Business Scholarship Podcast

Afra Afsharipour, professor of law at the University of California, Davis, joins the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss her article Women and M&A. In this empirical study Afsharipour highlights the dearth of women among lead lawyers in the largest public-company M&A deals. She relates this gap to prior literatures on board and executive gender diversity and proposes steps to help close it. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School, with editing by Daniel Hamilton, a third-year student at Brooklyn Law School.

Jeremy Kress, assistant professor of business law at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, joins the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss his article Who's Looking Out For The Banks?. Kress examines the risk of exploitation that national banks face when they are part of financial conglomerates whose nonbank affiliates might seek to benefit from banking subsidies. He locates this risk in director overlap between the boards of banks and their parent companies and proposes reforms to bolster the independence of bank subsidiaries’ boards. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School.

Colleen Honigsberg, associate professor of law at Stanford University, joins the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss her article Deleting Misconduct: The Expungement of BrokerCheck Records, which she co-authored with Matthew Jacob. In the article Honigsberg examines 6,660 requests for expungement of alleged misconduct by securities brokers, including what those requests and their outcomes mean for brokers’ subsequent careers and recidivism risk. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School.

Steven Boivie, professor at Texas A&M University Mays Business School, and Scott Graffin, professor at the University of Georgia Terry College of Business, join the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss their article Corporate Directors' Implicit Theories of the Roles and Duties of Boards. In this interview-based study, Boivie and Graffin, along with co-authors Michael Withers and Kevin Corley, find that contrary to agency-cost theory, corporate directors view their role as supporting, not monitoring, management. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School.

Rebecca Jarvis, ABC News Chief Business, Technology & Economics Correspondent and host of The Dropout podcast, joins the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss what to expect in the criminal trial of former Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School.

Christina Sautter, professor of law at Louisiana State University, and Sergio Gramitto Ricci, lecturer at Monash University, join the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss their article Corporate Governance Gaming: The Power of Retail Investors. Sautter and Grammito Ricci identify the rise of wireless investors, a cohort of Millennial and Gen Z investors who seek community and emphasize environmental, social, and governance factors. This new kind of investor is poised to shake up corporate governance, they explain, as seen in the “meme stock” phenomenon and growing retail-shareholder bases at companies favored by wireless investors. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School.

Eliot Brown, a reporter at the Wall Street Journal, joins the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss his book The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion, which he co-authored with fellow reporter Maureen Farrell. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School. Special thanks to Ann Lipton, associate professor at Tulane Law School, and Anat Alon-Beck, assistant professor of law at Case Western Reserve University, for invaluable feedback.

Christine Abely, faculty fellow at New England Law Boston, joins the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss her article Adjusting Pre- and Post-Judgment Interest Rates for Consumer Debt Collection Actions. In this article Abely explains that fixed statutory rates for pre- and post-judgement interest can result in windfalls for creditors that come at the expense of consumer debtors. Because consumers often cannot hedge against this risk—as non-consumer judgment debtors can—Abely recommends legislative reforms to protect consumers from paying above-market judgment interest rates. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School.

Andrea Fried, associate professor at Linköping University, joins the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss her book Understanding Deviance in a World of Standards. In the book Fried and co-authors explore the rise of standards and standardization across global industries, standardization’s effects on innovation, and the negative and positive aspects of organizational deviation from standards. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School.

Julian Arato, professor of law at Brooklyn Law School, joins the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss his article The Elastic Corporate Form in International Law. In this article, Arato confronts a tendency by arbitral panels in investor-state disputes to reach decisions that are inconsistent with domestic corporate laws. Examples include allowing shareholders to press claims for third-party harms to a corporation, something domestic laws ordinarily do not permit. This practice, Arato explains, could increase the cost of capital and thus undermine investment treaties’ goal of fostering efficient investment. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School.