Since joining the College of Business faculty 1997, Professor Michalisin has taught strategic management courses at the undergraduate, master’s and doctorate levels. In his nine years at SIU, he has been on either the Undergraduate or Graduate Teaching Honor Rolls four times. Students have often commented that his classes are among the best in the graduate program.

Michalisin earned a doctorate in strategic management and macro-organizational theory from Kent State University, a masters in business administration from Duquesne University, and a bachelor’s degree in accounting from The Pennsylvania State University. He is also a licensed C.P.A. In addition to his academic experience, he has worked at Ernst and Young, Westinghouse and Finalco Group, Inc.

Michalisin’s research interests are in the Resource-Based View of the Firm, Research Methodology, and Top Management Team Dynamics and their impacts on firm performance. He has published numerous articles in a variety of journals including the Journal of Business Research and Group and Organizational Management. In 1999 he coauthored the Best Empirical/Theoretical Paper of the Year at the annual meeting of the Decision Sciences Institute, and in 2005 he coauthored two Best Papers at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management.

In 2006, Michalisin presented a paper titled "Can You Teach Business Ethics? An Empirical Investigation," at the Annual Academy of Management Conference in Atlanta. Co-author Charnchai Tangpong holds a doctoral degree in business administration from SIUC (2002) and now teaches at North Dakota State University

"Large-scale corporate scandals such as Enron, World-Com and Arthur Anderson have heightened awareness of the importance of business ethics in business and management education," Michalisin said. "As a result, colleges and universities have responded with increased coverage of business ethics in their core business curricula, and the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) requires business ethics as a core component of accredited business curricula. The increasing emphasis of ethics education in business programs then begs the question, ‘Can business ethics be taught?'"

Michalisin's study employed a rigorous experimental design with random subject assignments and scenario-based questions. He found that ethics training does appear to affect ethical judgments and decision-making, however, students in their early years of a business program were more receptive to training.

"One possible explanation is that senior-level management courses typically focus more on top management teams and their responsibilities to company shareholders. Therefore, it may not be surprising that our empirical results show that seniors tended to emphasize corporate profits and shareholder wealth maximization over the needs of other stakeholders," he said.

In addition, the Michalisin found that ethics education can significantly influence decisions when students had to consider the effect on suppliers or employees but "being customers themselves, students were not easily manipulated when presented with customer-related scenarios so ethics training was not as effective in that arena," Michalisin said.

Michalisin, the College of Business and Administration's 2006 Graduate Teacher of the Year, hopes his research leads to more schools incorporating ethics training. "Right now, 40 percent of the top 50 business schools require a course in business ethics or social responsibility. You can see how important it is," he said.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Business ethics
• Resource-based view of the firm
• Attribution Theory
• Top Management Team Dynamics and their impacts on firm performance.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Michalisin, M. D., Karau, S. J., & Tangpong, C. (2007). Leadership’s Activation of Team Cohesion as a Strategic Asset: An Empirical Simulation. Journal of Business Strategies 24(1): 1-26.

Michalisin, M. D., Karau, S. J., & Conrad, E. (2006). Top Management Team Attraction as a Strategic Asset: A Longitudinal Simulation Test of the Resource Based View. Journal of Applied Business Research 22(3): 109-121.

Michalisin, M. D., Karau, S. J., & Tangpong, C. (2004). The effects of performance, team cohesion, and uncertainty on attribution: A longitudinal study. Journal of Business Research 57(10): 1108-1115.

Michalisin, M. D., Karau, S. J., & Tangpong, C. (2004). Top management team cohesion and superior industry returns: An empirical study of the resource-based view. Group & Organization Management29(1): 125-140.

Michalisin, M. D. (2001). Validity of annual report assertions about innovativeness: An empirical investigation. Journal of Business Research, 53(3): 151-161.

AWARDS

College of Business and Administration's “2006 GRADUATE TEACHER OF THE YEAR AWARD”

2006 College of Business and Administration's Graduate Teaching Honor Roll

2005 College of Business and Administration's Graduate Teaching Honor Roll

2004 College of Business and Administration's Undergraduate Teaching Honor Roll

2000 College of Business and Administration's Undergraduate Teaching Honor Roll

1999 College of Business and Administration's Graduate Teaching Honor Roll