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Optimizing RFID Technology for Utility Companies

Barring an unusually high bill, most of us pay our utility bills and don’t think much else of it. What many of us don’t know is utility companies, already low margin businesses, need to be highly efficient in reading our utility meters every billing cycle in order to avoid unnecessary costs. This is where the meter-reading technology research from Maryland Smith comes in.

The Unintended Consequences of Asking for Employee Input

Feeling comfortable enough to speak up and share your ideas and opinions at work is usually a good thing – that’s the environment most organizations should want to encourage. But some managers who solicit input might not give employees who do so enough credit, finds new research from Maryland Smith’s Subra Tangirala.

Why Companies are Leaving Money on the Table

Imagine a world where your deliveries are always on time and your food is never cold. Restaurants are able to coordinate when to cook orders and apps are able to efficiently assign drivers multiple orders or even ask customers picking up an order if they would be willing to drop off an order with their neighbor on the way back. This is the efficient world Maryland Smith professor Zhi-Long Chen and Ohio State University professor Nicholas G. Hall are hoping to help create through their newly published book, “Supply Chain Scheduling.”

Helping Drivers Take a Turn for the Better

Running into a one-way or no-left-turn street can be pretty frustrating as a driver. It’s an even bigger problem for vehicles responsible for mapping streets as well. But new research from Maryland Smith has a solution.

Gender, Competitiveness and How We Advocate for Others

In the workplace, success sometimes comes down to how competitive you are. And sometimes it comes down to how competitive the people are who are advocating on your behalf.

With a Legal Expert in Leadership, Firms Are Less Likely to Overstate Earnings

Firms are more likely to face accounting-related lawsuits for overstating their earnings or assets than for understating them because it’s easier to demonstrate investor harm with overstatements. So erring on the conservative side can reduce a firm’s legal costs.

People Analytics for an Equitable Workplace

“People analytics” – traceable to 1911’s The Principles of Scientific Management, which sought to apply engineering methods to managing people – has exploded with advances in computer power, statistical methods and artificial intelligence (AI).

Do COVID Lockdowns Really Work?

As the world struggles to contain the spread of COVID-19, many countries grapple with the possibility of imposing more lockdown measures, like those widely used in the spring of 2020. But how well do lockdowns work at keeping people home? New research from Maryland Smith’s Yogesh Joshi finds they are effective – but for limited periods of time.

New Marketing Technologies Usher In Data-Driven Growth

In a new Journal of Marketing special issue, “New Technologies in Marketing,” Maryland Smith’s Michel Wedel co-authors an editorial that outlines how academics can support marketers to deliver data-driven growth.

What Happens When You Feel Important at Work – and Then You Don’t.

Even the most powerful manager sometimes cleans up dishes in the breakroom, and even the least powerful employees in organizations sometimes get to make important decisions. These examples indicate that power is a dynamic state – we often feel both powerful and powerless at work on any given day. New research from Maryland Smith’s Trevor Foulk suggests that this fluctuating sense of power can have surprising effects on our well-being.

Can You Bank Happiness?

Can you revel in happy moments now, to soak them in and store them up to help you through future sadness? New research from Maryland Smith’s Ali Faraji-Rad finds that many people actively try to bank their happiness so they can draw on it later to cope with a sad event.

How Internet Buzz Predicts Stock Returns

It’s clear that internet buzz and news affect stock prices – just look at the wild rides of 2021’s meme stocks like GameStop and AMC for proof. New research from Maryland Smith’s Prabhudev Konana creates a new methodology to translate just how news and internet discussions impact stock prices and simulates  trading strategy that shows to yield excess returns.