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Each of us is exposed to thousands of brand images every day. Our work demonstrates that even fleeting glimpses of logos can affect us quite dramatically. can mitigate their losses by maintain- ing or re-establishing relationships with those former staff members. The complete study can be found at www.rotman.utoronto.ca/ NewThinking/Oettle.pdf. It will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of International Busi- ness Studies. CEO Arrogance Leads To Bad Mergers Note to CEOs: Humility is good, and hubris is bad. At least, when it comes to mergers and acquisitions. A study by two business professors at the Uni- versity of Iowa's Tippie College of Business in Iowa City provides evi- dence that CEOs who believe their own hype could be their companies' downfall during M&A activities. UPCOMING & ONGOING n LAB EXAMINES CONSUMER BEHAVIOR The University of Miami School of Business Administration in Florida has opened the Canes Behavioral Laboratory to con- duct technology-driven market- ing research. The lab houses 31 networked computer workstations outfitted with behavioral research software, computer joysticks, and headsets for studies requiring audio. Researchers will use this equipment for activities ranging from interactive surveys to prod- uct simulations in virtual environ- ments. In one study, for example, Canes researchers are looking at what happens when consumers shy away from buying a marked-down product when they know it was sold previously at an even deeper discount. The study's findings may help retailers position such Finance professors Matt Billett and Yiming Qian examined mergers and acquisitions of publicly traded companies between 1980 and 2002, estimating the value of each merger or acquisition by the stock market's reaction upon its announcement. They found that while a CEO's first acquisition leads to little or no change in company value, subse- quent mergers show a mean drop in value of 1.5 percent. What determines the success of a merger? Often, sheer luck, say Bil- lett and Qian. Those CEOs who believe that a successful M&A is due to their decision-making skill, rather than good luck, may take bigger risks down the road, which can destroy company value. The researchers suggest that firms can counteract the effects of products differently to make them more appealing to customers. n ENTREPRENEURIAL THINK TANK EM Lyon Business School in France will hold the World Entre- preneurship Forum on November 13 to 15. The event is planned as "the first international think tank dedicated to entrepreneurs and their role in society." Intended to be an annual event, the forum will comprise discussions about socially responsible enterprise and its role in creating economic wealth and social justice. In July, the school also will hold the Junior World Entrepreneur- ship Forum, where business students can meet to dis- cuss the role of entrepreneurship Matt Billett Yiming Qian in the future. For more informa- tion, visit www.world-entrepreneur ship-forum.com. n $1.1 MIL FOR RESEARCH GRANTS Researchers at the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa in Canada have received more than $1.1 million in grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC). This funding will be distributed among 14 research projects led by Telfer professors. Among the funded projects are Jonathan Linton's study of process improvement in supply chains and Wojtek Michalowski's research of methodologies for integrat- ing clinical information at the point of patient care in emergency rooms. BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2008 55 CEO hubris by more thoroughly examining acquisition proposals from CEOs—especially those who have been involved in multiple acquisitions in the past. The paper, "Are Overconfident CEOs Born or Made? Evidence of Self-Attribution Bias from Frequent Acquirers," will be published in a forthcoming issue of Management Science.