Forefront

A new report from the National Center for the Middle Market and Wells Fargo finds that founders and leaders of Black-owned businesses in the middle market report a mix of opportunities and challenges associated with growing their businesses.

In this Talking Transports podcast, Professor of Logistics Terry Esper discusses the trends facing the freight markets inside and out of the classroom. Esper also talks about artificial intelligence and other technology driven productivity tools, decarbonization and his love for bourbon, football and Detroit.

Despite official documents that show the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy took steps to safeguard its finances — including oversight from its board of directors and annual audits — an official is accused of stealing tens of millions of dollars. Brian Mittendorf, the H.P. Wolfe Chair in Accounting, says more skepticism is needed to ensure nonprofits are protected against theft.

Above-average management fees for overvalued investments are a toxic mix, according to research focused on ETFs, conducted by Itzhak Ben-David, the Neil Klatskin Chair in Finance and Real Estate, PhD candidate Byungwook Kim, and their colleagues.

The National Association of Realtors recently agreed to settle a big lawsuit that questioned how real estate agents are paid — and who foots the bill. Itzhak Ben-David, the Neil Klatskin Chair in Finance and Real Estate and academic director of The Ohio State University Center for Real Estate, expects brokerage earnings to decline as commissions eventually become more closely linked to an agent's effort.

Meet Telesilla Kotsi, assistant professor of operations and business analytics at Fisher, and learn why she was chosen as among Poets&Quants' Best 40-Under-40 Professors.

Fear of embarrassment can lead people to avoid a human touch when they're shopping, according to new research from Jianna Jin, who led the study as a doctoral student at Fisher. The paper, authored with co-authors Jesse Walker, assistant professor, and Rebecca Walker Reczek, the Berry Chair of New Technologies in Marketing, found that people preferred interacting with chatbots when they felt embarrassed about what they were buying online ― items like antidiarrheal medicine or, for some people, skin care products.

The number of publicly listed companies has been nearly halved since the 1990s. A big reason, according to René Stulz, the Everett D. Reese Chair of Banking and Monetary Economics at Fisher, has been a shift in what companies are producing.

Brian Mittendorf, the H.P. Wolfe Chair in Accounting at Fisher, says an “interesting partnership” has developed between charities and financial-services companies. At the center of this relationship: shared opposition to proposed rules by the U.S. Treasury Department that would penalize certain payments from charitable funds to wealth advisers who steer the investments.

Brian Mittendorf, the H.P. Wolfe Chair in Accounting, says unusual compliance practices and "sloppy record keeping and inconsistencies with accounting treatment" are part of the problems that are plaguing the prominent voter-registration group.

Research co-authored by Operations and Business Analytics Professor Elliot Bendoly has been named one of the top-10 papers ever published by the journal Production and Operations Management.

Allocators want a piece of the private credit pie, but new research from Fisher's Isil Erel, the David A. Rismiller Chair in Finance, Michael Weisbach, the Ralph Kurtz Chair in Finance, and Assistant Professor of Finance Thomas Flanagan, shows that their investments might not pay off.

Suppliers that are stepping up efforts to reach shoppers are having to mount costly new supply chains built to the task. But those efforts, combined with investment in separate sales channels like social commerce, can lead to more growth and a entirely new future of retails, says Professor of Logistics Terry Esper.

As part of the National Center for the Middle Market's podcast, Anil K. Makhija, dean and John W. Berry, Sr. Chair in Business at Fisher, joins the conversation to share his unique insights into the genesis, growth and triumphs of the NCMM, the profound impact the NCMM has had at Fisher and Ohio State, and the incredible value that strategic partnerships between academia and industry can provide.

The success of curbside recycling programs relies on consumers knowing what is recyclable. But what's the best way to keep non-recyclables from contaminating the delicate recycling stream? New research from Fisher reveals that a combination of education and penalization is surprisingly effective at reducing household recycling contamination ― and doesn’t discourage overall participation.

Brian Mittendorf, the H.P. Wolfe Chair in Accounting at Fisher, was among 50 nonprofit leaders, regulatory experts and lawyers who participated in an event hosted by the Urban Institute in partnership with the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University. Mittendorf co-presented research into the lack of transparency around donor-advised funds, which offer a way to move charitable money to political groups anonymously.

Creating and maintaining global supply chains can provide valuable benefits for middle market companies. Those supply chains also yield unique challenges. New research from the National Center for the Middle Market and Fisher's Center for International Business Education and Research provides valuable insights for organizations interested in establishing or optimizing their global supply chains.

In a new study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Fisher's Michael Weisbach, the Ralph D. Kurtz Chair in Finance; Isil Erel, the David A. Rismiller Chair in Finance at Fisher; and Assistant Professor of Finance Thomas Flanagan argue that direct lenders on the whole hardly produce any alpha — or extra compensation over broad market benchmarks.

Explore Fisher's latest publication highlighting the potential impact that the college's researchers and thought leaders can have for business practitioners and industries today.

Assistant Professor of Logistics Vince Castillo shares his insights on the impact that the collapse of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge could have on a number of key product supply chains.

A conservative advocacy group leading the effort to torpedo top Biden administration nominees has failed to disclose some spending on political ads, a move experts say could complicate its tax-exempt status. The spotlight on the American Accountability Foundation (AAF) also raises transparency questions about such organizations and their affiliations with so-called dark money groups which can be used to obscure their finances, say Brian Mittendorf, the H.P. Wolfe Chair in Accounting.

Not a single office property cracked this year’s list ranking the region’s top commercial real estate deals, according to data compiled by Columbus Business First. The trend isn't surprising or alarming, says Donald Sheets, executive director of The Ohio State University Center for Real Estate.

Private markets have plenty of detractors. For many, their worst drawback is high fees. A research paper co-authored by Michael Weisbach, the Ralph Kurtz Chair in Finance, found that private equity funds that specialize in buying out companies tend to see their net returns reduced by 6 percentage points annually because of management fees and interest costs.

Why have momentum stocks performed so poorly over the last two decades? Itzhak Ben-David, the Neil Klatskin Chair in Finance and Real Estate, suggests that a change instituted by Morningstar in how it rates mutual funds could be part of the reason.

After years of concerns about how quickly the money reserved for charity gets distributed and whether donor-advised funds need to operate more transparently, proposed new federal regulations are now pending. Though the regulations would not create new requirements for how rapidly these funds distribute money, they do provide some new guidelines for what uses for DAFs are allowed by law, writes Brian Mittendorf, the H.P. Wolfe Chair in Accounting.