Monthly Archives: December 2025

Periods of high volatility call for closer attention to insider activity

During periods of severe economic upheaval, investors can gain valuable insights into future stock market performance by watching how corporate insiders trade their own companies’ shares. That is the main conclusion of a new study by researchers at Washington State University examining insider behaviour during the Covid-19 pandemic. Published in the Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, the research analysed trading patterns during the extraordinary market turmoil of early 2020 and found that insiders often moved against the broader market — a strategy that later proved highly predictive.

As panic swept through financial markets in the early days of the pandemic, most investors rushed to sell. In contrast, many corporate insiders were buying. When markets later recovered, a significant number of insiders shifted to selling. These contrarian trades proved strong indicators of how stocks would perform over the following year. “When insiders bought, the stock generally performed better, and when they sold, performance tended to weaken over the next 12 months,” said lead author George Jiang, professor and Gary P. Brinson Investment Management Chair in the Department of Finance and Management Science at Washington State University’s Carson College of Business.

Because insider trades must be reported to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and are publicly available on the SEC website and on financial data platforms such as Barchart, the information is accessible to all investors. Jiang noted that tracking these transactions during periods of market shock can help investors separate meaningful signals from short-term noise. While insiders are strictly prohibited from trading on confidential, non-public information, their deep understanding of their companies’ financial health and broader economic conditions still gives them a significant informational advantage.

The pandemic acted as a “natural laboratory” for the researchers. In early 2020, global markets experienced one of their most violent and uncertain periods in decades, driven by uneven government responses, widespread lockdowns, and severe supply-chain disruptions. The study found that insider buying surged from late February to early April as markets collapsed, followed by a fourfold increase in insider selling over the rest of the year. Statistical analysis showed that insiders systematically bought undervalued stocks and sold overvalued ones, with these decisions accurately predicting later market movements. The findings highlight how insider trading became more informative during the crisis, while also underscoring persistent concerns about information gaps between insiders and everyday investors.

“Markets will always be volatile from time to time, so uncertainty is unavoidable,” Jiang said. “These results offer important lessons for the future — for both investors and regulators. For investors in particular, paying attention to what insiders do can be especially valuable during moments of extreme uncertainty.”

More information: George Jiang et al, Insider trading patterns during the COVID period, Pacific-Basin Finance Journal. DOI: 10.1016/j.pacfin.2025.102957

Journal information: Pacific-Basin Finance Journal Provided by Washington State University

Who Can Really Be Santa? New Study Suggests the Suit Fits More People Than Expected

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A flowing white beard, a rounded belly and a booming, cheerful laugh are widely seen as the hallmarks of a convincing Santa Claus. But new research suggests that the key to success in the role has far less to do with physical appearance and far more with a genuine sense of calling. The study finds that even those who depart sharply from the familiar image of Santa can thrive if they deeply identify with the role and its meaning.

“There are powerful cultural expectations about what Santa should look like,” said Borbala Csillag of Oregon State University, a co-author of the study. “Yet our findings show that almost anyone can be Santa if they feel a real pull towards the role.” By focusing on the people beneath the costume, the researchers discovered that professional Santas in the United States are far more diverse than many would assume. The research, recently published in the Academy of Management Journal, was led by Christina Hymer of the University of Tennessee, with Bethany Cockburn of Northern Illinois University also contributing as a co-author.

The idea for the study emerged during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the researchers were discussing possible projects. After watching a stream of festive films at home with her child, Hymer suggested exploring how Santas make sense of their work. That idea led to more than 50 in-depth interviews and almost 850 survey responses from professional Santas across the country. From this material, the team identified three broad types: “prototypical” Santas who closely resemble the classic image; “semi-prototypical” Santas who match some expectations but not others; and “non-prototypical” Santas who bear little physical resemblance to the traditional figure.

Prototypical Santas, often older white men with beards and round builds, typically describe a powerful sense of identification with the role that extends throughout the year. Semi-prototypical Santas, however, frequently experienced tension between their own attributes and the Santa image, and found creative ways to resolve it. One slim Santa told children that Santa had become health-conscious, while another, who uses cochlear implants, recast them as a means of communication with the elves at the North Pole. Non-prototypical Santas, including women, people of colour and those with disabilities, often reported the strongest sense of calling despite facing the most significant resistance.

Several Santas described encountering outright rejection. One African American Santa was turned away by a retailer who said customers were not ready for a Santa of colour. A physically disabled Santa adapted the role by using a motorised scooter to take part in parades. “These Santas are trailblazers,” Csillag said. “The expectations surrounding the role may seem narrow, but they are not impossible to overcome.” The researchers note, however, that their study included only those who ultimately succeeded, and others may still struggle to break through.

The findings carry implications beyond the world of Santa. Csillag said the results also apply to professions shaped by personal values and moral purpose, such as teaching, nursing and faith-based work. People may succeed not because they match a stereotype, but because they reflect broadly on their strengths and how they align with a role’s more profound meaning. The study also highlights the power of institutional leaders to either reinforce or relax rigid expectations. “If we want to open meaningful roles to a wider range of people,” Csillag said, “we may need to rethink what it truly means to fulfil them.”

More information: Christina Hymer et al, Who’s Behind the Red Suit? Exploring Role Prototypicality within Calling Enactment among Professional Santas, Academy of Management Journal. DOI: 10.5465/amj.2023.1161

Journal information: Academy of Management Journal Provided by Oregon State University

The pressure of shopping for two is real

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For many people, even ordinary shopping can feel taxing, yet the tension increases substantially when the purchase is intended to be shared with someone else. Research from the UC Riverside School of Business, published in the Journal of Marketing Research, shows that buying for joint use creates significantly more anxiety than buying for yourself or selecting a gift. According to Margaret Campbell, professor and chair of the Marketing Department at UC Riverside, the added stress arises from the emotional responsibility of trying to satisfy more than one person. Shoppers feel less sure of their choices and more afraid of getting things wrong when another person’s enjoyment is at stake.

Shared purchases cover a wide array of familiar situations, from picking a hotel for a family trip to choosing a restaurant for a date or gathering snacks for a book club meeting. Even choosing beer for a group watching a big match can bring on the pressure. Campbell explains that the anxiety comes from wanting to keep everyone happy and worrying about falling short, rather than from the difficulty of the choice itself. The act of choosing becomes a social one, shaped by concerns about relationships and mutual satisfaction.

The study, titled “The Decision-Making Process and Impact of Individual Decisions for Joint Consumption,” marked a shift in consumer research by moving away from economic explanations and exploring the psychological dynamics underpinning decisions made on behalf of others. Campbell and her graduate student, Sharaya Jones—now an assistant professor at George Mason University—tested over 2,000 participants who assessed their anxiety levels in various scenarios. These included choosing drinks for meetings, snacks for films, wine for a friend’s celebration, and even planning travel activities. Across all these cases, shoppers felt notably more stressed when the outcome affected someone else as well as themselves.

One of the study’s key findings is that understanding another person’s preferences can lessen anxiety. People feel more confident when they are not forced to guess. However, if they discover that the other person’s tastes differ sharply from their own, the anxiety reappears, as the shopper worries about how to balance competing desires. As Campbell notes, confidence grows with clarity—unless that clarity reveals incompatibility.

To reduce stress, the research suggests practical steps for both shoppers and their companions. Shoppers can ease their burden by gathering information, while those being asked should avoid vague replies such as “I don’t mind,” which only increases uncertainty. When doubt persists, choosing a popular option or selecting a variety pack offers flexibility and feels like a safer bet.

For marketers, these insights offer opportunities to reduce consumer worry. Products intended for shared consumption can be framed around popularity, consensus, or flexibility. Mixed assortments, such as multi-flavour snack boxes or variety beer packs, help shoppers feel more secure in their choices. Ultimately, the study highlights that choosing items for shared use is more than a financial transaction. It is a social decision shaped by the desire to accommodate others without sacrificing one’s own enjoyment.

More information: Sharaya Jones et al, The Decision-making Process and Impact of Individual Decisions for Joint Consumption, Journal of Marketing Research. DOI: 10.1177/00222437251389950

Journal information: Journal of Marketing Research Provided by University of California – Riverside

Employee Delight: The Hidden Catalyst for Organisational and Individual Success

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Eight in ten people in Spain report being satisfied with their jobs, according to research by the 40dB Institute. Yet satisfaction alone does not tell the whole story of how people feel at work. If these same employees were invited to talk about their emotions rather than their general contentment, the picture might look different. Asking when they last felt joyful, enthusiastic or genuinely fulfilled because something exceeded their expectations opens the way to understanding a deeper phenomenon: employee delight.

Employee delight is a powerful, positive emotional state that arises when a workplace experience exceeds an employee’s expectations. It differs sharply from routine satisfaction because it is surprising, meaningful and often tied to personal or professional aspirations. Despite its potential influence on individual well-being and organisational performance, academic exploration of this concept has been limited. The open-access study, Employee Delight: Conceptualisation, Antecedents, and Consequences, aims to fill this gap by defining the phenomenon, offering theoretical integration, and proposing an empirical model for future work. The research was undertaken by Dalilis Escobar and Eva Rimbau Gilabert from UOC’s DigiBiz group, together with Alba Manresa from the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya.

The authors illustrate employee delight with a practical example. Imagine an analyst who presents a pivotal report that informs a major organisational decision. Not only is the proposal approved, but the managers publicly highlight the excellence of the analysis and entrust the analyst with leading its implementation. This unexpected recognition, directly linked to a significant professional goal, transforms a routine task into an exceptional moment—one strong enough to generate delight. Because the experience resonates with personal meaning, it leaves a lasting impression.

Although such moments are fleeting, their consequences can extend well beyond the initial emotional surge. Intense positive experiences tend to inspire behavioural shifts, prompting individuals to collaborate more readily, show greater initiative and pursue meaningful contributions. Over time, these responses help to build confidence, motivation and resilience. When organisations create environments that allow such experiences to emerge—through trust-based leadership, sincere recognition or real development opportunities—they strengthen both team functioning and overall well-being.

The study identifies four types of experiences that commonly generate delight: achieving significant goals or solving complex problems; receiving clear, positive feedback; feeling appreciated in collaborative or social interactions; and experiencing unexpected positive events. Notably, the researchers emphasise that creating delight does not require grand gestures. Small but meaningful experiences, when authentic and aligned with employees’ values, are often the most impactful.

A central contribution of the study is its three-part conceptualisation of employee delight, comprising emotional, cognitive and motivational components. Together, these help explain not only how employees feel in such moments, but how they interpret the experience and how it shapes future behaviour. The researchers note that this is an emerging field, calling for empirical validation of the model, better measurement tools and research across cultural and organisational settings. Deepening understanding of employee delight, they argue, benefits both individuals and the organisations that depend on their engagement and creativity.

More information: Dalilis Escobar et al, Employee Delight: Conceptualization, Antecedents, and Consequences, Human Resource Development Quarterly. DOI: 10.1002/hrdq.70001

Journal information: Human Resource Development Quarterly Provided by Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC)

Reframing Design for Additive Manufacturing: A Comprehensive Perspective on 3D Printing Innovation

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Researchers at the University of West Attica have put forward a new framework that reimagines how products should be conceived for additive manufacturing, offering a broader and more integrated view of 3D-printing design. Published in Advanced Manufacturing, their work argues that traditional geometry-driven guidelines capture only a fragment of what is necessary for high-quality AM production. Instead, the authors propose that design must be grounded in a fuller understanding of process mechanics, material behaviour, and sustainability if additive manufacturing is to realise its potential as a mature production technology.

Although AM is now widely used in fields ranging from aerospace and medicine to automotive engineering, many design practices still reflect the assumptions of subtractive manufacturing. This mismatch between modern AM capabilities and inherited design habits forms the motivation for the study. The authors observe that 3D-printing processes involve complex interactions—thermal gradients during fabrication, anisotropic mechanical properties, bonding quality between layers, and the environmental implications of different material choices—that are often treated as secondary concerns. By overlooking these deeper process realities, designers risk creating parts that may be printable but fall short in performance, reliability, or lifecycle impact.

In their perspective article, “Toward a Holistic Approach for Design for Additive Manufacturing: A Perspective on Challenges, Practical Insights, and Research Needs,” the team outlines a shift toward system-level thinking. They contend that Design for Additive Manufacturing should not function as a checklist for avoiding print defects. Instead, it should integrate orientation strategies, tolerance planning, material-process coupling, and sustainability considerations from the very outset of design. Dr Kantaros emphasises that effective DfAM requires linking digital models with the physical constraints and behaviours of AM processes, enabling designs that are not only manufacturable but optimised for end-use performance.

The study critiques conventional geometry-focused DfAM approaches for failing to address issues such as thermal distortion, structural anisotropy, and recyclability. While geometry optimisation and topology tools have become increasingly sophisticated, they do not by themselves capture the full range of factors that govern part quality. The authors argue that designers must engage with simulation, process modelling, and multi-objective optimisation to understand better how design decisions influence physical outcomes.

To support this holistic view, the paper highlights the value of integrated digital workflows that combine simulation, AI-assisted manufacturability analysis, and iterative optimisation. Such environments allow designers to explore alternatives, predict potential failures, and evaluate trade-offs without excessive prototyping. This alignment between digital design and process physics, the authors claim, is central to unlocking more advanced applications.

The study also points to practical advantages of holistic DfAM, including part consolidation, mass customisation, and the use of functionally graded materials. These strategies show how AM can achieve significant improvements in performance, cost, and environmental impact when design and manufacturing are treated as interconnected stages. As Professor Theodore Ganetsos notes, meaningful innovation in additive manufacturing arises only when these domains merge, enabling sustainable, high-performance engineering solutions.

More information: Antreas Kantaros et al, Toward a holistic approach for design for additive manufacturing: a perspective on challenges, practical insights, and research needs, Advanced Manufacturing. DOI: 10.55092/am20250011

Journal information: Advanced Manufacturing Provided by ELSP

Hidden burdens fall on India’s tech workers as global firms push remote operations

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Research from the University of Bath highlights the largely unacknowledged pressures that remote working places on employees in the Global South, showing how economic, physical and emotional burdens are shifted onto Indian IT professionals supporting multinational companies. Drawing on interviews with fifty-one workers across India’s extensive technology sector, the study finds that the practical realities of working from home extend far beyond arranging a desk or managing work-life balance. Instead, employees must reorganise daily life within multigenerational households, wrestle with unreliable electricity and internet access, share limited bandwidth with family members and endure pervasive forms of digital surveillance imposed by employers.

The study reveals that while global firms benefit from reduced overheads, they frequently transfer responsibility for essential infrastructure to employees without adequate compensation or institutional support. Several participants described purchasing industrial-grade power backups to maintain consistent connectivity and investing significant portions of their salaries in equipment more commonly used in commercial operations. Others reported navigating bureaucratic barriers with housing associations to install necessary systems, and juggling complex domestic routines to remain online and available to international clients.

Professor Vivek Soundararajan, who led the research, explains that in many parts of the Global South, households are shared among extended families and embedded within unpredictable infrastructure. Under such conditions, the task of sustaining uninterrupted remote work falls not only on individual employees but also on entire households that must reorganise their living arrangements to accommodate professional obligations. Rather than eliminating workplace inequality, remote working can shift disparities into the home, amplifying tensions in environments that were never intended to function as full-time digital workplaces.

Published in the Journal of Economic Geography, the study identifies five major areas where Indian IT workers must continually adapt: the physical layout of domestic space, the structuring of time, access to technical resources, the negotiation of surveillance and the emotional strain of managing constant disruption. These adaptations illustrate how remote working transforms households into intricate ecosystems where professional and personal demands collide.

Given that India’s IT industry employs over 5.8 million professionals, the implications are significant. Co-author Dr Pankhuri Agarwal argues that organisations and policymakers must rethink remote working by acknowledging the central role of the home in enabling productive labour. Housing conditions, family structures and infrastructural volatility in the Global South differ markedly from those in the Global North, requiring more nuanced and equitable approaches. The researchers also note that infrastructural instability is becoming increasingly relevant worldwide as climate change and economic pressures strain systems even in developed countries, including the UK.

More information: Vivek Soundararajan et al, Remote work and reorganization of household infrastructure in the Global South: insights from the Indian information technology industry, Journal of Economic Geography. DOI: 10.1093/jeg/lbaf052

Journal information: Journal of Economic Geography Provided by University of Bath

From Expectations to Earnings: The Patient–Physician Dynamic Explained

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Researchers at McMaster University set out to investigate why identity-based income differences persist among physicians in Canada, despite the use of standardised fee schedules in family medicine. To understand this persistent disparity, they conducted a qualitative study based on interviews with fifty-five family physicians in Ontario, focusing on how doctors perceive and respond to patient expectations shaped by gender, race, and immigration background.

Dr Meredith Vanstone, professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Canada Research Chair in Ethical Complexity in Primary Care, explains that income gaps linked to gender, racial identity, and immigrant status persist even within the same specialities and after accounting for hours worked. Their findings suggest that the way physicians adjust their behaviour in response to perceived patient expectations may influence these earnings differences. Many doctors in the study reported that patients’ assumptions and demands varied according to the physician’s identity and the patient’s background, shaping the nature of each clinical interaction.

According to Monika Dutt, a family physician and PhD candidate involved in the research, clinicians frequently alter their communication style, appointment length, and services offered to meet these expectations. While such responsiveness can improve patient satisfaction, it also affects how many patients a doctor can see in a given day, thus influencing income in compensation models tied to volume or roster size.

Several specific patterns emerged from the interviews. Women physicians said they were often expected to spend more time with patients and provide greater emotional support, reducing the number of appointments they could accommodate. Patients also tended to prefer doctors of the same gender for intimate or gender-specific care, such as pelvic examinations, pregnancy-related consultations, menopause care, erectile dysfunction, and prostate concerns. However, fees for procedures like IUD insertion or cervical cancer screening in Ontario remain relatively low, limiting income for those—often women—who provide these services more frequently.

Cultural and linguistic similarity was another influential factor. Many patients preferred physicians who shared their background, which doctors generally viewed positively. Yet racialised physicians noted that these encounters sometimes required extra time to educate patients or provide advocacy, further reducing the number of patients they could see and affecting their earnings.

To mitigate these disparities, the authors argue that compensation models should better account for the additional time required for certain types of care. They also recommend reviewing the fee schedule to ensure that services associated with female anatomy are not undervalued. While Dr Vanstone emphasises that physicians’ responsiveness to patient expectations contributes to high-quality care, the study indicates that recognising and adjusting for these dynamics is essential for creating a more equitable system.

More information: Monika Dutt et al, Family physician pay inequality: a qualitative study exploring how physician responses to perceived patient expectations may explain gender, race, and immigration status pay differences, Canadian Medical Association Journal. DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.250665