Research Roundup: December 2025

Dive into our monthly Research Roundup, showcasing the latest insights from the business education community to keep you informed of new and noteworthy industry trends. Here are this month’s selections:

The Climate That Sparks Sales Energy

• Researchers: Lisa Beeler and Ryan Mullins, Clemson University; Molly R. Burchett, University of Wyoming; Kevin S. Chase, University of Arkansas; Johannes Habel, University of Houston

• Output: “Inclusive Climates in Sales: Microaggressions, Sales Manager Justice and Salesperson Engagement,” Journal of Business Research, 2025

• Overview: In the high-stakes world of sales, where pressure and competition shape the rhythm of each day, the real risk to performance may come from something far less visible: whether people feel they belong. The researchers aimed to investigate how an inclusive climate, characterized by a workplace environment where individuals feel respected, valued, and able to contribute, influences salesperson engagement.
  
  They also explored two everyday experiences that influence these perceptions. These include microaggressions, which the study defines as subtle comments or behaviors that signal disrespect toward someone’s identity, and sales manager justice, which refers to fair and considerate treatment from managers. Through interviews with 30 salespeople and a survey of 154 others, the authors analyzed how these cues influence engagement in both inside and outside sales roles. Their goal was to understand how daily relational experiences, rather than just formal initiatives, influence whether salespeople remain motivated and connected.

• Findings: The study found that when salespeople perceived their environment as inclusive, they described feeling more committed to their roles and more energized by their teams. Interviewees linked inclusion to specific practices, such as identity-affirming groups that made people feel represented and steady opportunities for team connection that built community. Microaggressions, defined as subtle identity-based insults such as customers ignoring a salesperson in favor of a male colleague or coworkers joking that someone succeeded only because of luck, weakened these perceptions.
  
  Sales manager justice strengthened inclusion, particularly when managers listened to concerns, offered consistent support, and recognized effort. The sample included 64.3 percent outside salespeople, many of whom described feeling disconnected from the organization, which made inclusive climates especially important to their engagement. Overall, the results show that engagement grows in environments where people experience fairness and respect and declines when everyday interactions make them feel underestimated.

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When a Review Has a Purpose

• Researchers: Gorgi Krlev, ESCP Business School; Tim Hannigan, University of Ottawa; Andre Spicer, City, University of London

• Output: “What Makes a Good Review Article? Empirical Evidence From Management and Organization Research,” Academy of Management, 2025

• Overview: What makes a literature review “good” is still debated in management research, even as review articles have become more prominent over the past two decades. To examine what high-quality reviews look like in practice, the authors studied how review articles have been written across the field rather than relying on prescriptive guidance.
  
  They analyzed 1,441 standalone literature reviews published since the 1986 across five leading management journals. They combined topic modeling of review-article abstracts with abductive qualitative analysis and close reading of full papers. The study reframes the problem by shifting attention away from how reviews are written and toward why they exist and how they advance a field.

• Findings: The authors identify 10 empirically observed review purposes, arguing that reviews differ not only by review style or procedure but also by the social function they serve within a field. They propose two key dimensions for distinguishing reviews—the degree of reflexivity and the degree of substantiveness—and use these to map four review directions: reshaping, renovating, expanding, and ordering. As concrete examples, the paper describes an envisioning review that repositions executive behavior around executive motives, a debate review on evidence-based management that weighs critiques and responses, a synthesis review that addresses fragmentation in social entrepreneurship by developing a multistage and multilevel model, and a taking-stock review that organizes family business research around goals.
  
  The authors also find that management research has not converged on a single standardized approach to reviewing, noting ambiguity in how systematic reviews are defined and applied.
  
  For leaders who rely on research to guide their decisions, the findings suggest that the most useful insights come from reviews that are explicit about their purpose and aligned with the maturity of the field being assessed rather than those that simply follow a standardized formula.

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Honesty Is the New Power Move

• Researchers: Nina Michaelidou, Loughborough University; Ioannis Kostopoulos, Liverpool John Moores University; Emily Lowe, University of Birmingham

• Output: “The Dawn of ‘Deinfluencing’ as a Vehicle for Moral Responsibility and Anti-Consumption,” Journal of Business Research, 2025

• Overview: Social media may be saturated with product promotion, but a growing group of creators is gaining attention by encouraging people to pause before they buy. This study examines deinfluencing, a practice where content creators encourage followers to reconsider or reduce their purchases, and explores how this shift is affecting the behavior of TikTok users who regularly watch beauty content. Through in-depth interviews with 15 young adults, the researchers set out to understand how followers interpret this trend and how it influences their everyday decisions.
  
  Participants described deinfluencing as the direct counterpoint to traditional influencing, where creators speak candidly about products, point out inflated hype, and highlight overlooked alternatives. The study also introduces supporting ideas, such as moral responsibility and anti-consumption, the deliberate choice to consume less, to explain why deinfluencing resonates with this audience. Together, these perspectives position deinfluencing as a meaningful change in how people evaluate online recommendations.

• Findings: Participants consistently characterized deinfluencing videos as more genuine and relatable than typical beauty promotions, noting that creators share unfiltered experiences rather than polished advertising. They viewed deinfluencers as everyday people who are not paid to promote products and who openly discuss issues like environmental harm, animal testing, or unnecessary spending, making their messages feel more trustworthy.
  
  Many participants said this content helped them make better choices—from discovering budget-friendly alternatives to refusing products that conflict with their values—reflecting both self-driven and socially driven forms of anti-consumption. Others shared that they now buy fewer beauty products overall, describing moments when a video prompted them to stop and reconsider whether they truly needed a hyped item. Participants also noted that deinfluencing content challenged unrealistic beauty standards and offered a reassuring reality check, helping them feel more comfortable in their appearance.
  
  For business leaders, these reactions highlight the growing expectations for transparency, responsible messaging, and brand practices that can withstand scrutiny from increasingly discerning consumers.

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Big Investments, Small Returns in the Telehealth Boom

• Researchers: Ying-Chih Sun, East Central University; Ozlem Cosgun, Montclair State University; Raj Sharman, University of Buffalo

• Output: “Optimizing Telehealth Utilization During COVID-19: Enhancing Efficiency and Equity Through Data Envelopment Analysis and Machine Learning,” Operational Research, 2025

• Overview: Telehealth became a lifeline during COVID-19, yet its rapid expansion revealed how unevenly digital care reached communities across the country. This study aimed to understand how efficiently counties in the United States converted their available resources, including healthcare staff, broadband access, and incentive programs, into actual telehealth use during the first year of the pandemic. The researchers used an approach called data envelopment analysis, which evaluates how well units turn inputs into outputs, and paired it with machine learning to identify which county characteristics most strongly shaped efficiency.
  
  The study focused on identifying resource misallocation, which refers to situations where inputs such as staffing, facilities, or broadband infrastructure are used inefficiently relative to the telehealth services delivered. This issue was especially important in rural regions, where telehealth is often expected to close longstanding gaps in access. By examining more than 3,000 counties, the study explored how policy-driven expansions in telehealth translated into real service delivery.

• Findings: The analysis revealed sharp geographic differences. Midwestern states, including Montana and North Dakota, ranked among the least efficient regions, while states such as Florida and California demonstrated much stronger performance under similar conditions. Rural counties showed the greatest inefficiencies and often needed reductions of more than 80 percent in areas related to healthcare demand and supply. These reductions indicated that significant resources were deployed without a corresponding increase in telehealth use.
  
  The study highlights this mismatch in examples such as rural broadband incentive programs that did not translate into higher visit volumes, suggesting gaps in digital readiness or provider capacity. Machine learning results also identified limited English proficiency as the most influential factor in predicting inefficiency across both urban and rural settings, highlighting how communication barriers can limit meaningful access, even when infrastructure is present.
  
  Together, these results underscore the importance of aligning digital investments with the actual capabilities of communities so that telehealth resources generate measurable value.

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The Quiet Discipline of Credit Ratings

• Researchers: Shee-Yee Khoo, Bangor University; Thanos Verousis, Vlerick Business School; Huong Vu, The University of Aberdeen; Patrycja Klusak, Heriot-Watt University

• Output: “Restraining Overconfident CEOs Through Credit Ratings,” European Financial Management, 2025

• Overview: Confidence can accelerate growth, but when it goes unchecked, it can also magnify risk. This study examines whether credit ratings, formal assessments of a firm’s ability to repay debt, can restrain overconfident CEOs, defined as leaders who systematically overestimate the value they believe they can create. The authors focus on mergers and acquisitions, where overconfidence is closely linked to aggressive dealmaking and heavy reliance on debt financing.
  
  Using data from 916 U.S. non-financial firms between 2006 and 2019, the study examines how acquisition behavior changes as firms transition across credit rating levels. A central signal in this process is a negative rating outlook, an early warning from credit rating agencies that a downgrade may occur within the next one to two years. The research investigates whether these signals merely reduce information gaps or actively influence executive decision-making.

• Findings: The results reveal a distinct behavioral shift when credit risk becomes visible. Among firms with investment-grade ratings, meaning they are viewed as relatively safe borrowers, overconfident CEOs significantly reduce acquisition activity after receiving a negative rating outlook. In practical terms, these firms are about 16 percent less likely to pursue acquisitions following the warning, a stronger response than that of more rational CEOs.
  
  The reduction is most pronounced in acquisitions that would increase debt and reduce financial flexibility, raising the likelihood of a future downgrade. At lower rating levels, the pattern reverses, as rating improvements relax financing constraints and lead overconfident CEOs to increase dealmaking.
  
  The evidence shows that credit ratings operate as an external monitoring and learning mechanism, refocusing overconfident CEOs’ acquisition behavior precisely when downgrade risk is highest.

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If you have new research from your school share with the business education community, please submit a summary and relevant links to AACSB Insights via our online submission form at aacsb.edu/insights/articles/submissions.