Kelley professor named co-editor of new journal focused on AI security and privacy

Posted on April 28, 2025 by George Vlahakis

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – As artificial intelligence applications continue to evolve and become more integral as a tool for individuals, governments, and businesses to make decisions more quickly and efficiently, the potential for its misuse and the need for its security and privacy also grow.

Sagar Samtani, associate professor of information systems and Weimer Faculty Fellow at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, has been named a founding co-editor-in-chief of a new academic journal that will address those issues, ACM Transactions on Artificial Intelligence Security and Privacy.

Sagar Samtani

ACM Transactions journals are supported by the Association for Computing Machinery, which has more than 110,000 members worldwide, and are “excellent journals for publishing computational and computer science research,” said Samtani, who also leads Kelley’s Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, an interdisciplinary research group that develops practical data science and AI-enabled analytics methods and systems for societally relevant applications.

“We could not have brought this opportunity to Kelley without strong support from the school and its information systems faculty,” he said. “The Kelley School has truly provided a spectacular arena to pursue a range of targeted scholarly efforts around a systematic and emerging area of AI security and privacy. I am looking forward to a hopefully successful journal experience and continued momentum in this important and emerging area.”

Having Kelley faculty helping to frame the conversation on issues through their roles as journal editors, particularly in an emergent area such as AI security and privacy, is another example of the school’s role in preparing its constituents for perpetual change brought on by technological advancement, said Pat Hopkins, dean of the Kelley School and the Conrad Prebys Professor.

“Sagar’s pioneering and impactful work strengthens Kelley’s reputation as a leader in addressing critical national needs in these rapidly evolving fields, and this appointment is a testament to the importance of his scholarly contributions,” Hopkins said.

Dean Patrick Hopkins

“Artificial intelligence, in its myriad variations and complex forms, has been a top priority for us at Kelley. Our stellar faculty across disciplines have been monitoring the latest developments and continuously collaborating on best practices as systems evolve,” he added. “Kelley is therefore the perfect ecosystem for Sagar’s work, and we look forward to the many ways his work continues to shape international discourse around AI, to safeguard systems against misuse, and to ensure that critical advances benefit society as a whole.”

Working with students and faculty collaborators from across the IU Bloomington campus, Samtani focuses his research on building AI techniques to address issues in cybersecurity, mental health analytics and business intelligence.

“Through the Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab and journal related activities, Kelley will be well-positioned to help our nation to meet the needs of the ever-growing market need for professionals who understand AI and cybersecurity,” Samtani said. “The breadth and depth of research in these areas at Kelley, combined with the National Science Foundation support we have received, well positions us for the future and our students.”

Samtani also was among those convened by the National Science Foundation and NSA National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity Program for a series of workshops to develop educational programs for AI for cybersecurity (AICyber) and the security of AI (SecureAI).

Samtani, who joined the Kelley School in 2020, developed one of the nation’s first courses related to AI for cybersecurity. has been a principal investigator or a co-PI for more than a dozen sponsored research awards totaling more than $8 million since earning his doctorate in 2018 from the University of Arizona.

In 2022, he received the Association for Information Systems’ AIS Early Career Award, which also recognizes individuals in the early stages of their careers who have already made outstanding research, teaching, or service contributions to information systems. He was the first Kelley faculty member to receive the award from AIS, which also has recognized him as a Distinguished Member. Last year, he was the Kelley School’s first recipient of a prestigious CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation.

The new journal’s other co-editors-in-chief include Patrick McDaniel, the Tsun-Ming Shih Professor of Computer Sciences at the University of Wisconsin and a leading voice in the AI security community, and Murat Kantarcioglu, professor of data and decision sciences and faculty fellow of the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative at Virginia Tech University. The journal is expected to be open for submissions in summer 2025.

Kelley School Professor Clark Barwick honored by IU President Whitten with the highest university-wide teaching award

Posted on April 22, 2025 by George Vlahakis

Indiana University President Pamela S. Whitten presents the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching to Clark Barwick.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Clark Barwick, teaching professor of communications at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business, recently received IU’s highest university-wide teaching award.

IU President Pamela Whitten presented Barwick with the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching. He was one of eight IU faculty members from four campuses to be recognized for their teaching and service.

“I’ve taught at IU for more than two decades, and for me, this award represents all of the meaningful relationships I have developed with IU students over the years,” said Barwick, a native of Atlanta, whose mother also was an educator.

Clark Barwick

“I love helping students progress towards their academic and career goals, and nothing is more gratifying than witnessing their personal successes. I have been honored to work with so many amazing Kelley students, who invariably go on to impact the world,” he added.

In Communications, Professional and Computing Skills, a unit of the school that Barwick co-directs, he and his colleagues teach five pre-I-CORE Kelley courses – “Business Presentations,” “Business Writing,” and three Compass courses – to thousands of Kelley students each year. It is considered one of the top communication and professional skills programs in the country.

“We continually hear from employers how well-prepared our students are for success when they arrive for work at their internships and jobs,” Barwick said, adding that “this award also recognizes my teaching CPS community. I am continually inspired by their dedication, both to their students and to the craft of teaching. My colleagues will do anything to help their students succeed. Just ask our undergraduates.”

“Professor Barwick is a dedicated educator and thoughtful leader whose work has significantly enriched the experience of students at both the Kelley School of Business and the Hutton Honors College,” said Dan Li, executive associate dean for faculty and academic affairs and the L. Leslie Waters Chair in International Business at Kelley.

“Through his innovative teaching and considerate mentorship, he empowers students to develop the skills, confidence, and perspective they need to thrive in academic and professional settings,” she added.

Barwick has advised more than a dozen Kelley Honors capstone thesis projects and has served as faculty advisor for many Kelley student organizations. He is an academic fellow in Kelley’s Institute for Environmental and Social Sustainability and was a member of Kelley’s inaugural Equal Justice Initiative Leadership Collaborative. He is co-author of the book, “Strategic Business Writing,” published by IU Press in 2021.

Barwick, left with Dan Li, executive associate dean for faculty and academic affairs at the Kelley School.

Barwick’s impact felt beyond Kelley (more…)

IU Kelley School of Business ranks in the top 10 worldwide in terms of research productivity and impact for third straight year

Posted on April 16, 2025 by George Vlahakis

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – For the third straight year, Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business is among the top 10 business schools worldwide in terms of productivity and impact, according to the leading measure of published research contributions.

The Kelley School was ranked ninth in the University of Texas at Dallas’ rankings of top research schools in North America, and second among public institutions. The school also was ranked 10^th worldwide.

The annual ranking is based on research contributions by a school’s faculty over a five-year period. With 257 total articles published by the school’s faculty based at IU Bloomington between 2020 to 2024, Kelley’s faculty research output was second-most in the Big Ten.

Over the last half decade, the Kelley School has climbed UT-Dallas Top 100 Business School Research Rankings of schools worldwide — rising from 26th in the 2019 ranking to where it is ranked today.

No other business school in Indiana is ranked in the top 25.

Dean Patrick Hopkins

“One of our missions as a school is to produce a better understanding of the problems organizations face today — and beyond,” said Pat Hopkins, dean of the Kelley School and Conrad Prebys Professor.

“It is widely known that Kelley’s programs consistently are among the best, and as these rankings demonstrate, it is clear that Kelley is a place where faculty engage in cutting-edge research that provides students with advanced insights and empowers businesses to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing world.”

Research output also has grown. Six years ago, Kelley faculty had published just 159 papers between 2014 and 2018 – nearly 100 less than in the last four years. The top 100 universities collectively contributed more than 6,000 research papers from 2020 to 2024, nearly doubling the output since the rankings began.

Kelley is home to 15 research institutes, centers and labs at IU Bloomington and IU Indianapolis, including the Center for the Business of Life Sciences, the Institute for Corporate Governance & Ethics, the Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the Data Science and AI Lab and the Institute for Environmental and Social Sustainability.

These intellectual hubs build momentum for change across important local, national, and global avenues, and are fostered through cutting-edge, cross-disciplinary research and collaborations among faculty, students, and businesses.

Rebecca Slotegraaf

The Naveen Jindal School of Management at the UT-Dallas rankings are believed to be the most comprehensive and objective measure of research activity at business schools. It has tracked the publications of business school faculty worldwide since 1990 in 24 leading academic journals, all of which are peer-reviewed. It then ranks the schools based on the number of articles published in those journals by their faculty members over a five-year period.

The UT-Dallas ranking is designed to be useful to both business school administrators and faculty members in measuring their research activities in the journals included in the study. They see their rankings as another tool for business school faculty members and administrators to use in bench-marking themselves against their peers.

“These rankings underscore the research impact and thought leadership of our faculty, who are driven to create knowledge that generates new insights for both our students and decision-makers striving to remain competitive,” said Rebecca Slotegraaf, the Kelley School’s associate dean for research and a professor of marketing.

IU Kelley School of Business mourns the death of John Rau, its eighth dean

Posted on April 11, 2025 by George Vlahakis

John Rau in 2024

Pat Hopkins, dean of the Indiana University Kelley School of Business and Conrad Prebys Professor, today notified members of the Kelley Community that John Rau, “our esteemed colleague” and former dean, has passed away:

“John was not only a remarkable leader but also a cherished member of the Kelley family. His vast contributions to both our school and to the broader business community have left an enduring mark.

“John served as the eighth dean of what we now know as the Kelley School of Business, from 1993 to 1997. During his remarkable tenure, he introduced several initiatives that continue to shape who we are as a school today.

“Among them, he established our distinctive academies, which have developed into the workshops that provide invaluable experiential learning opportunities for our students. John also oversaw the approval of our graduate building and the establishment of direct admissions to our Undergraduate Program.

“During his tenure, in 1994, our school was designated a federally funded Center for International Business Education and Research, one of 28 in the nation. The same year, the Global Program Office was established to lead our push into greater internationalization of our activities.

Former dean John Rau sitting behind his desk

In this photo taken in 1994, John Rau makes a point with a visitor to his office. (Patrick Bennett Photography)

“Our graduate programs expanded with the introduction of two new degrees, the Master of Professional Accountancy and the Master of Business Administration in Accounting. John’s vision and leadership have thus had a lasting impact on our educational approach and the success of our graduates.

“Beyond his stint as dean, John led an illustrious career in the business world. He served as president and CEO of Miami Corporation, Chicago Title Corporation, and LaSalle and Exchange National Banks. At 35, he was recognized as the youngest of the top 100 bank presidents in the country.

“His nearly 40 years of executive and managerial experience were marked by his roles as an 11-time corporate director and his leadership in numerous business, civic, and philanthropic organizations.

Most recently, we were honored to welcome John back to campus as the Poling Chair of Business and Government for the 2024-25 academic year. In this role, he generously continued to share his wealth of knowledge and experience with our students, engaging them in meaningful discussions on public policy, enterprise competitiveness, business, and finance.

“His presence on campus was a testament to his enduring commitment to education and to Kelley, as well as to his passion for fostering the next generation of business leaders.

“John’s legacy at Kelley is one of innovation, dedication, and excellence. As we mourn his loss, we also celebrate the profound impact he has had on our school and the countless lives he has touched through his initiatives and teachings. Our thoughts are with his family during this very difficult time.”

Just as today, Dean John Rau presided over and celebrated nationally ranked degree programs at Kelley. (Indiana University Archives)

Message from the dean: Pat Hopkins, Kelley’s passionate advocate for further success

Posted on March 24, 2025 by George Vlahakis

Pat Hopkins

As I begin my role as dean of the Kelley School of Business, I am humbled and energized to work alongside our remarkable community of stakeholders toward our collective mission.

I arrived in Bloomington as a newly minted PhD in August 1995, with little knowledge of our school (which wasn’t even called Kelley then), our larger university, or even the state of Indiana. These last 30 years have expanded my world beyond anything I could have imagined. I quickly learned how lucky I was that Kelley found me and offered me a home.

Over the years, I directly benefited from its collegial and nurturing culture, its creative and entrepreneurial spirit, and the dedication of its hundreds of faculty and staff members and thousands of alums. I am in turn committed to protecting and caring for our people and the school we’ve inherited from the generations who came before us.

Our faculty are leaders in their fields and essential contributors as we refine our curriculum, collaborate across a range of partnerships, develop innovative programs across academic areas, and apply research to myriad issues facing the nation and the world. Our faculty’s remarkable focus, drive, and productivity distinguish us daily among peer institutions and propel us to new heights. Most recently, thanks to our remarkable faculty, the UT Dallas Top Business School Research Rankings placed us at No. 9 in North America and No. 10 worldwide.

Pat Hopkins now leads the school where he has taught for 30 years.

Our staff have been unparalleled, inspiring partners to me, especially since I entered administration. Every day, our staff makes this place run by advising our students, telling the Kelley story to stakeholders far and wide, ensuring an effective and efficient allocation of resources, supporting our faculty, deepening our relationships with alumni, and performing thousands of other vital tasks—sometimes on short timelines—which continually set our school apart.

Our incredible alumni community, 133,000+ strong, leads businesses and communities across the world with Kelley’s deepest values, and we are inspired by the connections and collaborations we see sparking among them daily. Many alumni recruit our students for their companies, return to campus to sit on panels and present to students, and host productive networking events—which all shows how deeply this remarkable community cares about our school and about fostering the next generation of principled leaders.

As I enter this new role, I also reflect on the exceptional leaders we’ve had during my 30 years at Kelley, including Deans John Rau, Dan Dalton, Dan Smith, Idie Kesner, and Ash Soni. My heartfelt thanks and admiration go out to each of them for their leadership, sacrifice, integrity, and unrelenting efforts to elevate our already excellent school over the years. Ash has been a particularly important mentor and friend, and I am deeply grateful for his selflessness and for all he has taught me about facing challenges with patience and grace and about growing the relationships that make our community thrive.

I look forward to serving as Kelley’s passionate advocate and as a tireless partner to all our stakeholders as we rise toward even higher excellence in education, scholarship, and service.

Warm regards,

Pat Hopkins

Dean and Conrad Prebys Professor

Kelley investment management students win prestigious Balyasny Asset Management stock pick competition

Posted on March 12, 2025 by George Vlahakis

Members of the winning Kelley team, from left, Bao Nguyen, Jack Buchenberger and Sayer Birch. (Photo courtesy: Balyasny Asset Management)

NEW YORK – A team of three students from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business finished in first place in the prestigious Balyasny Asset Management Winter Stock Pitch Competition, which attracts top talent from business schools across the country and provides them with invaluable experience they will use in the future.

In mid-January, students at more than 30 business schools received details about the competition and information about the stock they were pitching. On Feb. 11, the Kelley team learned they had made the top 10 based on their written stock recommendations. They then were asked to provide a video explaining their stock pitch by Feb. 17.

Two days later, they learned they had been selected as one of five finalists.

The three sophomores — Sayer Birch, Bao Nguyen and Jack Buchenberger – traveled to New York City to make their pitches before a panel of judges on Feb. 28 at Balyasny Asset Management’s New York offices on the 35th floor of the General Motors Building.

Kelley student Bao Nguyen makes a point during the presentation. (Photo courtesy: Balyasny Asset Management)

Birch, Nguyen and Buchenberger emerged as the winners, along with a team from the University of Alabama, besting teams from Duke University, New York University and the University of Tennessee. Each first-place team shared a $3,000 prize.

BAM’s contest provides an extraordinary opportunity for students to demonstrate their investment prowess, gain invaluable feedback, and network with industry experts. The top teams in the final round also were given an opportunity to interview with the firm’s equities business for summer 2026 internship opportunities.

“Our presentation stood out because of the proprietary research we conducted,” said Buchenberger, who is from Fishers, Ind. “While all the groups had great pitches, the proprietary research really differentiated us.”

“We received praise for our creative research, and a judge even came up to us asking to see our code after the event, “added Bao Nguyen, who is from Hanoi, Vietnam. “Furthermore, our preparation and composure also set us up for success. The projector turned off during our presentation, forcing us to present without slides for two minutes. We stood tall, smiled at the audience and kept going like during the countless practice runs we did leading up to the event.”

Birch, Nguyen and Buchenberger are part of Kelley’s Investment Management Workshop, which prepares students for successful careers in equity research, sales and trading, and private wealth management. They also are enrolled in Kelley’s highly selective Knall-Cohen Fund course, where they how to analyze industries and individual stocks. In the class, they write a report complete with an analytic model and present their stock idea to a board composed of investment professionals.

The students credited the guidance they received from their advisors, Robert Jennings, a professor emeritus of finance who has been associated with the Kelley School for 44 years, Dan Aron, a 1983 Kelley alumnus who has more than 35 years of Wall Street experience, including stints as partner and head trader at Levin Capital Strategies and as a vice president at Salomon Brothers; and Eric Crigler, finance lecturer and director of the Knall-Cohen Fund.

“The Investment Management Workshop and Knall-Cohen do an excellent job of preparing students to research and pitch stocks and that definitely shined through throughout the entire competition process,” said Birch, who is from Brooklyn, N.Y. “We have one of the best educational programs specifically for stock pitching. I’m very grateful to Bob, Dan, Eric and others for their part in helping to develop that over the years.”

Balyasny Asset Management’s competitions — held twice a year — are viewed by the firm as a regular part of its recruiting pipeline. (Photo courtesy: Balyasny Asset Management)

For the three students, the competition was a return trip to the Big Apple. Every January, students in the Investment Management Workshop visit 15 firms over a whirlwind three days.

“This gave us a first taste of Wall Street’s intensity and dynamism. We were also taught professional communication and how investment research worked. Everywhere we went, we knew to ask specific questions to the firm and communicated professionally at every turn,” Nguyen said. “As we’ve been told, the workshop turns us from students to colleagues and there’s no second chance at giving a first impression.”

“I knew BAM was inviting senior leaders and professionals to the networking dinner (the night before the competition) and felt both nervous and excited,” he added. “There, we met the head of equities, director of research and several portfolio managers, who were very down-to-earth and welcomed any questions we had. It was fascinating to learn about the research and decision-making process behind their past investments.”

Balyasny visits Kelley, shares insights with students

Coincidentally, on Feb. 20 the Kelley School welcomed Dmitry Balyasny, BAM’s managing partner and chief investment officer, for a fireside chat with students.

Balyasny is the firm’s founder, chief investment officer and managing partner. Balyasny Asset Management, L.P. began as a single, small office in Chicago trading mostly long/short equity and has grown into an institutional global platform with investment strategies spanning across equities long/short, macro, equities arbitrage, credit, commodities, systematic, and growth equity. He chairs BAM’s Investment Committee.

He began his trading career with Schonfeld Securities in 1994. Balyasny holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from Loyola University Chicago. He is involved in a variety of philanthropic activities in Chicago, Illinois.

In a conversation with Josh Perry, executive associate dean for academic programs, Balyasny discussed his journey as a founder, how his firm identifies talent, and the skills that he believes are most important for an investor.

Research offers new direction on how disaster relief organizations should communicate through social media

Posted on March 3, 2025 by George Vlahakis

Using controlled burns, fire crews create a barrier in the foothills of Carpinteria, Calif., on Dec. 11, 2024, in the hopes of containing the Thomas Fire. (Credit: Joseph Philipson).

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – According to the basics of crisis communications theory, disaster relief organizations should always speak with “one voice.” As demonstrated through recent events such as the Los Angeles wildfires, information these organizations provide through social media can be vital to saving lives and protecting property.

But while this approach usually is true during the initial stages of a disaster, new research finds that messaging can be more effective when relief organizations reach out with information that is tailored for different social media audiences later in the recovery process.

Eunae Yoo

At that point, learning where to go for relief and to reconnect with loved ones is crucial for some, while for others obtaining information about how to provide financial support, such as through online donations, is more helpful.

Two professors at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business – Eunae Yoo and Lu (Lucy) Yan — joined colleagues from the University of Notre Dame and McGill University in Canada in studying the effectiveness of disaster responses using Twitter data from the Canadian Red Cross.

In their research, they found a nearly 30% increase in social media engagement when different audiences were targeted in separate accounts after conditions became less uncertain.

Disaster relief organizations — such as national societies in the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies — often maintain several accounts to represent unique operational entities, such as their national headquarters and regional, state and local branches.

They found that convergence across a disaster relief organization’s social media accounts does not always lead to the best outcome.

Lu (Lucy) Yan

“Engagement is 4.3% higher with a match of content creation decisions during the response phase rather than a mismatch,” Yoo and Yan and their co-authors wrote. “We provide strong evidence for engagement increasing when accounts with the same DRO produce convergent content in the response phase. On the other hand, a mismatch of content creation decisions is 29.6% more effective for engagement during the recovery phase.”

Their paper, “Speak with One Voice? Examining Content Coordination and Social Media Engagement During Disasters,” was published last year in the journal Information Systems Research. Other authors are Alfonso Pedraza-Martinez, a former Kelley faculty member who is now the Greg and Patty Fox Collegiate Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations at Notre Dame, and Changseung (Chang) Yoo, an assistant professor, Desautels Faculty of Management, at McGill.

In the paper, the researchers cite as an example two tweets posted by the Canadian Red Cross on Twitter (now X) after the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire in Canada. One tweet provided instructions to disaster victims on how to register for aid and the other contained a link to make an online donation.

As a result, the tweets garnered about 280,000 engagements – including retweets and likes – and resulted in more than 36,000 donations that represented about 60% of total donations from all social media platforms made the CRC’s response and 70% of total value.

Overall, they analyzed 934 tweets from the CRC’s headquarters account, which received 33,861 retweets and 34,722 likes. They also looked at 629 tweets from the CRC’s Alberta provincial account, which received 4,802 retweets and 2,862 likes. They measured engagement as the total number of likes, retweets, clicks and replies and used text analysis to identify whether the audience were victims or supporters. They analyzed how audience match between accounts affected user engagement.

The paper provides new direction on how national and local accounts of relief organizations should coordinate their social media content.

“We find that a match of content creation decisions during the response phase is more effective at increasing engagement for local accounts rather than national accounts,” said Yoo, assistant professor of operations and decision technologies and a Grant Thornton Scholar, and Yan, the John & Esther Reese Professor of operations and decision technologies. “Local accounts should follow the lead of national accounts regarding the supply of information in the response phase.”

The authors acknowledge limitations in their research, since it is based on a study of catastrophic wildfires, which occur suddenly, while other types of disasters – such as strong storms — take more time to develop and thus involve an emergency preparedness phase. Another aspect for future study is coordinating a disaster relief organization’s accounts during a long-term recovery.

The paper has received considerable notice in disaster relief practitioners and humanitarian, including in articles published by disaster management platforms where best practices for disaster mitigation, preparation, response and recovery are discussed.

Gig economy may serve as a substitute for those seeking other, more permanent work

Posted on March 3, 2025 by George Vlahakis

Many income-shocked workers view the gig economy as a short-term solution to buffer consumption.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – While traditionally laid off employees have relied on consumer credit and unemployment insurance to maintain consumption, research finds that the gig economy serves as a substitute for many seeking other, more permanent work.

In a paper published in the Journal of Financial Economics, researchers matched anonymized data from on credit profiles with unemployment insurance and found that laid-off Americans with access to Uber as a source of income were less reliant on household debt.

They also experienced fewer delinquencies and were less likely to apply for unemployment insurance benefits. Lower reliance on credit and insurance allows workers to avoid potential negative consequences, such as over-borrowing that can lead to a debt trap and reduced motivation to work due to dependence on unemployment insurance programs.

Ankit Kalda

“Anecdotal evidence from recent government shutdowns suggests many income-shocked workers view the gig economy as a short-term solution to buffer consumption,” co-wrote Ankit Kalda, associate professor of finance and the Jerome Bess Faculty Fellow at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business.

“The effects of Uber’s entry are stronger in states with less generous unemployment insurance benefits. This is consistent with workers weighing the tradeoff between two short-term options, the gig economy and unemployment insurance.”

The findings appear in the article, “Gig labor: Trading safety nets for steering wheels.” Other authors of the paper are Vyacheslav Fos of Boston College, Naser Hamdi of Equifax Inc., and Jordan Nickerson of the University of Washington.

The researchers used data from Equifax. They matched it with information about Uber’s introduction into various markets across the country between June 2012 and February 2016. They found that workers with access to ride-sharing opportunities saw a relative decrease in total outstanding credit balances of $689 – or 0.9% — compared with those who did not. Delinquency rates fell by 4.9%.

Eligible car owners were 3.3% less likely to lean on unemployment insurance programs where Uber was present. Following Uber’s entry into a market, workers with access to the ride-sharing platform were 4.8% less likely to receive unemployment beneﬁts.

“Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that the decrease in unemployment usage resulted in a yearly reduction of between $492 million and $750 million in unemployment benefits distributed by government agencies,” Kalda said.

Kalda and his colleagues found economically significant results when they restricted their sample to those who regained formal employment within a year of being laid off.

“If the ride-sharing platform reduces labor market frictions, the ability of a worker to buffer their labor provision by participating on the ride-share platform may reduce the hardship associated with job loss,” he added. “Gig labor can provide a safety net for those seeking more permanent work in the formal market.”

When we feel a loss of personal control, we seek out others like ourselves, research says

Posted on March 3, 2025 by George Vlahakis

Feeling a lack of personal control often leads to people forming homogeneous teams, stifling collaboration.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Amid these turbulent times, as our society comes to grips with headlines about wars, the latest health scares, rising prices and social upheaval, people feeling a loss of personal control tend to seek out others who are more like themselves.

That’s according to new research from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business.

Researchers consistently found when people experienced a loss of personal control, they were more likely to be drawn to those who resembled them, in race, religion, socioeconomic class or personality characteristics.

Jessica Paek

“Our research shows that feeling a lack of personal control often leads to people forming homogeneous teams, thus limiting exposure to other, diverse perspectives and, ultimately, stifling innovation and collaboration,” said Jessica Paek, assistant professor of organizational behavior and human resources at Kelley.

This preference is explained by a greater desire for order and predictability, the paper concluded.

“People tended to prefer coworkers who resembled them because they were more likely to share the same understanding of the world and seem more predictable than those who were different,” Paek said. “Our findings also may partly explain the sharp increase in social division that we are seeing lately — from racial and religious segregation to heightened political polarization.”

The article, “Threats to personal control fuel similarity attraction,” appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Other authors were Anyi Ma, assistant professor of management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Fangzhou Liu, assistant professor of management at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China; and Jae Yun Kim, assistant professor and the Richard Morantz and Sheree Walder Morantz Professor in Business Ethics at the University of Manitoba.

While their findings may be seen as a truism, little previously has been known about when people are more or less likely to favor those like themselves. The researchers set out to better understand what motivates this behavior, especially as societies are becoming more diverse.

The findings are based on 11 correlational and experimental studies, including an analysis of data involving nearly 90,000 people from the World Values Survey (42,118 were women and 45,914 men). Across all the studies, Paek and her colleagues consistently found that the loss of personal control consistently predicted the control-motivated preference for similar others.

In one study involving data from 60 countries, they found that those who indicated a lower sense of personal control were less likely to prefer having neighbors who had a different religion, race or spoke another language.

In her research, Paek investigates how people can better pursue their goals in organizations and society. “The aim of my work is to better understand the barriers to successful goal pursuit and the interpersonal dynamics that aid or hinder goal pursuit in organizations,” she said.

“Ultimately, our work highlights how a fundamental human tendency — our desire to affiliate with others like us — can lead to challenges in building more inclusive, innovative, and cooperative workplaces in times of social unrest when we feel we lack control,” Paek and her colleagues wrote. “By highlighting the critical, explanatory role of the need for order and predictability, our findings are important for businesses looking to create resilient, inclusive environments that can withstand times of uncertainty.”

Vikram Pandit to serve as the next Poling Chair at the IU Kelley School of Business

Posted on February 27, 2025 by George Vlahakis

Vikram Pandit

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Vikram S. Pandit, chairman and chief executive officer of The Orogen Group and a prior CEO of Citigroup and president of Morgan Stanley, will visit the Indiana University Kelley School of Business as its Poling Chair of Business and Government.

Pandit will join former Kelley Dean John Rau as Poling Chair, whose appointment was announced last September and concludes this May.

Arrangements have been made for Pandit to meet with students in Kelley’s workshops in investment banking, investment management, private equity and capital markets, honors students, and faculty in finance. During his initial visit March 2-5, he will be at IU Bloomington, but he will meet with Kelley Indianapolis students and faculty when he returns in the fall.

Since its establishment in 1993 by the late Harold “Red” Poling, a Kelley School alumnus and Ford Motor Co. chairman and CEO for nearly a decade, the Poling Chair has been held by a variety of business and government leaders.

Pandit has spent his career in financial services and has been a participant in and a catalyst for some of the tremendous changes the industry has experienced over the last several decades.

He joined Morgan Stanley in 1983 and ultimately became president and chief operating officer of the company’s institutional securities and investment banking businesses. He left the firm after more than 20 years to become a founding member and chairman of the members committee of Old Lane, LP.

When Old Lane was acquired by Citigroup in 2007, Pandit became chairman and CEO of Citi Alternative Investments and later led Citi’s Institutional Clients Group. He became CEO of Citigroup in December 2007 and led the company during the most challenging economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression, successfully recapitalizing, restructuring, and revitalizing the company before he left in October 2012.

Orogen Group is an operating company that makes significant long-term strategic investments in financial services companies and related businesses with proven business models. Pandit is a member of the board of directors of ExlService Holdings, Inc., Ardán Inc., Brillio, and JM Financial Credit Solutions Ltd.

Dean Ash Soni

“We are thrilled to welcome Vikram Pandit to the Kelley School. Our students and faculty will benefit from his variety of deep knowledge and extensive experience in investment management and finance at the highest level in the corporate world,” said Ash Soni, dean of the Kelley School and the Sungkyunkwan Professor. “His perspectives will be most appreciated by our students, as they prepare to begin their careers and possibly make client decisions framed by challenges similar those Vikram has faced.”

Pandit is returning to IU Bloomington and the Kelley School, where he briefly taught as a lecturer in finance at the Kelley School in 1982 and 1983.

“I am delighted to be named the Poling Chair of Business and Government and to join Dean Ash Soni for a visit to the Indiana University Kelley School of Business,” Pandit said. “In many ways I consider Indiana University to be my honorary alma mater, because I learned so much from the faculty and students. I have many fond memories of the time I spent on campus and the great relationships I forged here.”

Pandit earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in engineering from Columbia University and received his Ph.D. in finance from Columbia in 1986. He is a member of the Board of Overseers of Columbia Business School and a member of the Board of Visitors of the Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Pandit follows a long line of successful leaders, many of them Kelley alumni, who have served as Poling Chairs. They have included top executives at major companies, including Janet Foutty, former chair and CEO of Deloitte Consulting LLP; Jeff Fettig, former chairman and CEO of Whirlpool Corporation; Elizabeth Acton, retired chief financial officer of Comerica and a former vice president and treasurer of Ford Motor Co.; Randall L. Tobias, chairman emeritus of Eli Lilly and Co., and former vice chairman of AT&T Corp; and Bob Eckert, former CEO of Mattel Inc. and Kraft.

They also have included two former state governors –Maryland’s Martin O’Malley and Indiana’s Evan Bayh — Hollywood producer Kristin Hahn, Indian parliamentarian Deepender Singh Hooda, the Countess of Frederiksborg in Denmark Alexandra Christina, former U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, and Mae C. Jemison, the first African American female astronaut.

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