In an era marked by rapid technological advancements and societal changes, the Carson College of Business at Washington State University is redefining the future of business education. Our research spans critical areas, including generative AI and augmented reality, and extends into disciplines such as hospitality business management, entrepreneurship, marketing, consumer behavior, information systems, management, finance, and operations management.
We’re not just analyzing these groundbreaking developments; we’re actively integrating them into practical applications that empower communities and drive industry innovation.
Rooted in the Pacific Northwest with a global vision, our research drives the evolution of business education in Washington State, preparing future leaders to harness disruptive technologies and societal shifts. Join us in shaping the business education of tomorrow, where tradition meets innovation, and practical knowledge meets forward-thinking strategies.
HIGH SCHOLARLY PRODUCTIVITY
Our faculty’s dedication to scholarly productivity is evident in their influential research contributions across various business disciplines. Research from Carson College faculty bridges theoretical and practical business aspects, advances academic knowledge, and provides practical solutions to real-world challenges.
Our diverse research spans finance, management, and international business, leading to significant work in journals such as the Academy of Management Journal and the Journal of International Business Studies. In addition, faculty research in hospitality business management is at the forefront of exploring current and future trends in travel, tourism, and hospitality industries, earning the WSU School of Hospitality Business Management the reputation as one of the premier hospitality research schools in the world.
This breadth of research underpins our faculty’s role in shaping business disciplines. Moreover, our doctoral students, guided by our faculty, achieve placements at peer universities, continuing the tradition of impactful research and maintaining Carson College’s position as a key player in the business research community.
Featured Scholarly Research
Potter, Chase, and Zhonghua Zhang. 2025. “Does Puffery Matter? Evidence from Online Business Acquisitions.” Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11156-025-01400-w
Lee, Stephen H., and Michael D. Johnson. 2025. “Emotional Signaling: How Helpers’ Emotional Expressions Affect Attributions of Motives, Relationship Quality, and Reciprocation.” Academy of Management Journal, published online May 8, 2025. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2023.0313
Balducci, Bitty, and Minjoo Kim. 2025. “Psychological Reactance among B2C Sales Prospects.” Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/08853134.2025.2479453
Wang, Xinchang, and Weikun Xu. 2025. “Joint Estimation of the Arrival Rate and Customer Taste Coefficients from Censored Transactional Data.” Production and Operations Management 34, no. 9: 2853–72. https://doi.org/10.1177/10591478251327753
Gursoy, Dogan, Gözdegül Başer, and Christina G. Chi. 2025. “Corporate Digital Responsibility: Navigating Ethical, Societal, and Environmental Challenges in the Digital Age and Exploring Future Research Directions.” Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, February, 1–20. doi:10.1080/19368623.2025.2465634
Cai, Ruiying, Xi Y. Leung, and Lu Lu. 2025. “When the Future Feels Closer Than the Past: An Experimental Research of Nostalgia Versus Forestalgia in Destination Ads.” Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research 0, no. 0. https://doi.org/10.1177/10963480241305764
Joireman, Jeff, Ismail Karabas, and Pavan Munaganti. 2024. “Customer Backlash against Pandemic Surcharges: The Mediating Role of Inferred Negative Motives and Implications for the ‘Surcharge Economy.’” Journal of Business Research 184: 114881. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2024.114881
Skilton, Paul F., Alan Mackelprang, Ramin Sepehrirad, and Ednilson Bernardes. 2024. “Supply Base Attributes and Diversion Risk in a Supply Chain for Hazardous Pharmaceutical Products.” Journal of Operations Management. https://doi.org/10.1002/joom.1335
Fairhurst, Douglas (DJ), and Daniel Greene. 2024. “How Much Does ChatGPT Know about Finance?” Financial Analysts Journal 81 (1): 12–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/0015198X.2024.2411941
Allen, Katherine R., Robert E. Crossler, France Bélanger, Jessica Resor, and Heather A. Kissel. 2022. “Parent and Adolescent Perspectives on Family Problems during the COVID‐19 Pandemic: Implications for Family Resilience.” Family Relations. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.13105
Carson Research Insights
Expert Thoughts on Capital One Savor
Kunter Gunasti, Associate Professor of Marketing
January 29, 2026
WalletHub
Brands Urged to Monitor Bluesky and Mastodon for ‘Unfiltered’ Consumer Truth
Mesut Cicek, Scholarly Associate Professor of Marketing
January 8, 2026
The Free Sheet
WSU Study on Investor Behavior During Pandemic Published in Finance Journal
George Jiang, Professor of Finance
December 12, 2026
The Daily Evergreen
Ask the Experts: Cities That Spend the Most/Least on Fast Food
Dipra Jha, Scholarly Associate Professor of Hospitality Business Management
September 26, 2025
WalletHub
Ask the Experts: Car Rental Insurance
Kunter Gunasti, Associate Professor of Marketing
September 4, 2025
WalletHub
Finding the middle market: Redefining senior living for middle-income Americans
Nancy Swanger, Founding Director of the Granger Cobb Institute for the Business of Aging; Jennifer Dihel ’21, Hospitality Business Management; and Kelvin Chang, Doctoral Student, Hospitality Business Management
May 12, 2025
McKnight’s Senior Living
Return-to-Work Roadblocks: Amazon Employees Air Frustrations
Debbie Compeau, Dean
February 20, 2025
KIRO 7
What Would You Give Up to Work Remotely?
Jeremy Beus, Associate Professor of Management
February 11, 2025
KIRO 7
Office with a [New] View
Kristine Kuhn, Associate Professor of Management
Washington State Magazine
Spring 2025
Building Trust in the Age of AI: Americans Call for Accountability in Marketing
Andrew Perkins, Professor of Marketing, and Robert E. Crossler, Professor of Information Systems
November 25, 2024
Puget Sound Business Journal
Areas of Research Strength
- Accounting ethics
- Accounting information and the stock market
- Auditing
- Auditors’ risk assessment and planning systems
- Business law (including cyberlaw, intellectual property ownership on the Internet, and legal history)
- Capital markets and disclosure issues
- Cost measurement
- Federal income taxation
- Financial accounting
- Governmental and non-profit accounting
- Healthcare
- Judgment and decision-making processes
- Managerial/cost accounting
- Retirement planning
- Tax accounting
- Taxation of investments
Entrepreneurship
- Crowdfunding
- Family business
- Venture capital
Management
- Mergers and acquisitions
- Leadership
- Gender stereotyping
- Business ethics
- Ethical climate and culture
- Innovation
- Staffing
- Managerial decision making
- Revenge
- Organizational justice
- Stakeholder theory
- Selection
- Corporate governance
- Job satisfaction
- Career development
MIS
- IT innovation
- Social computing
- Mobile computing
- Cloud computing
- Business intelligence, data science, data analytics
- Healthcare IT
- IT workforce development
- Human-computer interaction
- IT governance
- IT value
- Cyberdeviance
- IT adoption and use
Marketing
- Advertising disclosures
- Advertising effectiveness
- Advertising information processing
- Branding and brand management
- Business-to-business marketing
- Consumer decision-making
- Cultural differences
- Design in marketing
- Influence strategies
- Interfirm relationships
- Managerial decision-making
- Marketing public policy
- Marketing strategy
- Multi-channel distribution strategies
- Nostalgia
- Pricing
- Public policy
- Retailing
- Sensory perception
- Social influence
- Social psychology topics such as time orientation and self-control
- Stakeholder analysis
- Support for charities
- Technology-based start-up companies
International Business
- Cross-national effects of social institutions on work and organizations
- Economic impact and sustainability of development projects
- Effect of taxation and subsidies on production incentives
- Entrepreneurship—global compliance
- Ethical climates in multinational organizations
- Export performance of small and medium enterprises
- Global business law and policy
- International entrepreneurship
- International education
- International strategy and structure
- Marketing and export diversification
- Product pricing in developing countries
- Strategic global case governance and policy
- Tourism development
- Travel satisfaction
Decision Sciences
- Change point analysis
- Financial modeling
- Forecasting
- Probability and mathematical statistics
- Quality and process control
- Statistical methods
- Stochastic models
- Time series analysis
Economics
- Econometrics
Operations Management
- Decision support systems
- International operations management
- Inventory control
- Pricing
- Purchasing
- Revenue management
- Supply chain management
Operations Research
- Linear programming
Finance
- Asset pricing models
- Banking
- Capital structure
- Corporate finance
- Corporate governance
- Corporate investment decision making
- Financial institutions
- Financial markets
- International finance
- Investments
- Investor psychology
- Liquidity management
- Market efficiency
- Mergers and acquisitions
Risk Management & Insurance
- Customer satisfaction and loyalty
- Destination image and marketing
- Hospitality curriculum
- Hospitality workforce generational issues
- Information search behavior
- Managerial efficacy
- Mega events
- Productivity assessment and enhancement
- Risk environment in hospitality operations
- Service management and marketing
- Temperament and profitability
- Tourism development
- Visible body modification
- Wine business management
STUDENT RESEARCH
DOCTORAL RESEARCH
The Carson College PhD program provides many opportunities for interdisciplinary research. More than 95 percent of our doctoral graduates accept faculty positions at schools that require research productivity for tenure and promotion.
Each year, WSU hosts the Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) research competition where Ph.D. students have three minutes to present their doctoral thesis and its significance to a panel of judges. The competition challenges students to concisely explain their ideas and research discoveries to a non-specialist audience.
UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH
In addition to graduate-level research, the Carson College also offers undergraduate students the opportunity to work on business research projects. Students develop research skills that make them attractive candidates to employers worldwide.
Learn more about undergraduate research at WSU through the Showcase for Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities (SURCA).
