Faculty and Research

Jeri K. Seidman, Roshan K. Sinha, Bridget Stomberg. Tax Audits and the Policing of Corporate Taxes: Insights from Tax Executives. Contemporary Accounting Research, 2025.

New research examines how IRS audits influence corporate tax behavior, drawing on direct insights from senior tax executives. The study finds that tax executives' perceptions of fairness during the audit process impact audit outcomes. For example, when tax executives feel that the tax agents have considered the documentation they provide and have applied the law objectively and consistently, they are less likely to contest a finding that the company owes additional tax. Tax executives note variation in both the extent to which tax authorities create frameworks that facilitate fair audit processes and the extent to which tax agents implement such frameworks when they exist. The findings suggest that tax authority investments that aim to increase perceptions of audit fairness would increase taxpayer acceptance of negative outcomes, increasing audit efficiency.

Thomas P. Griffin, Greg Nini, and David C. Smith. Losing Control? The Two-Decade Decline in Loan Covenant Violations. Journal of Finance, 2025.

Researchers studying corporate lending practices have documented a surprising trend: Over the past two decades, U.S. public companies have been violating financial loan covenants far less often. The financial covenants act like an early warning system that alerts lenders when a company’s financial health may be deteriorating. Using new data from corporate filings, the authors show that the share of public firms reporting covenant violations fell by about 70% between 1997 and 2019. The study finds that this decline is largely due to looser loan agreements. Lenders today often set fewer covenants and allow companies more flexibility, which reduces the number of technical violations that don’t actually signal serious financial trouble. In effect, lenders have become more willing to miss some early warning signs of distress if it means avoiding many unnecessary violations. The authors link this shift partly to changes in the types of companies borrowing and improved quality in loan covenant definitions, but also partly to strong investor optimism in the 2010s, which encouraged more generous lending terms. Overall, the research suggests that the drop in covenant violations does not necessarily mean lenders have lost control over borrowers—but rather that loan contracts have been redesigned to trigger fewer false alarms.

Sixuan Zhang, Zhuang Hao, Dorothy E. Leidner, Benjamin W. Cowan. Cyberbullying Victimization, Mental Distress, and Adolescent Substance Use: The Role of Cyber Features. Information Systems Research, 2026 (Accepted).

New research shows that certain features of online platforms can intensify the harmful effects of cyberbullying on adolescents. When bullying is more public, persistent, or anonymous, it is more strongly linked to mental distress and increased substance use. Rather than focusing only on individual behavior, the study highlights how the design of digital environments can amplify emotional harm. These findings deepen our understanding of how technology shapes teen well-being and suggest that platform features themselves play an important role in influencing health outcomes.

Cyrus Dioun, Kisha Lashley, Vontrese Pamphile. Market-Stigmatized Groups and the Bounded Effectiveness of Stigma Management Strategies: Evidence from Washington’s Marijuana Market. Academy of Management Journal, 2025 (Accepted).

Why do some businesses in stigmatized industries thrive while others struggle? A new study tackles this question by examining marijuana dispensaries in Washington state, and the findings challenge conventional wisdom about how organizations should handle stigma. Businesses in stigmatized markets typically either distance themselves from the stigma or lean into it. This study shows that neither approach works universally. The key variable? The local community. Specifically, the concentration of groups who are themselves stigmatized by association with the market, and who have faced disproportionate targeting in enforcement, significantly shapes which strategy pays off. In areas with higher concentrations of these market-stigmatized groups, openly displaying a cannabis identity was linked to lower sales, while distancing strategies showed more complex, diverging effects.

The takeaway: Stigma isn't one-dimensional, and the playbook for managing it has to account for who's in the room.

Brad D. Carlson, D. Todd Donavan, Jeremy S. Wolter, James G. Maxham III, Pei Xu. The Collective Identity Effect: How Group-Level Identity Influences Individual Behavior. Journal of Marketing, 2026.

Customer groups can play a powerful role in shaping how individuals relate to companies. New research shows that when customers develop a strong shared connection to a company at the group level, that collective identity strengthens each member’s personal identification with the brand. In turn, stronger identification leads customers to spend more and allocate a greater share of their purchases to that company. The research also finds that group influence is strongest in moderately sized, similar groups that meet regularly. These findings highlight how companies can foster loyalty and increase customer engagement by building cohesive communities around their brands.