BSB Faculty Research Examines Business Impact Of COVID-19

Faculty from Dominican University of California’s Barowsky School of Business (BSB) are researching the impact of COVID-19 on business in the United States and overseas. From studying how consumer panic buying disrupted the supply chain in the United States to examining the impact of demand management policies on Ethiopia’s already fragile economy, BSB faculty are sharing their expertise with an international audience through publications and presentations.

• Dr. Vafa Saboori, Associate Professor of Operations Management and Director of the Master’s of Science in Business Analytics program, and Dr. ChangSeob Yeo, Associate Professor of Marketing, will present “Panic Demand Management Under the COVID-19” at the 2020 Annual Decision Sciences Institute conference in November. Their research investigates the demand-side effect on the supply chain of frequently purchased consumer goods under the COVID-19 supply disruption. The authors will discuss how consumer panic buying disrupted the supply chain, what triggers such behavior among consumers, and how the negative impact of consumer panic buying can be mitigated. 
• In a paper due to be published in the European Journal of Research and Reflection in Educational Sciences, Dr. Asayehgn Desta, the Sarlo Distinguished Professor of Business Economics, notes that policies and strategies intended to manage the spread of COVID-19 have further damaged the country’s already weak economy. “Establishing Sustainable Handwashing Water Strategies to Manage the Spread of COVID-19 in the Regional State of Tigray, Ethiopia” is co-authored by Hadush Berhe from Mekelle University, Ethiopia. The authors point out that many of the health-related preventative measures introduced in Ethiopia, including mask-wearing, maintaining proper social distancing, and handwashing with clean water, were largely ineffective. “Rather than serving the Ethiopian people to be released from coronavirus attack, the staying-at-home policy that was advocated to control the spread of the COVID-19 virus was seen as means of contributing more to the deaths of poor people from starvation,” the authors write in their abstract. Meanwhile, limited access to basic handwashing facilities will require policymakers to invest in a combination of on-site water recycling or water downcycling, as well as rainwater harvesting, to reduce water shortages and combat the future occurrence of diseases.
• A paper co-authored by Dr. Aslihan Korkmaz, Assistant Professor of Finance, was published in Emerging Markets Finance & Trade. “Household Financial Decision Making Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on household investment decisions in China using a novel survey conducted by the Survey and Research Center for China Household Finance. Analyzing the effects of COVID-19, Dr. Korkmaz and her co-authors found that households who know someone infected with COVID-19 lost confidence in the economy and became more likely to be risk-averse. Further, the authors’ study revealed that COVID-19 increased the probability that a household will change its investment portfolio. With her co-authors, Dr. Korkmaz presented the paper at the "Online Symposium on the Pandemics: Lessons from an Economics and Finance Perspective" hosted by the Southeast University in China on May 30.
• Dr. Rajeev Sooreea, Associate Dean and Associate Professor of International Business, was a keynote speaker for the International Review of Business and Economics, which hosted an international conference on the “Dynamics of Business and Economics: A Global Perspective” in July. The conference focused on the challenges that businesses and the global economy are facing during the current unprecedented times. Dr. Sooreea discussed the economic impacts of COVID-19 and presented ongoing research, findings and developments on how COVID-19 is impacting businesses, the U.S. economy, and the California economy. He also shared insights into how India can respond to this global pandemic from an economic and business perspective.