Undergraduate Research Awards

Participating Asper faculty

Rong (Ratchel) Zeng

Department of Business Administration
204-474-6566
ratchel.zeng@umanitoba.ca
https://umanitoba.ca/asper/asper-school-business/faculty/rong-ratchel-zeng

More and more companies are taking corporate social responsibility (CSR) seriously, with some introducing a new Chief Sustainability Officer position to their leadership teams. However, many firms that have invested heavily in CSR have also been flagged for corporate social irresponsibility (CSiR). For instance, BP received several honors for good CSR practices, but its Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 triggered an industrial disaster that was perceived as a major CSiR incident. CSiR tends to invoke a strong public reaction and attract negative media attention, creating unfavourable consequences for firms. However, we lack a comprehensive understanding of what factors contribute to and what consequences result from CSiR, as well as the co-existence of CSR and CSiR, as in the BP example. The proposed project utilizes the benefits of advanced data analysis techniques to analyze the data from different qualitative studies that treat CSiR as a construct distinct from CSR. The project will also develop a teaching case to unpack the interactions of identified factors. This set of studies will explore the relationship between CSiR and its antecedents and outcomes, with special attention to CSR-CSiR coexistence. Under my guidance, the Undergraduate Research Award recipient is expected to:

  1. Identify MNEs with CSiR incidents in other countries than their home countries and collect required materials for the teaching case as guided by the researcher.

  2. Search, collect, and download related literature and data. 

  3. Code and analyze them accordingly.

At the end of the project, the recipient is encouraged to display the work in the poster competition for undergraduate student researchers. The potential participants in the project need to pay attention to details, be proficient in Excel and have a basic knowledge of business and management (international business, in particular). Candidates with strong backgrounds in Python, SQL or other languages that could help manage big data are encouraged to apply.

Cheng Li

Department of Business Administration
cheng.li@umanitoba.ca
https://umanitoba.ca/asper/asper-school-business/faculty/cheng-li

Research Overview

My research examines the societal and political aspects of business activity, with a focus on how firms interact with their external and internal stakeholders. I am particularly interested in two broad questions:

  1. How do the social and political activities of external actors (e.g., suppliers, partners, governments, civil society) influence firm behavior and firm responses?
  2. How do firms manage relationships with external suppliers and internal subsidiaries across borders?

Through this work, I aim to advance our understanding of emerging issues in firms’ environmental and social performance, as well as the globalization of state-led capitalism.

Undergraduate Research Opportunities

I welcome motivated and disciplined undergraduate students who are interested in gaining hands-on research experience. Students working with me can expect training in:

  1. Identifying and mapping key academic conversations on a research topic
  2. Building and organizing empirical databases from academic and public sources
  3. Connecting theoretical ideas to empirical research design and execution
  4. Developing the ability to formulate, refine, and evaluate viable research questions

Preferred Background and Skills

Students with backgrounds in political science, sociology, statistics, or business are especially encouraged to apply. Familiarity with Excel, Mendeley, and/or statistical software (e.g., Stata or R) is an asset, but strong motivation and attention to detail are essential.

Chi Liao

Department of Accounting & Finance
204-474-9486
chi.liao@umanitoba.ca
https://umanitoba.ca/asper/asper-school-business/faculty/chi-liao

My research program examines how social experiences, identity, neurodiversity, and exposure to adversity shape financial behavior and market outcomes. The central question across these studies is why individuals and communities facing similar economic constraints exhibit persistent differences in stock market participation, entrepreneurship, financial distress, and information efficiency. I focus on behavioral and social mechanisms that help explain persistent differences left unexplained by standard economic models. 

My current working papers study the intergenerational effects of historical race-based financial trauma on stock market participation, the role of disaster exposure and post-traumatic growth in entrepreneurial activity, how childhood gender socialization contributes to the gender gap in investing, how racial residential integration affects information diffusion and stock price efficiency, and how neurodiversity influences long-term financial outcomes such as retirement preparedness. These projects combine large-scale household data, historical records, and quasi-experimental research designs. 

The Undergraduate Research Award recipient will gain hands-on exposure to academic research in behavioral finance and entrepreneurship. The student will work closely with me on ongoing projects and learn how research ideas are translated into data, analysis, and written output. Responsibilities include: 

  • Reading and synthesizing academic research
  • Working with real-world datasets and learning how researchers clean and structure data
  • Coding variables and assisting with empirical analysis
  • Helping produce tables and figures used in research papers and teaching materials

Applicants should be detail-oriented and curious about working with data. Experience with any level of programming is an asset.

Mingzhi Liu

Department of Accounting & Finance
mingzhi.liu@umanitoba.ca
https://umanitoba.ca/asper/asper-school-business/faculty/mingzhi-liu

Family firms play an important role in both Canadian and global economies. According to Alberta Business Family Institute, Canadian family firms generated approximately 60% of Canada’s Gross Domestic Product, employed about 6 million workers in Canada (both full-time and part-time), and provided 55% of all charitable donations in Canada. The total assets managed under Social Responsible Investment (SRI) guidelines are $600.9 billion, representing 20% of total assets under management (Canadian Social Investment Organization Review 2012). 

The interest in understanding family business has been growing remarkably over the past decades (Anderson and Reeb, 2003). Chua et al., (1999) define family firms as those with all four aspects of family involvement: ownership, management, governance, and intention for succession. Family members who own their firm hope their business will survive under family control for more than one generation (Chrisman and Patel, 2012). Thus, these firms are motivated to build a family legacy, embracing a long-term orientation to decision making and valuing “socioemotional wealth”. More than 11,000 scientists from 153 countries clearly declare that planet earth is facing an environmental sustainability challenge (Ripple et al., 2019). Long-term oriented family firms would be more likely to support environmental sustainability initiatives. However, family firms are not homogenous. This project responds to this warning by investigating differences among family firms regarding to corporate environmental performance/initiatives with the following specific objectives: 

  1. Within family firms, I investigate the effects of family firm characteristics (e.g., ownership, control, monitoring, and succession) on corporate sustainability performance. 

  2. I explore the moderating role of country-level climate risk on the association between family firm characteristics and corporate sustainability performance. 

Yu Xia

Department of Accounting & Finance
yu.xia@umanitoba.ca
https://umanitoba.ca/asper/yu-xia

The question on the form of organization, that is, the decision-making structure that brings more political and economic benefits dates back to Plato and Aristotle’s debate two millennia ago. Since then and even nowadays, there is no clear conclusion whether democratic governance spurs more development than its autocratic counterpart. Throughout this research program, we aim to approach this ongoing debate from a novel angle in the context of financial industry. Specifically, we examine how decision-making hierarchy (horizontal without lead managers vs. vertical with lead managers) in team-managed U.S. equity mutual funds affects their performance and risk taking. To study this issue, we need to collect fund managerial information from fund prospectuses through the SEC EDGAR system as well as conduct sufficient statistical analysis based on information collected. Such practices would give the participating student opportunities to understand financial institutions and their operations in modern financial markets. Moreover, student will gain necessary analytical skills beneficial for their future business career.

The importance of team-management in the fund industry, especially mutual funds, has received a significant attention in the past two decades because of both a significant increase in the proportion of funds with such managerial structure and the finding by Patel and Sarkissian (2017) of the outperformance of team-based funds.  Yet, the question on the importance of specific team hierarchy in decision making on fund returns and risk-taking behavior remains unanswered largely due to the difficulties in collecting and identifying information on lead managers in a given fund.

We view our paper as contributing not only to the extensive list of studies on mutual fund performance and group-decision making, but also to the ongoing debate on the benefits of specific forms of government structure (democratic versus autocratic) for economic and social well-being. Using an example of one specific industry, which has a large cross-section and time-series of data and clearly defined preferred outcomes, we are able to give some insights on whether horizontal, i.e., more democratically and collaboratively managed teams are associated with higher economic benefits to the society.

The participating student would be expected to assist the primary researcher with collecting sufficient data and conducting analysis to answer the proposed research question, including but not limited to the following tasks:

  1. Collect fund managerial information from fund prospectuses through the SEC EDGAR system.

  2. Collect data of financial contributions from the Federal Election Commission website.

  3. Cross check existing data collected.

  4. Classify funds based on managerial information collected.

  5. Produce summary statistics, univariate/multivariate tests to demonstrate data patterns.

  6. Proofread paper manuscripts to be ready for submission.

This research program will give the participating student opportunities to understand financial institutions and their operations in modern financial markets. Moreover, student will gain necessary analytical skills and experiences beneficial for their future business career, including but not limited to the following:

  1. Be proficient in business software such as Microsoft Excel and Word.

  2. Be capable of dealing with massive amount of data and documents as well as other tasks requiring attention to details.

  3. Understand the structures and operations of mutual funds and relevant investment principles undertaken by those funds.

  4. Understand different political views and historical patterns of financial contributions in political campaigns.

  5. Be familiar with basic programming with Python and R.

Wei Wang

Department of Business Administration
wei.wang1@umanitoba.ca
https://umanitoba.ca/asper/asper-school-business/faculty/wei-wang

My research seeks to understand the intricate intersection between leadership and ethics in the workplace. Currently, my program of research employs field surveys, lab experiments, and field experiments to understand how leaders strategically support their followers, cleanse their followers' wrongdoing, evaluate moral licensing behaviors of their followers, and even exploit virtuous followers. These workplace puzzles together offer a rich, real-world understanding of leadership and ethics. 

I am passionate about working with the talented and motivated undergraduate students at the University of Manitoba, and I am excited to offer opportunities for hands-on involvement in my research program and research activities in my GLOW Lab. Students will have the chance to engage in a variety of research activities, including:

  • Preparing materials for ethics approvals

  • Reviewing and synthesizing relevant literature

  • Designing creative experiments and surveys

  • Assisting in data collection, analysis, and coding

I am looking for students with a strong academic background in statistics, psychology, business, or sociology. Students who are proficient in Excel, EndNote, and/or statistical software such as SPSS or R will be given priority.