SCHOOLS OF BUSINESS

James Cotter, and George Aldhizer, III
Do Auditors Charge for Financial Risk?
Awarded $3,500 for the period 4/15/05 to 4/14/06
Source: WFU Social, Behavioral, and Economic Science Research Fund

In early 2001, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) changed its disclosure rules requiring listed companies to separately report their external audit fees. This study examines the relation between these publicly reported audit fees and the financial risks faced by external auditors. Descriptive and statistical results indicate a significant positive relation between several of the financial risk variables and audit fees. More specifically, the authors find a significant positive relation between market risk (beta), client excess return risk (market model residual variance) and overvaluation risk (price-to-book ratio), and audit fees. This study’s results will help audit firms recognize the potential risks of certifying high financial risk clients and charge requisite fees for these services.

Andrea Kelton, with Ya-wen Yang
The Effects of IT Capacity and IT Governance on Audit Quality
Awarded $10,000 for the period 5/1/10 to 5/31/11
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

To compete and to grow in the current business environment, companies invest heavily in information technology (IT). Appropriate use may increase the efficiency and effectiveness of overall operations and enhance the timeliness and transparency of financial reporting or dramatically increase the complexity of operations, boosting costs and reducing efficiency. Although prior research has identified economic benefits in IT investment, such as improved financial performance and firm value, the Information Technology Governance Institute notes that traditional financial measures may not be able to capture critical IT performance measures and encourages examination of alternatives. This study examines one potential consequence of IT – audit quality. It aims to elucidate (1) how a company’s IT use affects audit quality; and (2) whether enhancements to IT governance can mitigate negative effects.

Michael W. Lawless
Strategy and Organization in Multigenerational Technology Markets
Awarded $145,846 for the period 1/1/04 to 9/30/05
Source: National Science Foundation

Two complementary studies focus on generational technology change at both the industry and organization levels of analysis. One will analyze an important, common, but neglected kind of innovation, where several generations of product technology co-exist in a market. The hypotheses to be tested will illuminate how multiple generations affect emerging firms and patterns of competition over time and help to explain why such markets are heterogeneous. The tests use hazard-rate estimation and other event-history methods and inclusive archival data for US software products and the firms that developed them over 10 years.

A complementary study of the European software market by INSEAD, the global institute for business administration, funded separately, will enable joint comparative analysis, but it ignores the ways that individual firms adapt to generational technological change. Firm-level adaptation is important to the theory of organizational innovation and to improving managers’ capabilities to cope with complex, turbulent markets. Therefore, the second, complementary study will look at change inside a firm, covering the same products and time period, and using case studies to describe in-depth the evolution of organizational forms and strategies. The cases highlight the co-evolution of technology, the marketing of organizational units, product-line scope, firm boundaries, and dynamic capabilities and were developed with the funding and cooperation of the Microsoft Corporation.

Both studies are linked to evolutionary theory, technology change, and organizational theory literatures. Both are preceded by a technical analysis of software product-technology and its evolution. Together, these complementary projects will produce more complete prescriptions for managers and researchers and make strong contributions to theory on the management of innovation.

Stanley Mandel
Biotechnology Research: Innovation, Funding, and Ethics Symposium
Awarded $3,000 for the period 8/15/06 to 9/29/06
Source: North Carolina Biotechnology Center (NCBC)

The symposium, hosted by Wake Forest, brought together students, faculty, and researchers from Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem State University, Salem College, Forsyth Technical Community College, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University to discuss ways to implement and fund basic research in an applied environment, driven by commercial interests as well as the ethical implications of doing so. Speakers included Steve Burrill, CEO, Burrill and Company; Arthur Caplan, Director, Center for Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania; and Cliff Leaf, Executive Editor, Fortune.

Len Preslar

• WFU Schools of Business biotechnology conference & case competition
  Awarded $6,700 for the period 2/1/2013 to 2/28/2013
  Source: NCBC

Students, professionals, firms, faculty, and community leaders share insights about the future of biotechnology, and the case competition provides a platform for student engagement and education on emerging questions in biotechnology.

• Wake Forest Schools of Business Biotechnology Conference and Case Competition
  Awarded: $2,500 for the period 2/1/11 to 2/28/11
  Source: NCBC

Wake Forest Schools of Business will host the second annual Biotechnology Conference and Case Competition, 18-19 February 2011. With the help and direction of primary sponsor Targacept, the event will provide MBA, JD, MD, and PHD students, faculty, biotechnology and health professionals, firms, and community leaders an opportunity to interact directly in a case competition, panel sessions, and guest presentations.

G. Page West

• Kauffman Campuses Initiative – Entrepreneurship and Liberal Arts: Building Campus Culture and Developing an Integrated Educational Model
  Awarded $460,000 for the period 7/1/06 to 6/30/07
  Source: Kauffman Foundation

The program seeks to build a sustainable culture of entrepreneurship at Wake Forest University. Efforts include:
• creating a university-level office;
• initiating a multiyear communication program to create greater awareness and understanding of entrepreneurship within the liberal arts community;
• educating and inspiring liberal arts faculty to become entrepreneurship champions;
• adding courses in entrepreneurship and creativity throughout the curriculum;
• providing crossdisciplinary and experiential learning opportunities related to entrepreneurship;
• adding 4 new liberal arts faculty positions to enhance teaching resources for the entrepreneurship curriculum;
• enhancing opportunities for students to become involved in social entrepreneurship, consistent with the university's Pro Humanitate motto;
• establishing a university center to support entrepreneurial efforts outside the normal curriculum; and
• establishing a fifth-year entrepreneurship institute to support postgraduates completing entrepreneurial projects begun as undergraduates.
A Year of the Entrepreneur will spotlight the program’s accomplishments. At that point, curriculum and resources will support any student, from first year to graduate school, in any discipline, who wants to learn about and to pursue entrepreneurship.

• Venture Science E-Teams for a Liberal Arts Institution
  Awarded $2,000 for the period 9/1/02 to 9/1/03
  Source: NCIIA preaward

The Calloway School is establishing a new Center for Undergraduate Entrepreneurship to promote innovative and inventive approaches to product development and marketing for science students. The center will target the many undergraduates in the natural sciences, information systems, and computer science who are also interested in learning how to start new ventures that leverage their disciplinary training. They will receive formal education in intellectual property, venture capital, inventing, and entrepreneurship as well as problem-solving and team-building. Partnered with business students trained in entrepreneurial education, they will form E-teams that will develop new ventures based on scientific inventions.

Ya-wen Yang (see Andrea Kelton, above)