EHE News
Donors support research: Behavior change from financial education, restaurant survival after natural disasters
Bob Evans Farms, Inc., and Doris M. Risley knew exactly what they were doing when they created endowed funds in the college. They wanted to support the work of exceptional students who would study some of the most challenging issues of our time and contribute to solutions.
Mike S. Gutter (PhD, '00; BS '99, Family Financial Services) and Sandra Sydnor-Bousso (PhD '09, hospitality management) received support from these funds, respectively, during their graduate programs, and are now faculty at well-known universities. Both found donor support important to their performance in their programs.
How state financial education policies influence student financial behavior
Mike Gutter
Jonathan Fox
Catherine P. Montalto
Sherman Hanna
Mike S. Gutter, an assistant professor and state extension specialist of family financial management at the University of Florida, says a fellowship from the Doris M. and Clifford A. Risley Fund enabled him to pursue his dissertation on race and investing.
Doris Risley, who earned a bachelor's degree in home economics in 1917, would be pleased that her endowed fund continues to help improve lives. Gutter says, "My dissertation research eventually led to my current research focus on financial socialization and my desire to improve the financial literacy of young people."
Gutter thanks three faculty who shaped him academically: Associate Professors Jonathan Fox and Catherine P. Montalto and Professor Sherman Hanna, all of Consumer Sciences. "Jonathan taught me about being a mentor, teaching and about the profession. Cathy taught me a great deal about research methods, especially the effective use of the statistics software SAS. Sherman taught me about logic, theories and the role your team plays in your effort. I appreciate the three of them and the opportunities they created for me.
Most recently, with support from the National Endowment for Financial Education, Gutter studied how today's state policies mandating high school financial education make a difference in college student financial behavior. He chose two states randomly, one with mandates, and one without mandates. Students from 15 college/universities in the two states completed surveys.
His results show that college students in states mandating financial education were more likely to have greater levels of financial knowledge. They scored somewhat higher on a test of financial knowledge, which included basic credit literacy and awareness.
Subjects in the study had healthier financial attitudes, such as lower levels of materialism and a lower likelihood of being compulsive buyers. They were more likely to engage in positive financial behaviors, such as use of budgeting and saving, and they engaged in fewer risk behaviors, such as late payments and maxing out credit cards.
Overall, Gutter's findings showed that having any policy at all represents an important tipping point that moves the population toward better financial knowledge, healthier financial dispositions, and more prudent financial behaviors.
Community resilience aids restaurant survival after natural disasters
Sandra Sydnor-Bousso
Kathryn Stafford
Sandra Sydnor-Bousso, now an assistant professor of hospitality and tourism management at Purdue University, says the Bob Evans Farms Inc., Hospitality Research Fund, established in 1988, supported her dissertation research and allowed her to present at a key conference during her program.
"The Bob Evans scholarship enabled me to attend and present research results at the premier conference in my discipline, I-CHRIE (International Council on Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Education)," says Sydnor-Bousso. "There I interacted with other students and highly regarded faculty and researchers, leading to more confidence in my capacity as a researcher and scholar.
"The effect of the financial support afforded by this scholarship cannot be overestimated. I feel extraordinarily blessed to have received it!"
For her research, Sydnor-Bousso decided to contribute to our understanding of why some hospitality and tourism firms recover from natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes and floods, and others do not. Business and industry effects from natural disasters are among the most understudied areas in disaster research.
This is despite business and industry's sizeable input to the gross national product, jobs, and taxes, and the staggering socioeconomic costs of natural disasters, currently $1 billion per week and 300,000 affected lives per year in the U.S. alone.
With guidance from her advisor, Associate Professor Kathryn Stafford, Consumer Sciences, Sydnor-Bousso's research was the first to analyze the disaster resilience of restaurants, particularly restaurant jobs. Previous disaster research in the hospitality industry has focused on the hotel segment of that industry.
She found that a community's human and social capital and population density all helped restaurant jobs rebound after natural disasters. Consequently, owners should look at these community attributes when selecting a restaurant location. They also should invest in these aspects of their communities once established. Human capital includes education, and social capital includes community organizations.
According to her findings, restaurants should look for opportunities to support schools and after-school activities as well as job-training programs. By investing in these and other community institutions and programs, restaurant owners and managers invest in their own future resilience.
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