self-making (as in the phrase "self-made man").
Elizabeth Swanson Goldberg, Arts and Humanities
"Notes Toward a Theory: Is the Human in Human Rights the same as the Human in the Humanities?"
The essay will explore the relationship between human rights and the humanities in both theoretical and methodological terms, with the specific goal of making visible the theoretical implications of a human rights oriented approach to literary study.
Julie Levinson, Arts and Humanities
Levinson will write the introductory chapter to her book, Top of the World: The American Success Myth in Film.
Salvatore Parise, TOIM
"The Role of Technology-Mediated Networks in Knowledge Management."
This study, a joint project with Bala Iyer, will focus on the value resulting from social/collaboration tools.
Mary Pinard, Arts and Humanities
Pinard will write An Elegy for Estuaries, a series of poems on the ecosystem of estuaries.
Anne Roggeveen, Marketing
"The Impact of Involving Customers in the Creation of a Service Recovery."
This research adds to an on-going investigation of how customer participation in the creation of a service recovery impacts satisfaction. By teasing apart the impact of transparency of the recovery effort from involvement in the recovery effort this research helps to better understand the role of customer participation in the creation of a recovery effort.
Brian Seitz, Arts and Humanities
"Phenomenology and the Politics of Death"
Using his book, Being and Time, Seitz will critique Heidegger’s skewed understanding of the role of death.
Mary O’Donoghue, Arts and Humanities
O'Donoghue has a major BFRF award that includes a 2008 summer stipend and a course release. She will be writing part of a novel, Skelper.
William Rybolt, Math and Science
Rybolt has a research-related expenses award for "An Exploration of Direct Neural Input Devices: A Comparison of Reality and Promise."
Spring 2008 Course Releases
The following faculty members will be using their BFRF Spring 2008 Course Releases to advance their research agendas.
Elizabeth Goldberg, Arts and Humanities
"Living in the Awakened Dark: Race, Poverty, and Genocide in Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones"
Goldberg uses the novel as a site of exploration of converging strains of intellectual and political work in literary studies, human rights, and critical race theory.
Michael Goldstein, Finance
"Purchasing IPOs with Commissions: Theoretical Predictions and Empirical Results"
This research studies how lead underwriters allocate IPOs to the underwriter's best clients and to short-term traders who increase the commissions they pay around the IPO issue date.
Dana Greenberg and Elaine Landry, Management
"Negotiating after the Negotiation: The Challenge of Implementing Flexible Work Arrangements"
This research uses in-depth qualitative interviews to investigate the actual outcomes of negotiated agreements and, specifically, the implementation issues and experiences women face as they navigate the ongoing conflict situations inherent in working a flexible schedule.
Gang Hu, Finance
"Voting and Trading in Acquisitions by Institutional Investors"
This study explores the institutional investors’ role in corporate governance by analyzing their voting and daily trading behavior around mergers and acquisitions between 1999 and 2005.
Donna Kelley, Entrepreneurship
"Organizational Characteristics of Breakthrough Technologies"
This research has two objectives: to understand (1) the regional and organizational type differences of breakthrough technologies versus nonbreakthroughs and (2) the organizational origins of the prior art they build on.
Yoo-Taek Lee (joint with Kathleen Sweet-McKone), TOIM
"The Role of Complementary Resources in Developing Competitive Supply Chain by Implementing Web-Based Applications"
This paper investigates the role of complementary resources in developing competitive supply chains by implementing web-based applications based on survey data collected from more than 500 firms from 11 industries in Korea.
Lydia Moland, Arts and Humanities
Moland has a course release, stipend, and travel funds to write an article. "Aesthetic Reflection: Hegel, Art and the Citizen’s Disposition" will connect Hegel’s aesthetic and political theory through analyzing Hegel’s Aesthetics and the literature he discusses.
Ivor Morgan and Jay Rao, TOIM
Morgan and Rao each received a stipend and course release for their book, Experience Innovators. They have created a new typology for classifying service industries – Positive, Routine and Negative services. Having completed the work on negative and routine service industries, they now focus on 10-12 positive service companies to complete their manuscript.
Mark Potter, Finance
"Jekyl or Hide: Behavior of Managers Who Run Multiple Funds"
This study provides empirical evidence on the performance, risk-taking activity, and tournament behavior of multiple-fund managers relative to their industry counterparts who focus on managing a single fund.
Srinivasa Rangan, Management
Rangan was awarded course releases for his book, Globalization of Entrepreneurial Capitalism. Global capital flows are dramatically changing the global business ecosystem by promoting new companies, new industries, new division of labor, and even new regulatory mechanisms; and these flows are changing the nature of entrepreneurship all over the world in fundamental ways.
Anne Roggeveen, Marketing
"How Cue Congruity Affects Consumer Perceptions"
Drawing from the cue diagnosticity and level of congruence paradigms, this research examines how a low-scope cue such as a price-matching guarantee or an in-stock guarantee differentially impacts perceptions and intentions as a function of the level of congruence with and valence of the high-scope cue such as the retailer’s reputation.
Denise Troxell, Mathematics and Science
"On the Efficiency of l(2,1)-Labelings: Minimizing the Range and Number of Holes"
There is a need for efficient L(2,1)-labelings that not only minimize the range of frequencies used but also minimize the number of unused frequencies (holes) within this minimum range. These efficient L(2,1)-labelings are the focus of this work.
Fall 2007 Course Releases
The following faculty members will be using their BFRF Fall 2007 Course Releases to advance their research agendas.
Kevin Bruyneel, History and Society
"Hierarchy and Hybridity: The Silent Role of Colonialism in Shaping the American Racial Order."
This paper demonstrates that there is a persistent colonialist tradition in U. S. politics that can be seen in the political and legal process that perpetually re-creates luminal ‘no-man’s lands’ on American political boundaries.
Dana Greenberg and Elaine Landry, Management
"Negotiating after the Negotiation: The Challenge of Implementing Flexible Work Arrangements."
This research uses in-depth qualitative interviews to investigate the actual outcomes of negotiated agreements and, specifically, the implementation issues and experiences women face as they navigate the ongoing conflict situations inherent in working a flexible schedule.
Toni Lester, Accounting and Law
'Mediating LGBT Empowerment -- Does Mediation Help or Hurt LGBT Employment Discrimination Claimants?"
This research explores whether or not mediation actually achieves its desired outcomes in the context of LGBT employment discrimination dispute resolution.
These faculty members also have fall 2007 release time as part of major BFRF awards (more than a single course release or stipend).
Lisa Colletta, Arts and Humanities
"Voluntary Exiles: British Novelists in Hollywood, 1935-1965."
Colletta’s time will be used to complete her book manuscript which examines the life and work of British novelists working in Hollywood in the middle decades of the twentieth century through the lens of literary and film history, memoir, and travel narrative.
Mary Godwyn, History and Society
"Narratives and Images of Minority Women Entrepreneurs."
This major research project, undertaken with Donna Stoddard, TOIM, is an integration of entrepreneurship studies and sociological theory. The ethnographic exploration of atypical business owners and an analysis of the businesses will provide visibility to minority women entrepreneurs that reflects their burgeoning numbers and redresses their lack of representation in the literature on entrepreneurship.
Mary O’Donoghue, Arts and Humanities
Aquitania: a Poetry Collection.
Each of the three-part poetry book is situated in sea-faring. Wrecks will focus on shipwrecks; Transports will be based on the conveyance of convicts from Ireland and England to Australia in the 18th and 19th centuries; and The Ship Beautiful will be a long narrative poem detailing the end of a relationship during a transatlantic crossing aboard the Aquitania in the early 20th century.
Prior Year 2006-2007
The following awards were made for the 2006-2007 academic year Summer 2007 Summer Stipend Awards
Elaine Allen, Mathematics and Science/Entrepreneurship and Nan Langowitz, Management
"The Leadership Profile of Established Women Entrepreneurs in Massachusetts: 2000 – 2006"
This project will focus on an analysis of those women leaders who are also the founders of their firms, i.e. to look longitudinally at established women entrepreneurs in Massachusetts. Given the richness of the data set, we will be able to look at these women entrepreneurs and conduct analysis with respect to firm size, industry, ownership, CEO demographics and background, organizational and leadership characteristics, and business attitudes. Craig Ehrlich, Accounting and Law
"May CPAs use exculpatory clauses in their letters of engagement?"
This research seeks to explore and clarify the issue of whether exculpatory clauses, now frequently showing up in accounting letters of engagement to reduce massive malpractice liability, will be enforced by the courts.
Elizabeth Goldberg, Arts and Humanities
"Cross-Currents/Emerging Paradigms," Chapter 16: Cambridge History of African American Literature.
The Cambridge History of African American Literature will present both a chronological description of African American literature in the United States (1600-2006), and an explanation of the convergence of oral and printed literary traditions in its development. This chapter will specifically address experimental literature that revises existing historical and literary tropes; that brings together various genres in one literary text; and that extends the borders of African American literature to emphasize connections among literatures of the African diaspora.
Shari Laprise, Mathematics and Science
"Investigation of the role of RASSF1A in the cell death response in cancer models"
The RASSF1A protein is believed to play a defensive role in cancer by regulating the suicide of pre-cancerous cells, and alterations to the RASSF1A gene have been detected in many human cancers. The goal of this project is to elucidate the function of RASSF1A in the cell death response.
The following faculty members have summer stipends as part of their 2007-2008 BFRF major award packages. Mary Godwyn, History and Society
In preparation for next year’s work on her book manuscript, Narratives and Images of Minority Women Entrepreneurs, Godwyn will be conducting in-depth phone and/or face-to-face interviews throughout the summer. The interview data and work-in-progress will be presented at the American Sociological Association conference in August 2007.
Mary O’Donoghue, Arts and Humanities
O’Donoghue will begin work on Aquitania, a book of poetry in three parts – Wrecks, Transports and The Ship Beautiful – each part situated in sea-faring.
Ivor Morgan and Jay Rao, TOIM
Morgan and Rao have collected extensive data on positive, neutral, and negative service industries. During the summer, they will focus on 10-12 positive service companies in preparation for writing their book manuscript, Experience Innovators, this fall.
