Erika E. Small

Understanding Team Cognition: The Shift to Cognitive Similarity Configurations

This commentary focuses on S. A. McCombs chapter on the process of mental model convergence and provides guidance for advancing this research stream. McCombs chapter highlights many of the theoretical and methodological challenges that have plagued the study of cognition in teams. This commentary addresses those challenges and offers suggestions for the next steps in this field. Specifically, it considers the complex and abstract nature of team cognition and offers an elaborated model for understanding cognitive similarity that includes cognitive similarity configurations.

The Return Characteristics of Diamonds

We outline the ethical considerations surrounding the trading of diamonds, the metrics used to value diamonds, the history of diamond trading, and the current market structure. We provide an analysis of the underlying risk and return characteristics of several individual diamond types. We show that diamonds exhibit low CAPM and Fama-French betas, and low correlations with gold, the S&P 500, long-term U.S. bond prices, and U.S. inflation.

Brown & Smith Communication Solutions: A Staffing System Simulation:

Developing students’ practical skills in strategic staffing and selection within the classroom can be challenging. This article describes a staffing system simulation designed to engage students and develop applied skills in strategic recruiting, assessment, and evaluation of job applicants. Instructors looking for a multifaceted team project designed to engage students via experiential learning are provided with resources for three assignments that build on each other over the course of the semester, along with access to simulated selection test and performance data created based on meta-analytic findings. This project has received positive feedback from students.

Designing Management Curriculum for Workplace Readiness: Developing Students’ Soft Skills:

The increased complexity of today’s work environment has made the need for soft skills, such as teamwork, communication, leadership, and problem solving, more salient than ever. Employers hire for these skills because it is increasingly the human resources that give organizations a competitive advantage. Therefore, academia must respond to these external stakeholder needs by reexamining curriculum in light of how degree programs, particularly in management, are preparing students for the demands of the workplace. We describe a curriculum redesign that used a backward design process to focus on developing the soft skills that employers need, focusing in particular on developing teamwork-related skill sets.

The PowerShares Global Listed PrivateEquity Portfolio: Risk and Performance Analysis

The authors examine the risk and return characteristics of the PowerShares Global Listed Private Equity Portfolio (PSP) and benchmark its return to several domestic and international indices. They estimate annual Sharpe ratios for each index and the PSP to determine which offers the highest risk-adjusted return. In terms of raw non-risk-adjusted returns, the PSP is the worst-performing index in the study. When risk is considered through the use of the Sharpe ratio, the PSP underperforms most of the U.S.-based domestic indices; marginally outperforming only the S&P 500 Index. The authors also examine the coefficient of determination (R2) of the PSP using several regressors. They find that the broad U.S. market explains most of the variation in the returns of the PSP. The authors also show that once U.S. returns are controlled for, international factors explain less than 1% of incremental variation in the PSP’s returns. This finding is of particular interest because more than 59% of the PSP’s holdings are domiciled outside the United States.