BizEd

NovDec2010

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arguments in favor of legalizing insider trading, from economists such as Henry Manne, dean emeri- tus of the George Mason Univer- sity School of Law, and Jonathan Macey, professor at the Yale Law School. These arguments hold that legal, limited-use insider trading activity would help top managers know whether or not their corpo- rate plans were working. It also would create movements in stock prices that would signal the pres- ence of corporate fraud. However, Prentice and Donelson write that these benefits are not real for several reasons. First, they argue that managers don't need to use insider trading as a window into their plans, because they already have access to inside information related to their companies. Second, not all insider trading affects stock prices. And, third, any signal caused by insider trading would be subtle at best—analysts would have too much trouble distinguishing its effects from the effects of other fac- tors in the market. The paper, which was published in the spring issue of the American Business Law Journal, was recently awarded the Outstanding Article from the Academy of Legal Studies in Business. Eliminating Credit-Rating Contingent Regulation A new paper argues that governments should abandon rating-contingent regulation, a practice that began in the mid-1970s. It refers to the way national governments rely on credit-rating agencies to regulate institutional investors. The paper's authors say that the problem lies with the agencies BizEd NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010 51 themselves, whose ratings measure the likelihood of an institution to default on its debt. "If the impor- tance of regulation is too high, a rating agency will not provide any RESEARCH RECOGNITIONS n S. Venkataraman, a professor of busi- ness administration at the Univer- sity of Virginia's Darden School of Business in Charlottesville, and Scott Shane, a professor of entrepreneurial studies and economics at Case West- ern University's Weatherhead School of Business in Cleveland, Ohio, have received the Academy of Manage- ment Review's "Decade Award." They received the award for their 2000 paper, "The Promise of Entre- preneurship as a Field of Research," which explored how entrepreneurial opportunities were discovered and exploited. The award honors the single article published ten years ear- lier that has had the greatest impact on management scholarship during the ensuing decade, as measured by the number of citations. n Michael G. Williamson, an assistant professor of accounting at the University of Texas at Austin's McCombs School of Business, real information to investors," says Marcus Opp, a professor at the Haas School of Business at the Uni- versity of California, Berkeley. "It will simply inflate ratings." Opp co-authored the paper with Christian Opp, assistant professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Cambridge; and Milton Harris, a professor at the Uni- versity of Chicago's Booth School of Business. The three of them argue that inflated ratings contributed to the economic crisis in 2008. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act passed by the U.S. Congress has received the Best Early Career Researcher Award from the Ameri- can Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Williamson received the award, along with a $2,000 grant, in recognition of research that investigates the role that per- formance evaluation and reward systems play in promoting creativ- ity, productivity, and risk taking in the workplace. n A professor at Babson Col- lege in Wellesley, Massachusetts, has received the 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award in Retail- ing from the American Marketing Association. Dhruv Grewal, Babson's Toyota Chair in E-Commerce and Electronic Business, was honored for his work and research, which includes more than 95 journal articles, numerous research and teaching awards, co-authorship of two textbooks, and service on the editorial review boards of seven marketing journals. TODD DAVIDSON/GETTY IMAGES

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