Turner Business Faculty Trailblazers

Sticking the Landing

A new study by Turner College economics professor Frank Mixon and Richard Cebula of George Mason University investigates the pattern of innovations in women’s artistic gymnastics that have led to eponymous gymnastics skills like that developed by, and attributed to, Romanian gymnast Nadia Comăneci. In her gold medal-winning performance at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Comăneci’s flawless performance of the “Comăneci salto” was a crucial element in scoring a perfect 10 on the uneven bars. In their 2022 paper appearing in the Journal of Sports Economics, Mixon and Cebula investigate the impact of appropriability on the supply of innovation by examining the frequency of eponymous skills in women’s gymnastics before and during the transition to a new market-based economic order in Eastern Europe. The study posits that following the early 1990s dissolution the communist governments of the Soviet Bloc and its satellites, the supply of innovation in the form of eponymous skills in women’s gymnastics moved away from these countries and toward western nations, where property rights freedoms were much more secure. Combining eponymous skills frequency data (from 1969 to the present) with measures of property rights freedom from the Heritage Foundation and the Fraser Institute, goodness-of-fit tests and a stochastic dominance approach support the contention of the study, namely that innovation in this case derives from the ability of athletes to appropriate, through either government support (largesse) or market-based capitalization, the returns to their human capital investments.

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Four Turner College Faculty Recognized for Outstanding Teaching

CSU Head Women's Soccer Coach Jay Entlich recently released a list of CSU faculty who have been chosen by a player as a member of the CSU faculty who has impacted the player in a positive way along their journey at CSU. Four Turner College faculty were included on the list, along with the player who nominated each. Management professor Phil Bryant was named by Sophia Leal , a freshman midfielder from Oxford, Georgia. Sophia attended Eastside High School and was a two-time all-region selection during her high school career. Through the first 10 games of 2024, she has scored one goal and recorded three assists. Next, management professor John Finley was named by Lizz Forshaw , a graduate student forward from Stockton, England. Lizz, who attended IMG Academy in south Florida, has scored four goals and recorded four assists this season. During her senior year in 2023, she scored three goals and recorded two assists. As a junior in 2022, Lizz scored three goals ...

Turner College Grad Publishes Academic Study on Corporate Culture and Strategy

Former Turner College student Tamara Todorova , now an associate professor of economics at American University in Bulgaria (AUB), recently published a study on corporate culture and strategy. Todorova earned an MBA from the Turner College in 1996 and then went on to earn a doctorate in international economics from the University of Economics - Varna in 2001. She has been on the faculty at AUB since August of 2000. Todorova's study, which appears in the current issue of the International Journal of Business Performance Management , investigates how corporate culture helps to economize on the transaction costs of internal organization. As she explains, the dimensions of corporate culture that assist in this task include increasing trust and reducing intrafirm opportunism. Todorova's study demonstrates that setting common goals and a common direction reduces the sizeable costs of internal organization. Tamara's prior research appears in Economics of Transition , International ...

Hammer joins Turner College Finance Faculty

The Turner College's Department of Accounting and Finance welcomes Melissa Ingle Hammer , who joins the group as an adjunct faculty in finance. Hammer graduated from the Turner College in 2005, after earning a BBA in finance. She later went on to earn an MBA from Auburn University, a Specialist Certificate in Conduct Risk from the University of Manchester, a Certificate in Team Culture from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Certificate in Executive Presence from Cornell University. Hammer is the SVP of Fair Lending Product Management with RiskExec at Asurity. She previously worked as Compliance Manager of Fair Lending at Synovus, a senior regulatory consultant with Wolters Kluwer, and as VP of Compliance at TD. This semester Hammer will be teaching FINC 3135, Financial Institutions and Technologies. Turner Business welcomes Melissa and wishes her a great first semester in the Turner College.

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