Fall 2024
This edition highlights members of the Wake Forest School of Business faculty, ranging from key architects of our world class MSBA program to researchers contributing to the fight against human trafficking.
Managing Innovation
Each year, NASA allocates millions of dollars in grant funding to small businesses across the United States that supply the agency with innovative technology. These partnerships—which are supported by the federal government’…
Decision Scientist
As a decision scientist, Jeff Camm approaches his research with pragmatism. “I always start with a problem that industry has a hard time solving, and I help them solve those business problems by making better-informed decisions using data and mathematical models,” says Camm, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and the Inmar Presidential Chair of Analytics at the Wake Forest School of Business.
“I’m focused on impact,” he continues. “I don’t want to spend time on proble…
Analyzing Impact
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of e-commerce within the retail marketplace dramatically expanded. Consumers confined to their homes turned to their computers, tablets, and smartphones to purchase everything from fitness equipment to office furniture, encompassing items traditionally not bought online, such as groceries. This surge in online grocery shopping particularly intrigued Dr. Li, Associate Professor.
As a marketing researcher, Li specializes in ut…
Committed to the Classroom
Dr. Norma R. Montague loves being in the classroom. Though she began her career specializing in auditing at an accounting firm, she felt a calling to teach almost immediately.
“Within a year, I realized that I really enjoyed teaching at the firm,” she says. “We had lunch-and-learns, and I was often the one raising my hand to teach those sessions. I realized teaching accounting was my passion.”
Montague, who now serves as Senior Associate Dean of Academic Programs…
Auditing the Audit
As an undergrad at Wake Forest, Dr. Lauren Reid never intended to pursue business. She had aspirations to study medicine or perhaps law, but her father encouraged her to take some prerequisite courses for the School of Business, just to explore her options.
“I took my first accounting class, and I just got it,”she says. “It was a new language, and it just clicked.”
Reid decided to major in accountancy, as well as pursue a master’s degree in the discipline at Wake. Aft…
Investing Early
As part of her email signature, Tilan Tang includes a quote from Miguel de Cervantes’s “Adventures of Don Quixote.” It reads: “To be prepared is half the victory.”
As an associate teaching professor of finance, Tilan thinks the quote speaks to an underlying principle of finance — “the time value of money”. It also serves as a subtle message to her students.
“In the principle of the time value of money, the No. 1 rule is to invest early,” Tilan explains. “That’s on the…
Balancing Work & Life
Wake Forest business professor Julie Wayne teaches her organization behavior class to undergraduate Business and Enterprise Management students in Farrell Hall on Tuesday, February 11, 2014.
Julie Wayne’s groundbreaking research into the interplay between work life and personal life helped define the idea of work-family enrichment, where multiple roles can enhance both realms.
The throughline of her work is trying to look at things from a different perspective and giv…
Governing Business
As global economic shifts continue to impact everything from the stock market to the supermarket, the role governments play in business and finance can change drastically. For Dr. Rob Nash, that intersection between government and private sector has fueled his research for nearly three decades.
Nash, who came to Wake Forest in 1997 and currently serves as Thomas K. Hearn, Jr., Professor in Finance, has focused much of his work examining the role of governments in the…
Transcending Textbooks
When Tom Canace interviewed to join the faculty at Wake Forest School of Business 15 years ago, he was asked about his teaching and research philosophies. Canace’s answer: “Going above and beyond the textbook.”
For Canace, that means drawing on his research findings and his professional experiences in the business world when he’s in the classroom. The three realms are inextricably linked.
“I don’t just come in and teach out of the textbook.
I bring my experiences t…
Voice to the Voiceless
From using information technology to combat the horrors of human trafficking to creating a framework for understanding why some groups are targeted on social media, Stacie Petter studies how people use and manage IT in organizational settings or in broader society.
If the particulars of the research sound beyond the bounds of typical business school scholarship, Petter agrees. But they are not beyond the scope of Wake Forest University, whose motto is Pro Humanitate (“fo…
