Vohs, Land O’Lakes Professor in Marketing and Distinguished McKnight University Professor, along with Carlson PhD student Sangmin Kim and colleagues, used the 2020 U.S. Presidential election and 2021 Georgia Senate runoff as test cases. The team surveyed adults to see if they voted in the races and if their preferred candidates won or lost. Exploring both facets—voting and election results—allowed researchers to explore different psychological motives. Their findings suggest that voting can satisfy the need to feel a sense of control. And if the election turned out as hoped? That confirms they were right to support their party or candidate.

The researchers found that conspiracy beliefs diminished mainly when people’s preferred candidate won, especially so among people who voted. Vohs suggests people’s sense that they have control over important outcomes in their life and the sense that others share their political ideology can potentially serve as antidotes to conspiracy theories.

Related Research on Social Influence and Behavior

• A firm’s manager manipulates more if he or she expects that peer firms’ reports are more likely to be manipulated.

• If one firm reacts to regulations by investing in better internal controls that reduce manipulation, peer firms follow suit.

Gaoqing Zhang

Accounting Department

EDUCATION:

PhD Accounting 2014 Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University

MS Accounting 2011 Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University

BSc Finance 2009 School of Management, Fudan University

EXPERTISE:

Financial Accounting

Financial Institutions

Accounting Standard Setting

Disclosure Regulation

Real Effects of Accounting Disclosure

 

Paper: “The Decision to Recall: A Behavioral Investigation in the Medical Device Industry”

Journal: Journal of Operations Management

Published: September 2018

Takeaways:

• The more detectable a product defect is to the physician, the less likely it will be recalled.

• Managers view physicians as trustworthy final quality inspectors who will screen out an easily detectable issue, removing the need for a recall.

When managers better understand the root cause of a product failure, they’re more likely to recall.

Rachna Shah

PROFESSOR

Supply Chain and Operations

EDUCATION:

PhD 2002 Management Science Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University

MBA/MHA 1992 Business Administration (Finance) Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University

BA, with Honors 1988 Economics Delhi University, India

EXPERTISE:

Operational Excellence via Lean Thinking

Process Improvement in Hospital and Healthcare Delivery

Operational Failures such as Product Recalls in Automotive, Medical Device, and Pharma

Causes of Drug Shotages

Environmental Management

Econometric and Psychometric Methods

Karen Donohue

PROFESSOR AND CURTIS L. CARLSON ENDOWED CHAIR

SUPPLY CHAIN OPERATIONS

EDUCATION:

BA Mathematics and Economics, St. Olaf College

MS Industrial Engineering and Management Science, Northwestern University

PhD Industrial Engineering, Northwestern University

EXPERTISE:

Supply Chain Coordination

Behavioral Operations

Environmental Operations

Supply Chain and Operations