Research Insights

From innovative projects to thought-provoking studies, our faculty members are at the forefront of their fields, tackling pressing issues and advancing knowledge. Explore their work, learn about their latest findings each month, and discover how their research is making a meaningful impact on both academia and our wider community.

Mary Marshall - Assistant Professor

In All Fairness: A Meta-Analysis of the Tax Fairness–Tax Compliance Literature

^{Tax fairness includes four dimensions: distributive fairness (how tax costs and benefits are distributed), procedural fairness (design of tax laws and enforcement), interpersonal fairness (interaction between tax authorities and taxpayers), and informational fairness (access to necessary tax information).}

^{The study found that distributive fairness, especially perceptions of exchange equity—whether taxpayers feel they get fair government services for their taxes—had the strongest impact on compliance.}

^{The research aimed to identify which fairness dimensions most influence taxpayers' decisions. This meta-analysis offers insights for regulators, emphasizing the importance of exchange equity for improving compliance programs. It also demonstrates how statistical methods can guide policy and showcases the value of diverse research teams, involving scholars from the US and Canada, including graduate students.}

If you cannot access the paper, please contact the author.

Joel Owens - Assistant Professor

New Study Explores Auditor Liability Under ASC 205-40

^{A current FASB standard requires management to assess the ability of the entity to continue as a going concern (GC) and disclose any substantial doubt about such. Using contextualized experiments wherein the auditor does not issue a GC opinion for an entity that subsequently fails, we study the effects of management disclosure, increased management disclosure responsibility, and auditor disclosure on auditor blame, a proxy for auditor liability. Consistent with predictions based on the Culpable Control Model, we find (1) management disclosure of substantial doubt increases auditor liability; (2) when management has not disclosed substantial doubt, auditor liability is greater under higher management disclosure responsibility; and (3) including a GC-related critical audit matter (CAM) in the audit report mitigates auditor liability. These findings provide insights regarding consequences to auditors of management disclosure practices, specifically regarding the FASB’s GC standard and the efficacy of auditor disclosure via CAMs to mitigate those consequences.}

If you cannot access the paper, please contact the author.

Berrin Erdogan - Professor of Management, Talya Bauer - Cameron Endowed Professor of Management

Patient Mistreatment and New Nurse Adjustment: The Role of Rumination and Work Engagement

^{During organizational entry, newcomers often draw upon internal resources like coworkers and supervisors to navigate their roles. Could external interactions with customers or patients hold the key to newcomer adjustment in certain job contexts? Our study, rooted in the conservation of resources theory, identifies a critical link between mistreatment from external parties and newcomer adjustment—a connection that is explained by rumination and work engagement. Through two studies involving new nurses in China (Study 1: four-wave cross-lagged panel design, N = 181; Study 2: four-wave time-lagged design, N = 198), we uncover that mistreatment from patients results in rumination among newcomers, leading to diminished task mastery and role clarity, as mediated by reduced work engagement. This ripple effect of external mistreatment persists even when accounting for internal mistreatment (abusive supervision and coworker incivility). Our results illustrate how negative interactions with external entities can hinder newcomer adjustment—a revelation with far-reaching implications for practitioners and future research.1}

If you cannot access the paper, please contact the author.