UHV faculty to present research during Homecoming Week
The University of Houston-Victoria Discovers series will close the spring semester during the university’s homecoming festivities with presentations by two UHV College of Business faculty members about stock returns and bankruptcy.
Nazif Durmaz, an associate professor of economics, and Tong Kang, an assistant professor of management, will present their respective research topics from 1:30-2:30 p.m. April 21 in Room 111 of UHV University North, 3007 N. Ben Wilson St. The presentation also will be streamed live through Microsoft Teams. The event is free and open to the public and will be part of UHV’s 2022 homecoming celebration, called The Happiest Homecoming at UHV.
“We’re excited to host UHV Discovers in conjunction with this year’s homecoming activities at UHV,” said Joann Olson, UHV associate provost for research and dean of graduate studies. “This is a great opportunity for the community to meet two of our College of Business faculty members and learn about research in economics and management.”
This is the fifth session of the UHV Discovers Series, which highlights the research conducted by UHV faculty members and how their work impacts their fields of study and higher education. This is the last UHV Discovers session for the semester. The previous sessions this semester included research about career development in undergraduate STEM majors; reading interventions used with English learners with learning disabilities; an in-depth investigation into the history of law in British towns during the Medieval period; and the interactions between federal soldiers and Southern women during the American Civil War.
Durmaz will present research he has worked on in collaboration with others about how the historical stock price movements might be used to generate returns. Durmaz will speak about closed-end mutual funds, a stock that people can buy and sell, and how investors and the public buy and sell these closed-end funds and if they are different from excessive returns. Durmaz teaches undergraduate business finance courses and has worked on this research for a couple of years. He plans to submit the research to an academic journal. He is excited to present his findings to the general public.
“There are different fields in finance and stock markets that people can learn, and there are different opportunities,” Durmaz said. “I hope those who attend learn that the general public can also learn more about statistics, business and the indicators of the finance of economics and further their knowledge in finance, and maybe get better returns in financial markets.”
Kang will speak about his research about theoretical predictions of when a “strategic” bankruptcy could help a company emerge from bankruptcy and still be able to continue to operate as an independent entity. This research is relevant for today’s business environment because of the uncertainty of business for several different reasons including COVID-19, wars, supply shortages and inflation, he said. All these situations can threaten a company’s survivability. For companies, operational flexibility is key for the organization, and this research highlights the importance of keeping strategic bankruptcy as a flexibility option that could help financially distressed companies.
The research on this topic spans several years and uses a sample of more than 900 bankrupt firms in the U.S. between 1980-2014, and in 2020 was published in an academic journal. Kang, who teaches strategic management courses for undergraduate students, will also present real-world examples of companies that used strategic bankruptcy during his presentation.
“I am so honored to share this research with the UHV community and alumni, and the wider community of people who are interested in learning more about this topic,” Kang said.
UHV is free and open to the public. To watch the livestream of the event through Microsoft Teams on April 21, go to www.uhv.edu/uhv-discovers.
The University of Houston-Victoria, located in the heart of the Coastal Bend region since 1973 in Victoria, Texas, offers courses leading to more than 80 academic programs in the schools of Arts & Sciences; Business Administration; and Education, Health Professions & Human Development. UHV provides face-to-face classes at its Victoria campus, as well as an instructional site in Katy, Texas, and online classes that students can take from anywhere. UHV supports the American Association of State Colleges and Universities Opportunities for All initiative to increase awareness about state colleges and universities and the important role they have in providing a high-quality and accessible education to an increasingly diverse student population, as well as contributing to regional and state economic development.
