Welcome
About me - Research:
You can call me Chris! I am a PhD Candidate in Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
My research interests lie in connecting place-based features and activities of corporations, such as office re-location, structural attention, and philanthropy, to local community (e.g., poverty) and performance (e.g., reputation, sales) outcomes.
More broadly, I seek to understand the reciprocal system-level relationship between corporations and the features of their local environments. This includes understanding how the activities of large corporations affect, or are affected by nonprofits, government, and entrepreneurial activity.
I apply theory from stakeholder and non-market strategy, as well as organizational theory on the expectations of corporations, to place-based corporate activity linked to large-scale temporal geospatial datasets of media coverage, demography, and institutional features that often vary by city, county, country or state.
Work & Education History
Before pursuing my doctoral studies, I worked for a global cybersecurity startup and conducted research on ESG investing at NYU. Additionally, I used to run operations for a nonprofit startup competition and incubator. I started my career in management consulting, focusing on the international investment management industry. This entailed managing studies and working with firms across Canada, the US, and Europe. I hold bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Applied & Resource Economics from the University of Connecticut, as well as a master's degree in Management Science from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Dissertation
My dissertation, entitled "Corporations, Localities, and Social Issues" explores the complex relationship between corporate activities, location-based strategy, and social outcomes in the communities where they operate. Through three empirical studies, I investigate how corporate migration, resource allocation, and engagement strategies affect and are affected by changing local social outcomes, such as poverty, and polarizing issues that vary across institutional contexts like voting rights.
A Framework for ESG Research
While several of the projects I have worked on involve connecting corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) activities to financial performance, I am also concerned about how such ESG activities influence objective societal outcomes in specific locations (e.g., poverty rates, toxic emissions, startup founding rates).
Such activities ultimately may affect corporations' bottom lines through various mediating factors - such as stakeholder reciprocity, improved amenities, net migration, and corporate reputation - creating a feedback loop in which corporations can increase value, inside and outside of their walls, within the communities they operate.
Through my research and professional experiences, I developed a framework for analyzing an organization's ESG risks and opportunities. Some element of this framework is incorporated into most of the projects I work on. The core pillars of the framework are congruence between an organization's objective, socially evaluated, and self-described ESG activities and performance.
Whereas my dissertation focuses mostly on social issues, my overall research agenda hopes to support practical knowledge related to this triad.
Affiliations
I am most actively involved in the Wharton ESG Initiative, but also support both Wharton's Political Risk & Identity and Impact Investing Research Labs. I stay connected with former colleagues at NYU Stern's Center for Sustainable Business and University of Connecticut's Applied & Resource Economics Departments as well.
