The Lacy School of Business is excited to announce the Fall 2025 Research Speaker Series. This series highlights the innovative research and thought leadership of our faculty and visiting scholars, providing opportunities for students, colleagues, and community members to engage with cutting-edge ideas in business and beyond.
Each session offers a chance to hear directly from researchers about their latest work, ask questions, and connect theory with practice. Whether you’re curious about global business challenges, entrepreneurship, or emerging insights across disciplines, the series is designed to spark discussion and inspire new ways of thinking.
We invite you to join us throughout the semester to learn, connect, and be part of the ongoing exchange of ideas shaping the future of business scholarship.
Wednesday, October 8 at 11:45 PM
Speaker: Ki-Hoon Lee, Senior Professor and Chair of Sustainability in Business at Edinburg Napier University
Location: Dugan Hall, Room 347
Title: “Sustainability Research Impact in Academia and Beyond”
Abstract: Sustainability Research addresses global challenges and planetary boundaries by developing innovative solutions, influencing policy, and informing societal change towards sustainable development. In business and management research, public concern for environmental sustainability (e.g. climate change, water scarcity, air pollution) and social sustainability issues (e.g., poverty, hunger, income inequality, gender equity) over two decades have generated ‘social license to operate’ in corporate boardrooms that exceed regulatory compliance. However, scholars suggest that the sustainability research domain is not only narrowly-focused but also highly fragmented. Scholars suggest shifting the focus of research from “what” (sustainability definition) and “why” (reasons and motivations for engagement) to a greater concern for “how” firms can implement sustainable practices. Sustainability research across disciplines to tackle global challenges can generate research impacts in academia and society. This research talk seeks academic roles to generate sustainability research impact in our business and society.
Friday, October 17 at 12:00 PM
Speaker: Hessam Sarooghi, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Location: Dugan Hall, Room 347
Title: “Configuring Success: Legitimation Pathways in Cryptocurrency Exchanges”
Abstract: Legitimation is central to how new ventures secure resources and gain acceptance, yet it is rarely uniform. Ventures can establish credibility by being understandable and familiar to stakeholders (cognitive legitimacy), by signaling adherence to ethical norms and regulatory expectations (normative legitimacy), or by demonstrating tangible benefits and reliability (pragmatic legitimacy). These dimensions often operate together, sometimes in complementary fashion and sometimes as substitutes. The goal of this study is to examine how such patterns shape performance outcomes to provide a more complete understanding of the consequences of legitimation.
To this end, this study develops a configurational perspective and applies fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to 111 cryptocurrency exchanges. The setting is institutionally fluid and high in volatility, making legitimacy particularly salient. The analysis reveals multiple equifinal pathways to high performance: some exchanges combine pragmatic utility with normative transparency, others substitute visible leadership for broad public recognition, and still others integrate all three dimensions into coherent constellations.
Friday, November 14 at 12:00 PM
Speaker: Juan Manual Gil, Assistant Professor of International Business
Location: Dugan Hall, Room 347
Title: “Beyond Cognition: Integrating Embodied Imagination and Spiritual Capital in Entrepreneurial Value Creation”
Abstract: This research project challenges the cognitive reductionism that dominates entrepreneurship scholarship by demonstrating how non-cognitive dimensions – specifically embodied entrepreneurial imagination and spiritual capital – fundamentally shape entrepreneurial value creation. Current theories treat entrepreneurial imagination as sophisticated information processing, yet this cognitive emphasis fails to explain the sudden insights, intuitive breakthroughs, and transformative visions that enable entrepreneurs to create genuinely novel value. Drawing on phenomenological philosophy, this work reconceptualizes entrepreneurial imagination as an embodied, affective process rooted in sensory experience and somatic intuition rather than mental computation alone. Similarly, it reframes spiritual capital as immanent, relational knowing embedded in everyday practice rather than external ethical norms or transcendent belief systems.
The project currently focuses on conceptual development – clarifying constructs, establishing theoretical boundaries, and building nomological networks that connect these non-cognitive dimensions to existing entrepreneurship frameworks. This foundational work extends the effectuation decision-making model while developing an integrated framework for understanding how consciousness-based entrepreneurial imagination drives value creation, drawing on phenomenology, embodiment theory, and historical organizational analysis to establish conceptual coherence before empirical investigation.
This conceptual foundation will enable subsequent qualitative research examining how contemporary entrepreneurs mobilize embodied imagination and spiritual resources to generate transformative value in practice, followed by quantitative studies measuring consciousness development practices and their relationship to venture outcomes across diverse contexts. By progressing systematically from philosophical grounding through interpretive inquiry to empirical validation, this research line aims to transform entrepreneurship scholarship from narrow cognitive models toward holistic frameworks that honor human consciousness in its full dimensionality for creating meaningful, regenerative entrepreneurial value.
Friday, December 5 at 12:00 PM
Speaker: Kuhelika De, Associate Professor of Economics
Location: Dugan Hall, Room 347
Title: “Remittances and Business Cycles: The Role of Financial Development”
Abstract: This paper investigates whether financial development mitigates the impact of remittance shocks on the volatility of business cycles. Employing a two-stage empirical approach, we first estimate the dynamic response of consumption to remittance shocks using country-specific structural vector autoregression (VAR) models across 92 advanced and emerging market economies. In the second stage, we perform a cross-country analysis to assess the moderating role of financial development.
The findings indicate that higher levels of financial development significantly reduce the volatility of consumption in response to remittance shocks, even after accounting for other macroeconomic and institutional factors. This study holds important policy implications. Since financial development dampens the impact of remittance shocks on consumption volatility, policies aimed at strengthening financial institutions, improving access to credit, and promoting financial inclusion can enhance economic resilience in remittance-receiving countries.