Center for Organizational Research (COR)

ACADEMIC SPEED-DATING

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  • Friday, October 7, 12:30-2:00pm

    Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway SBSG 1321

    RSVP to cor@uci.edu; lunch provided

    Our 2016-17 COR Kick-Off Event is an academic version of speed dating. As in the past years, we expect it to be both fun and generative. This is an opportunity to learn more about the interests of other COR members, to explore possible synergies and to receive some very quick feedback on your research. Here’s how it works:

  • You come prepared to describe your research in 3 minutes or less.
  • We form pairs of people (preferably those you have not met before, or haven’t talked in a while)
  • The first person in a pair describes his/her research in 3 minutes and then we allow 2 minutes for a short Q&A. After 5 minutes, it is the second person’s turn to do the same.
  • After 10 minutes, we form new pairs and start again.
  • We continue for about 5 rotations.
  • The remaining time can be used to continue the conversations that you wish to be longer.

    We will also have a few announcements about upcoming COR events.

    A light lunch will be provided. Please don’t forget to RSVP to cor@uci.edu by Monday, October 3, so that we don’t have too much or too little food.

COR End-of-Year Event on Friday, May 20 2016 at Noon

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COR End-of-Year Event

Friday, May 20
12:00-1:30pm
SBSG 1321

RSVP by May 15 to cor@uci.edu

Lunch and conversation

Short presentations by COR Small Grant Recipients

Harsh Jha, Organization & Management, Merage School of Business
“Organizational engagement with transformational change in an established professional field: The case of legal services reforms in England”

Gregory Kohler, Anthropology, Social Sciences
“Tracing food and building trust: Audit cultures in the European Union”

Christoffer Zoeller, Sociology, Social Sciences
“Old paradigms, new policy: Institutional change and state economic policy-making in organizational context”

All are welcome!

We very much hope to see you for this final COR event of the year!
Best wishes,

Nina Bandelj and Melissa Mazmanian
COR Co-Directors

Emilie R. Feldman – “Activist-Led Divestitures” on April 29 at 2pm

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Activist-Led Divestitures

Friday, April 29
2:00-3:30pm
SB1 5100 Corp Partners Board Room

Emilie R. Feldman
Assistant Professor of Management
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Abstract
This study analyzes how the divestitures that are impelled by activist investors in their campaigns against public corporations affect shareholder value. Using hand-collected data on nearly 3,500 divestitures undertaken by Fortune 500 companies between 2007 and 2014, we find that activist-led divestitures are more positively associated with immediate and longer-term measures of shareholder value than comparable non-activist-led divestitures. These performance differences persist for over a year following the completion of these deals. Our results show how activist investors can shape firms divestiture decisions, with significant implications for corporate performance. Our work also sheds light on the phenomenon of activist investors and the ways in which these stakeholders might induce changes in firms corporate strategies.

Daniel Tischer – “Networked Anatomy of the CDO Bubble” on March 30 at 3pm

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A Networked Anatomy of the Collateralized Debt Obligation Bubble

Wednesday, March 30
3:30-5pm
Social & Behavioral Sciences Gateway, Room 1517

Daniel Tischer
Lecturer
Manchester Business School
University of Manchester

This talk presents analysis conducted jointly with Adam Leaver of the emerging collateralized debt obligation (CDO) market prior to 2008 using a network approach. Previous debates of the crisis within the context of “bubble” have often rightly focused on demand issues, in particular on the “manic” or “irrationally exuberant” behavior of traders and investors. Responding to this, our network analysis adds a supply-side explanation of the CDO bubble by exploring the changes in the structural and relational characteristics of the market as emerging. Network analysis, both as method and theory, has already been used to explore the interconnectedness of markets—for example to model intersecting ownership of assets, risk concentration, and financial flows between financial intermediaries, underlining the for network analysis tools to be employed in these contexts. Our analysis is based on data of 372 CDOs issued between 2001 and 2007. The analysis features both longitudinal and static analysis. Findings highlight a surge in the number of suppliers after 2004, not only fueling demand, but also creating a more complex, less transparent network of actors seeking to benefit from the boom in CDOs.