Jaywon Lee

Nanotechnology Education for the Global World: Training the Leaders of Tomorrow

Nanoscience is one of the fastest growing and most impactful fields in global scientific research. In order to support the continued development of nanoscience and nanotechnology, it is important that nanoscience education be a top priority to accelerate research excellence. In this Nano Focus, we discuss current approaches to nanoscience training and propose a learning design framework to promote the next generation of nanoscientists. Prominent among these are the abilities to communicate and to work across and between conventional disciplines. While the United States has played leading roles in initiating these developments, the global landscape of nanoscience calls for worldwide attention to this educational need. Recent developments in emerging nanoscience nations are also discussed. Photo credit: Jae Hyeon Park.

Nanomedicine for Infectious Disease Applications: Innovation towards Broad-Spectrum Treatment of Viral Infections.

Nanomedicine enables unique diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities to tackle problems in clinical medicine. As multifunctional agents with programmable properties, nanomedicines are poised to revolutionize treatment strategies. This promise is especially evident for infectious disease applications, for which the continual emergence, re-emergence, and evolution of pathogens has proven difficult to counter by conventional approaches. Herein, a conceptual framework is presented that envisions possible routes for the development of nanomedicines as superior broad-spectrum antiviral agents against enveloped viruses. With lipid membranes playing a critical role in the life cycle of medically important enveloped viruses including HIV, influenza, and Ebola, cellular and viral membrane interfaces are ideal elements to incorporate into broad-spectrum antiviral strategies. Examples are presented that demonstrate how nanomedicine strategies inspired by lipid membranes enable a wide range of targeting opportunities to gain control of critical stages in the virus life cycle through either direct or indirect approaches involving membrane interfaces. The capabilities can be realized by enabling new inhibitory functions or improving the function of existing drugs through nanotechnology-enabled solutions. With these exciting opportunities, due attention is also given to the clinical translation of nanomedicines for infectious disease applications, especially as pharmaceutical drug-discovery pipelines demand new routes of innovation.

Revisiting CEO power and firm value

Prior literature associates CEO power with agency problems and documents the negative relationship between CEO power and firm value (e.g., Bebchuk et al., 2011). However, the ‘optimal’ level of CEO power may differ for every firm and for individual CEO depending on firm and CEO characteristics. In this study, we estimate the normal (‘optimal’) level of CEO power and show that the association between CEO power and firm value is nonmonotonic. Our results reveal that the normal level of CEO power is positively associated with firm value while excess and deficient CEO power is negatively associated with firm value. Using the residuals from our estimation model of CEO power, we illustrate that our measure of residual CEO power has an inverse U-shaped relationship with firm value.

The impact of audit committee financial expertise on management discussion and analysis (MD&A) tone

This study examines whether financial expertise of audit committees affects the quality of textual information conveyed through the management discussion and analysis (MD&A) section of corporate annual reports. Our empirical results reveal that audit committee financial expertise, particularly that which is directly connected to accounting, curtails managerial opportunism in the form of upward management of MD&A tone. In addition, we find that the effect of financial expertise is more pronounced when the audit committee is more powerful or when audit committee members face higher litigation risks. Overall, this study highlights the importance of audit committee financial expertise in improving the quality of qualitative disclosures.

CEO and Outside Director Equity Compensation: Substitutes or Complements for Management Earnings Forecasts?

Abstract This study examines how the equity compensation of chief executive officers (CEO) and that of outside directors affect management earnings forecasts (MFs) and the relationship between these two positions in terms of compensation. Our evidence reveals that CEO (director) equity compensation is positively associated with MF likelihood, frequency, and accuracy when director (CEO) equity compensation is not high. However, an increase in director (CEO) equity compensation is not effective in improving disclosure quality when the level of CEO (director) equity compensation is already high. These results suggest that the two incentive mechanisms act as substitutes when both are intensively used in the context of MF disclosure.

Purpose and Meaning in Life and Job Satisfaction Among the Aged

This study investigates the relationship between purpose and meaning in life and job satisfaction among the aged. This issue is quite timely since there has been an increase in the employment rate of senior citizens in Asian countries due to the insufficient working-age population. We survey 228 seniors who are older than 55 years in South Korea. Our results suggest that purpose and meaning in life are highly associated with overall job satisfaction among the aged. We also find that vocation mediates the relationship between purpose and meaning in life and job satisfaction.