Varun Rai and I wanted to understand how policy changed (and didn't) after Winter Storm Uri shut Texas down in February 2021. Here is the abstract for that paper, which we are preparing for submission to an energy policy-focused journal. As extreme weather events continue to cause policy crises, energy policy scholars have an opportunity …
Follow Which Leader? Mimetic Isomorphism Across Space
Willamette professor and fellow Rutgers awardee Colin Birkhead and I are curious about the question of why firms might choose to structure themselves as employee-owned. We decided to look specifically at U.S. breweries, many of which are employee-owned. Here is the first paragraph of the abstract for that paper, which we are preparing for submission …
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Predicting Firm Creation in Rural Texas: A Multi-Model Machine Learning Approach to a Complex Policy Problem
Supported by a grant from the IC2 Institute, Varun Rai, Vivek Shastry and I conducted a study of the factors predicting new firm growth in rural Texas. It is under review for publication in PLOS ONE, and you can read a draft on SSRN. What factors predict firm creation in rural America? Policymakers asking this …
Policy Narrators During Crisis: A micro-level analysis of the sourcing, synthesizing, and sharing of policy narratives in rural Texas
Supported by a grant from the IC2 Institute, Varun Rai, Megan Morris and I spent the first summer of the Covid-19 pandemic tracking how rural leaders in Texas helped make sense of and respond to change. This paper is under review for publication in Policy Studies Journal. How do leaders respond to crises? The Narrative …
Human Capital in Temporary Organizations
UNC-Flagler business professor Sekou Bermiss and I are working to prepare a portion of my dissertation for publication in management journals. Below is the abstract accepted for presentation at the People & Organizations Conference at the Wharton School in the fall of 2022. Contemporary markets have seen a marked increase in the frequency and influence …
Evaluating Emerging Ownership Alternatives for Family Businesses
WashU Business professor Peter Boumgarden and I are curious about why family businesses owners, many of whom will reach retirement age in the coming decades, might consider alternative ownership structures, such as conversion to employee ownership. Below is an initial abstract of our project, supported by Schmidt Futures and Institute for the Study of Ownership …
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I’m excited to share…
… a recent LinkedIn post that includes a link to my newly published dissertation: “I'm excited to share (generally! and also) some professional updates with you fine people: “Are you interested in employee ownership and democratically-run companies? I'm going to spend this year studying #employeeownership, and in particular employee ownership trusts, as a Kelso Fellow with the Institute …
Climate Migration: A Clubhouse Experiment
In the fall of 2020, a new app burst into view just as lockdowns began in Europe and North America. "Clubhouse" went from little-known Silicon Valley investor darling to worldwide phenomenon in just a few short shelter-in-place weeks. It was exactly what a subset of Internet natives were looking for: A way to connect both …
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Python for Beginners, Part III: Almost There, Stick With It
This is Part 3 in a series (n=?). Part I: Getting Started is here. Welcome back! If you've completed the setup tasks in Part I, you've created your very first Jupyter notebook. Cool. From here on out, we'll be working from within Jupyter Notebooks, rather than this blog. If you haven't done it already, head to GitHub …
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Python for Beginners, Part II: A Little Bit About Machine Learning But Don’t Panic
This is Part 2 in a series (n=?). Part I: Getting Started is here. You did it! You've opened up your very first Jupyter Notebook. Before we do anything interesting with it, let's take a step back: What are we doing here? If this guy is right, chances are that you're either into making websites, or …
Mark Clayton Hand, Ph.D. 