Turner Business

A recent study appearing in Advances in Economics Education ranks Turner College economist Frank Mixon among the top 100 business and management education (BME) scholars worldwide.  The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Delaware, University of Baltimore, Florida Atlantic University, LaSalle University, Pace University, Gustavus Adolphus College and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, uses publications in the top 17 BME journals from 2010 through 2019 as the basis for ranking scholars.  This process produced a productivity score for more than 7,300 BME scholars worldwide.  At the top of the ranking is William Walstad, an economics professor affiliated with the University of Nebraska.  Two additional economics professors, Carlos Asarta of the University of Delaware and John Siegfried of Vanderbilt University, rank among the top 10.  Three management professors rank among the top 10.  These are the late J.B. Arbaugh of the University of...

Research by Turner College professor of management  Robin Snipes recently surpassed 1,500 career Google Scholar citations.  Additionally, Google Scholar reports that her  i 10-index is equal to 16, meaning that Snipes has published 16 studies that have each garnered at least 10 citations.  Google Scholar also reports two additional metrics.  One of these is a scholar’s  h -index, which is the largest number,  h , of a scholar’s publications that have each garnered at least  h  citations.  Snipes’  h -index is 14, meaning that her 14 most-cited studies have each generated at least 14 citations.  Another Google Scholar metric is a scholar’s  g -index, which is the largest number,  g , of a scholar’s publications that have collectively garnered at least  g 2  citations.  Snipes’  g -index is 38, meaning that her 38 most-cited studies have collectively produced at least 1...

After more than 10 years of dedicated service to the Turner College Dean’s Office, Danielle Navarrete has decided to pursue a new professional opportunity as a Data Analyst for Auburn University.   During her tenure in the Turner College, she made significant contributions and consistently demonstrated a commitment to excellence.   In 2020, Navarrete was honored with the prestigious President's Staff Excellence Award, a testament to her exceptional work ethic and dedication. She also received the Turner College’s Olice Embry Award that same year.   According to Turner College Dean Deb Kidder , “These accolades speak volumes about Danielle's commitment to serving students, helping faculty, and supporting the university.   Beyond individual recognition, Danielle has played an integral role in our community and staff.”   Additionally, Navarrete served on the CSU Staff Council for eight years, displaying strong leadership abilities and a desire to improve CSU’s wor...

Professionals from Global Payments Inc. continue to support the TSYS School’s Nexus degree program in cybersecurity.  As Patrick Aiken , the Director of the TSYS Center for Cybersecurity stated, “Global Payments Inc. is such a tremendous partner to the Cybersecurity Nexus program at Columbus State University.  They send people and resources to support and mentor our students regularly.”  Nexus program students recently benefitted from a visit by Director Peter Staarfaenger, Associate Director Justin Heath, and Nexus program graduates  Tyvon Cruz  and  Ronin Macrander . “Regular interaction with industry professionals is one of the most valuable and powerful parts of the program.  And these professionals are top-notch mentors,” Aiken stated.  Recent graduates of the program concur.  According to Gage Hall , currently an information security operations intern, “[They are a]mazing mentors that poured in countless hours t...

In their new study on test-wiseness strategies in business and economic education, Turner College economist Frank Mixon and his co-author Steven Caudill of Florida Atlantic University point out that the use of large lecture halls in business and economic education often dictates the use of multiple-choice exams to measure student learning.  Their study, which appears in the latest issue of Stats , asserts that student performance on these types of exams can be viewed as the result of the process of elimination of incorrect answers rather than the selection of the correct answer.  More specifically, how students respond on a multiple-choice test can be broken down into the fractions of exam questions where no wrong answers can be eliminated (i.e., random guessing), one wrong answer can be eliminated, two wrong answers can be eliminated, and, eventually, all wrong answers can be eliminated.  The data for the study come from student performance on a final exam in a principl...

In their recent news report for WRBL.com, Hannah James and Chuck Williams note that the recent Georgia GOP Convention brought as many as 2,000 delegates and thousands of others to downtown Columbus.   They also add, citing Turner College Dean Deb Kidder , that the convention could bring up to $1.5 million dollars to the Fountain City in direct economic impact.   “That’s just the direct economic impact of $1 spent by a delegate who comes to Columbus,” Kidder told WRBL.com. “But that doesn’t include the multiplier effect for every dollar spent directly.”   Kidder referred to the direct impact amount as a conservative estimate and explained to James and Williams that the multiplier could have a lingering impact.   “For instance, someone that is being given overtime pay,” Kidder said. “They then take their kids out for a treat.   And that means that $1 spent in overtime pay multiplies and adds to the local economy.”

In their new study on labor market segmentation in academe, Turner College economist Frank Mixon and his colleagues João Faria of Florida Atlantic University and William Sawyer of Texas Christian University cite prior research indicating that although the tendency of academic departments to hire from institutions ranked at or above their level is prevalent throughout academe, the top economics departments are more likely to engage in the practice than are top departments in other social sciences (e.g., sociology, political science, psychology), English, history and mathematics.  To explore this labor market segmentation, the study, which appears in the latest issue of Economies , first provides a straightforward formal model based on two working hypotheses.  First, academic departments choose to hire faculty based on pedigree.  Second, job market candidates from top departments have an advantage because their professors dominate the main journals of the area.  This...

A new study by Turner College faculty Uma Sridharan , Fady Mansour , Lydia Ray and University of North Florida management professor Tobias Huning investigates the effect of risk tolerance on the decision to use Bitcoin in making payments and receiving compensation.  They collected survey data from 225 respondents to measure risk attitudes and the choice to use Bitcoin.  Two measures of risk are employed – the general risk-taking propensity scale (GRiPS) and the risk-taking index (RTI).  Analysis of the survey data reveals that individuals who chose to receive payment in Bitcoin show a significantly greater risk propensity for both GRiPS and RTI.  According to one model specification discussed in the study, individuals with the lowest risk-taking propensity exhibit a 17% to 36% probability of accepting payment in Bitcoin, compared to a range of 57% to 68% for individuals with the highest risk-taking propensity.  Interestingly, the results suggest that the choic...

Turner College alum Hayley Tillery , a doctoral student at Auburn University, recently joined colleagues from the University of South Florida and Auburn University in publishing an academic study in the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Education .  Tillery’s study explores the ratings and reviews of instructors from top hospitality programs in the United States, using data from the online platform RateMyProfessor.com.  The study uses hospitality instructors’ ratings, rankings, and textual reviews in order to understand how students view their performance and the overall rank of the university.  The examination ultimately relied upon data from 24,511 student evaluations of 2,251 instructors across 151 universities.  To identify recurring positive and negative themes, Tillery and her co-authors conducted sentiment analysis of the textual reviews using the tool, Lexalytics, to extract the sentiment from the pieces of text.  Sentiment scores ranged from − 1 (neg...

The TSYS School’s Yi Zhou and colleagues from Jinan University and Auburn University examine the performance of storage systems in their new research project.  As they explain, garbage collection running in the controller of 3D NAND flash-based solid-state disks plays a critical role in that performance, and solid-state disk manufacturers have developed various garbage collection solutions based on internal data movement to mitigate the impacts of garbage collection on request latency.  According to Zhou, “Due to the circuit characteristics of flash memory, existing internal data movement-based garbage collection strategies require that odd pages must be migrated to odd pages, and even pages to even pages. When migrating two consecutive pages with the same parity, the free page between the two migrated pages will be wasted after the migration is complete.”  As the study explains, this issue inevitably deteriorates the storage space utilization of flash memory, thereby de...