Research

The BSL is used by faculty in almost every area of business research. Experimental research in business tends to be highly interdisciplinary. Here are a number of questions that BSL researchers have been examining:

Financial Markets

  • Do "Day Traders" make markets more or less efficient? (Bloomfield, O'Hara and Saar)
  • Does improved disclosure increase firms' stock prices? (Bloomfield, O'Hara and Zhou)
  • How does the cost of information affect market behavior and investor welfare? (Bloomfield and Zhou)
  • Why do firms "smooth" earnings? (Bloomfield and Hales)

Negotiations

  • How does changing the process of planning in negotiations alter negotiation outcomes (Mannix and Proell)
  • How does previous bargaining experience affect bargaining success? (O'Connor, Arnold and Burris)
  • The power of a positive reputation (C. Tinsley and E. Mannix)

Teams, Groups and Firms

  • How are financial markets like small groups? (Bloomfield, Libby and Nelson)
  • How do relationships between superiors and subordinates affect group decision-making?
  • During the group decision process, when have they really decided and what happens after this point of consensus? (Russo)
  • Are individuals driven more by the desire to gain status or avoid a status loss? (Pettit, Yong, and Spataro)
  • How does the status of a comparison out-group influence performance effort in comparative contexts? (Pettit and Lount)
  • How does status influence our perceptions? (Pettit and Sivanathan)

Managerial Decision-Making

  • How do firms use cost accounting systems to make production and sales decisions? (Bloomfield)
  • Why do people fool themselves by distorting information to support the leading alternative during a decision? (Russo)
  • How do decision makers manage to bias their evaluation of information when they believe that they're not doing it and would stop it if they could? (Russo)

Consumer Behavior

  • How construal mindset moderates sensitivity to metacognitive experiences (Thomas)
  • The effect of background music on attention orientation (Thomas)
  • On the effects of pain of payment on loan pre-payment decisions (Thomas and Park)
  • The roles of implicit and explicit memory in price cognition (Thomas)
  • Determinants of impulsive behavior (Thomas)
  • How does positive affect influence intemporal choice, self-control, and the ability to wait for larger rewards (Pyone & Isen)
  • The influence of positive affect on focus of attention (Pyone & Isen, Isen & Schmidt).
  • Positive affect's influence on materialism, conspicuous consumption, and pursuit of material goods (Pyone & Isen).
  • The influence of novelty and new products on preferences within an existing product line (Spassova & Isen).
  • The influence of novelty and of positive affect on choice from complex product offerings (Spassova & Isen)
  • The influence of choice overload on creative problem solving (Kim, Isen, & Goncalo).
  • The influence of positive affect on different forms of logical reasoning processes (Nester, Isen, Erez, Pyone, & Schmidt).
  • The influence of positive affect and anxiety on attention to financial disclosure information (Collins & Isen).
  • Attribute trade-offs and peer influence in choice (Narayan, Rao)
Social Networks
  • Looking in: How social exclusion shapes network perceptions (E. Gladstone and S. Sauer)
  • How actors shape their social networks: The role of neuroticism (E. Gladstone and S. Sauer)