The Faculty of Business Administration presents sessions by Dr. Ashrafee Hossain, Bui Petersen and Dr. Ghazal Assadiour.

Geographic Location, Ownership Structure and Executive Compensation: Evidence from Small and Medium Canadian Firms

Dr. Ashrafee Hossain, Assistant  Professor Finance

Dr. Hossain examines the impact of geographic locations on the compensation design of small- and medium-sized Canadian firms.  Specifically, he studies whether there are significant differences between compensation designs between rural and urban firms. Dr. Hossain finds that the evidence suggests that firms that encounter higher agency costs and greater information symmetry due to geographical barriers use more equity-based compensation. In addition, he observes that family and institutional ownership helps mitigate agency issues but an excessive presence of family ownership creates an agency issue of its own. Dr. Hossain’s findings may have public policy implications in the form of tax and other incentives for rural-based firms.

 

Culture, Values and Conflict Management: Report on PhD Summer Research Project

Bui Petersen, PhD candidate

Researchers have long been interested in the extent to which people’s behaviours are influenced by culture. In this study, Mr. Petersen examines the relationship between values and conflict management preferences in a way that avoids many of the theoretical and methodological problems common in similar studies. He will discuss both theoretical and methodological implications of the findings.

 

Managing an Intermodal Transportation Network of Hazardous Materials via Toll Policies: A Bilevel Programming Approach

Dr. Ghazal Assadipour, Lecturer, Operations Management

This research proposes a bi-level, bi-objective toll-setting policy model to regular the usage of intermodal terminals for hazardous materials (hazmat) transportation in instances where the carrier is deterred from using certain terminals due to the corresponding tolls imposed by the government. Through a real problem based on the intermodal service chain of Norfolk Southern in the United States, the toll-setting model is examined and further compared with a regular network design model in which certain terminals are closed for hazmat containers.