Every quarter, the National Center for the Middle Market surveys 1,000 executives. One thing we ask is whether their company’s overall performance has improved, deteriorated or stayed the same in the past year.

Unlike private foundations, which generally must distribute at least 5 percent of their investments each year to operating charities, there is no grant-making requirement for donor-advised funds. Critics call them rest stops for charity dollars. Brian Mittendorf, an accounting professor at Ohio State University, said it’s “crazy” that large sponsors of donor-advised funds “are not subject to the same disclosure requirements that private foundations are.”

An outsized commitment to investing in innovation is a major distinguishing characteristic of “growth champions” of the mid-market—those 10 percent of companies identified by the National Center for the Middle Market (NCMM) as the biggest gainers over time.

In a recent paper, economists Söhnke Bartram, Gregory Brown and Fisher's René M. Stulz show that the increasing domination of public markets by large old companies — the superstars that economists are warning about — is responsible for the increasing correlations between stocks.

A group called the Risk Institute at Ohio State University is looking at what can be done to change habits and behaviors about cellphones and driving.

No one likes an egomaniac, but sometimes a little arrogance may be just what the C-suite needs. “To team members who expect leaders ... to take charge and give orders, humble leaders may be met with doubt,” says Fisher's Jasmine Hu.

The belief in the health power of expensive foods — or that healthy foods need to cost more — is misguided, according to Rebecca Reczek, a food psychologist and marketing researcher at Ohio State University.

“The stock market is what economists call a leading indicator of the business cycle, the real economy, while the labor market is a lagging indicator,” said Fisher's Lu Zhang, who has studied correlations between stock prices and the labor market.

According to Ohio State researchers Itzhak (Zahi) Ben-David and Dr. Theordore P. Beauchaine, and a colleague at the University of Florida, adults with ADHD may struggle financially.

After a year of doubt, sacrifice and reinvention, does CrossChx's Sean Lane finally have his billion-dollar idea in Columbus, an area that Fisher's Bill Diffenderffer says "is not the city that it was when I first got here 12 years ago."

Itzhak Ben-David, a finance professor at Fisher, presented a paper that showed that when a company joins a major index both its ETF ownership and volatility goes up, and when it leaves its ETF ownership and volatility goes down. “No one doubts this [the ETF] is a great innovation, but at the same time it could have some unintended consequences,” Prof Ben-David said at the conference.

Pursuit is providing suits, dress shirts and accessories for the Team Shuster curling team that will represent the U.S. at the Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Pursuit, founded by a Fisher alumnus, is doing “the opposite of Super Bowl advertising,” said Deborah Mitchell, a professor of marketing at Ohio State’s Fisher College of Business.

Fisher College of Business was among the schools highlighted by Poets&Quants as one that is ready to climb in the rankings and generate greater student interest in the coming year.

Republicans’ tax overhaul could have long-lasting effects on how charities will raise money — and from whom they will raise money. Now, as the overhaul is headed to President Trump’s desk, many fundraisers are wondering what steps to take next in reaching out to donors. Here’s what the experts such as Fisher's Brian Mittendorf suggest.

“The department store is having a very hard time,” said Deborah Mitchell, clinical associate professor of marketing at Ohio State University. Before, the department store was where you had to go if you wanted to look at a lot of different things. Internet sites now handle much of that, she said.

As the reckoning continues, people want to know: What can we do about sexual harassment? Based on research by Fisher's Bennett Tepper, Robert Sutton's answer is: Just avoid hiring potential troublemakers in the first place.

“Fisher is family.” You’ll hear that a lot around Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business. On a campus with nearly 60,000 students, Fisher is an MBA peanut with just 91 full-time students in the Class of 2019. That’s exactly how these first-years want it.

“The biggest thing once I made my decision to come to Ohio State was to make sure I got my degree because it’s a highly touted, highly respected business school here, Fisher,” senior Billy Price said. “I wanted to enjoy the process.”

The technology that’s making autonomous vehicles possible isn’t new, said Tom Goldsby, chair of the Department of Marketing and Logistics at Fisher. Instead, it’s been a process of steady technological improvements over a span of decades.

Lu Zhang and his colleagues, Kewei Hou and Chen Xue have been making waves in the investing community with a paper published earlier this year that challenges much of the research out there about market “anomalies.” They spent nearly three years compiling and replicating 447 market anomalies identified in academic literature.

Twins, including those with ties to Fisher, capitalize on their unique sibling relationships for entrepreneurial success.

Teams of friends get the job done, according to new research from Fisher's Robert Lount and his colleagues.

At least $350 million was raised for victims of Hurricane Harvey in the first three weeks after the storm. There have also been questions raised about what the charities do with the donations. Fisher Professor Brian Mittendorf shared his thoughts.

"At a macro level, we're seeing evidence that opioid addiction is impacting employment rates," said David B. Greenberger, a professor of management at Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business.

Doug Farren, managing director of the National Center for the Middle Market, discussed research focused on the mid-sized companies that provide the raw goods and services used by other organizations.