Research @ Babson is published by the Babson Faculty Research Fund 2nd Call for Proposals Wednesday, February 4, 2009
The BFRF, Center for Women’s Leadership, and Glavin Center have resources available to support faculty research projects. Both 2009-2010 course releases and 2009 summer stipends are available. Please note that the BFRF is looking for projects that result in finished, journal-ready submissions or completed book chapters, not working papers. Lecturers and Adjuncts (see guidelines) may apply for summer stipends and research-related expense funds. Details on application forms and proposal guidelines may be found on the BFRF website. If you have any questions, contact Susan Chern (x5339).
Faculty News Lillian Wald: A Biography, by Marjorie Feld, History and Society, was published by University of North Carolina Press, Oct. 2008. The Press says of the book: “Marjorie Feld offers a critical biography of Wald in which she examines the crucial and complex significance of Wald's ethnicity to her life's work. In addition, by studying the Jewish community's response to Wald throughout her public career from 1893 to 1933, Feld demonstrates the changing landscape of identity politics in the first half of the twentieth century.” The book was supported by both BoR and BFRF grants. “The Market for Shareholder-Voting Rights Around Mergers and Acquisitions: Evidence from Institutional Daily Trading and Voting,” by Gang Hu, Finance and co-authors Jennifer Bethel, and Qinghai Wang (Georgia Tech).has just been accepted for publication in the Journal of Corporate Finance. This was supported by a grant from the BFRF.
We would like to add your publication ‘news’ here. Please send the information to the BFRF office. Research Awards for 2009-2010 BFRF Awards 2009 Summer Stipends Mary Pinard, Arts and Humanities
2009-2010 Course Releases Ryan Davies, Finance Jon Dietrick, Arts and Humanities Yunwei Gai, Economics Bradley George, Entrepreneurship Michael Goldstein, Finance Lori Houghtalen, Mathematics and Science Gang Hu, Finance Erik Noyes, Entrepreneurship Salvatore Parise, Technology, Operations, and Information Management Ross Petty, Accounting and Law Anne Roggeveen, Marketing Denise Troxell, Mathematics and Science 2009-20010 Major Awards Elizabeth Goldberg, Arts and Humanities Kandice Hauf, History and Society Mary O’Donoghue, Arts and Humanities Janice Yellin, Arts and Humanities
Center for Women’s Leadership 2009 Summer Stipends Danna Greenberg, Management Megan Way, Economics
Glavin Center 2009-2010 Course Release Miguel Rivera, Management
BFRF Final Products Accepted Lisa Colletta, Arts and Humanities, “Intermodern Travel: J.B. Priestley’s English and American Journeys” in Intermodernism: Literary Culture in Interwar and Wartime Britain” After working in the Hollywood studios during the 1930s, writers like J.B. Priestly looked back to England for cultural origins that might resist the modern forces of American capitalism and popular culture. Most, as writers of satires and social comedies, doubted that they would find them, and their comedies often reveal an ambivalence about both American culture and the attempts to reclaim a traditional English one. However, Priestly, who resisted the “astonishing unreality of Hollywood,” felt that post-imperial England might offer a modern national identity able to resist the transnationalism of global capitalism, suggesting an idea of Englishness based on cultural traditions rather than imperial power. This is most evident in his BBC radio broadcasts during the forties that embodied “the voice of the common people,” but his travel narratives: English Journey and Midnight on the Desert, also reveal his understanding of the globalizing power of American popular culture and how this power will reshape traditional ideas of Englishness.
Jon Dietrick, Arts and Humanities, “Blood Money and Bad Pennies: Monstrous Money in Sidney Kingsley’s Dead End” The article seeks to enlarge our understanding of American attitudes toward money and capitalism during the Great Depression and during our own era by analyzing an extremely popular but critically neglected play from the1930s, Sidney Kingsley’s Dead End. In keeping with the mode of literary and dramatic naturalism that dominates so much thirties drama, money and economic relations are repeatedly implicated in what Dead End wants to encode as the monstrous deformity of a “natural” order. At the same time however, as a late-Depression play that wants to point a way forward, Dead End ultimately cannot find a way to do this that transcends the money economy, and so ultimately attempts to demonstrate a positive result of the very characteristics of money it has critiqued. As a result, Dead End identifies money and the increasing commodification of life as both that which traps characters and that which frees them, the fixer and the dissolver of stable identity, a monstrously distorting force and a force for self-making.
Elizabeth Goldberg, Arts and Humanities, “Of Manifestos and Manifesting: Theorizing and Teaching Literature and Human Rights” “Of Manifestos and Manifesting” explores interdisciplinary work in literature and human rights, with the specific goal of making visible the theoretical implications of a human rights oriented approach to literary study and pedagogy. This approach to literature has garnered serious attention in the past few years as evidenced by conference gatherings, scholarly production, and course offerings, and it is time that scholars and practitioners begin to theorize what it is we are doing; how and why it matters in the current moment in pedagogical, scholarly, and real-world contexts; as well as the potential pitfalls, challenges, and rewards of this disciplinary marriage. The essay pays particular attention to the seeming inconsistency between postmodernism, which has dominated literary studies for the past three decades, and human rights, conceived as a modernist discourse, and argues for the productive exchange made possible by these theoretical tensions. Lisa DiCarlo, History and Society, “Impressions of Ebru” This paper analyzes 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.
Elizabeth Goldberg, Arts and Humanities, “Intimations of What Was to Come: Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones and the Indivisibility of Human Rights” “Intimations of What Was to Come” situates Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones as a site for exploring converging strains of intellectual and political work in literary studies, human rights, and historiography. The novel’s reception history identifies it in the genre witness literature for its reclamation of memory of the genocide; however, this essay argues that the novel productively expands the boundaries of the genre by bearing witness not only to civil and political rights violations, but also to violations of social, economic, and cultural rights. In so doing, the novel provides insight into the indivisibility of these rights categories, as well as the consequences of their split in international law from one Universal Declaration of Human Rights into two separate Covenants, one of which—the International Covenant on Social, Economic, and Cultural Rights—remains “aspirational,” rather than legitimated in the way of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The article also examines Danticat’s representations of Haitian history, noting the emphasis in her symbolic structure upon the figure of General Henri Christophe, the third of Haiti’s three “founding fathers.” This emphasis signifies the ambiguous legacy even of Haiti’s triumphant revolution, evoking for readers the long, complex history which produced the world’s first neocolonial nation at the very same moment that its first postcolonial nation was born.
Mark Potter, Finance, “Economies of Scale or Agency Concerns? Evidence from Side-By-Side Managed Mutual Funds” We examine the phenomenon of multiple equity mutual funds that are managed by the same individual or group. These managers (SBS) represent about one fourth of all equity fund managers, and the funds they control account for nearly one half of all U.S. equity fund assets. Because we can observe their investment allocations, this provides an ideal laboratory to examine agency issues, and we provide empirical evidence on this as well as fund performance and risk-taking activity. We find significant overlap between SBS managers’ portfolios, which has implications for the literature on optimal fund size. While we find no evidence of performance differences, we do find that SBS managed funds exhibit greater risk than their non-SBS counterparts, and also that SBS managers diversify internally by spreading risky positions across the funds they manage, indicating possible significant agency conflicts. SBS funds have lower sales loads and are similar in size to non-SBS funds. Finally, we find that transitioning existing single managers to SBS management is not associated with performance, suggesting SBS mutual fund management is not used to compensate stars.
Anne Roggeveen, Marketing, “The ‘Co-Creation Effect’: The Impact of Using Co-Creation as a Service Recovery Strategy” Co-creation enables customers to help shape or personalize the content of their experience. The authors advocate that allowing customers to co-create a resolution to a service failure not only moves customers from passive participants to active collaborators but also may enhance recovery satisfaction and loyalty toward the firm. This enhancement of evaluations as a result of co-creation reflects the “co-creation effect.” This research investigates whether the effect exists and in what conditions. Three studies address the moderating effects of failure severity, perceived valence of collaboration, and clarity of the collaboration on satisfaction with the service recovery. Finally, the authors discuss the implications, limitations, and future research directions.
Janice Yellin, Arts and Humanities, “Atlas of Ancient Nubia entries” Six essays about six major ancient Nubian archaeological sites, dating from Neolithic to Early Christian period are part of a definitive, well-illustrated volume presenting the art, history and archaeology of Nubia (American University in Cairo Press) to the general public. Each essay offers a synthesis of published as well as unpublished data from their excavations in an accessible fashion explaining each site’s’ importance in ancient Nubian history. These six sites are published only as excavation reports and so the data have not yet been interpreted or developed into a continuous historical narrative. As a result, important information from them has not been fully considered or made generally available.
Back to top Services for Faculty Writing Center Offers Consultations The Writing Center offers free and friendly services for faculty members. Several hours are set aside each week for faculty consultations. So if you need help to tighten up your executive summary, to proof an article before submission, or to review your grant proposal, do not hesitate to set up an appointment. Contact :Kerry Rourke, Director, x-5704.
Survey Software Need help with a research survey? Perhaps Vovici is just what you need. The BFRF has purchased a site license for faculty research. Contact theBFRF office if you are interested is exploring this option. Community of Science (CoS) Funding Opportunities Babson, with assistance from the Babson Faculty Research Fund, has subscribed to the Community of Science (COS) Funding Opportunities database. The COS Funding Opportunities is the largest, most comprehensive database of available funding to support research and other academic activities. It has more than 22,000 records representing over $33 billion in funding. Grants are available for work in all disciplines—physical sciences, social sciences, life sciences, health & medicine, arts & humanities—and for many purposes, such as research, collaborations, travel, curriculum development, conferences, fellowships, postdoctoral positions, equipment acquisitions, and capital or operating expenses. Searching is easy and intuitive. If you are looking for external funding ideas, thislink to COS is accessible on or off-campus. If you want to explorer external funding ideas, contact Wendy Silverman, Director Corporations, Foundations, and Government Relations, x5993. External Funding Corporate, Foundation, and Government Relations Office (CFGR) Wendy Silverman, Director, CFGR
The Office of Corporate, Foundation and Government Relations (CFGR) within Development and Alumni Relations at Babson College provides guidance and assistance to faculty and staff seeking funding from corporations, foundations, and government agencies to support their research and curricular development initiatives. Among the services provided are pre-award activities such as identifying and researching possible funding sources, assisting with cultivation of funding prospects and with proposal development and writing, particularly in the final draft stage, and ultimately with the submission of proposals. Post-award assistance is provided by both the CFGR and the Business Office. Among the post-award activities for which faculty and staff can obtain help are grant negotiation, budget clarification, financial and narrative reports, requests for extensions, and grant close-outs. If you would like to explore the possibility of external funding or examine your research agenda please contact me at x5993 or silverman@babson.edu .
