University at Buffalo School of Management

24 Buffalo Business Spring 2022 Insights Welcome new faculty Three new faculty joined the School of Management last fall, adding to an impres- sive lineup of outstanding teachers and researchers. Thomas Murdock is a clinical assis- tant professor of entrepreneurship, and his expertise lies at the intersection of entre- preneurship and economic development. He teaches several courses in entrepre- neurship as well as the "Experience the 50" course in Global Programs and the Social Impact Fellows program. In addition to his faculty role, he leads UB's Western New York Incubator Network and Reimagine Entrepreneurship Workforce Center initia- tives, which are focused on developing new entrepreneurs in the local economy. Previously, Murdock was an international management trainee and marketing manager at United Technologies Corp. in Chicago, and a management consultant at Deloitte Consulting in New York City. He has a bach- elor's degree from Miami University and an MBA from University of Notre Dame. Murdock lives in Buffalo's Elmwood Village and spends his free time refurbishing his house and working with organizations focused on Buffalo's growth. Together with his dog, Ruskin, he also volunteers in area nursing homes through the SPCA Paws of Love program. Cassie (Phuong) Nguyen is a clini- cal assistant professor of accounting. She teaches taxation courses at the undergradu- ate and graduate levels and serves as a mentor to her students in achieving their academic and career goals. Her classroom instruction is enriched by years of industry experience. At EY, she served as a tax manager in Private Tax Services, where she managed profes- sional tax compliance and tax consulting services to several private businesses and their ultimate owners. Nguyen's expertise is in family enterprises and the tax matters that evolve with private business operations and private wealth. Her services included tax planning opportunities for high net worth individuals and family trusts. She earned both her master's and bachelor's from the UB School of Management. For fun, Nguyen likes to travel. She visited her 28th major U.S. city in January. She also enjoys trying different cuisines and stays active with golf in the summer and skiing in the winter. Dominic Sellitto is a clinical assis- tant professor of management science and systems. He teaches cybersecurity and infor- mation assurance; business intelligence and data warehousing; digital forensics; and IT management. His research interests include natural language processing, security analytics, deepfakes and digital privacy. Sellitto was lead cybersecurity consul- tant and fractional chief information secu- rity officer at Loptr LLC in East Aurora, where he planned, developed, implemented and managed security programs for clients across multiple industries. At Deloitte in Toronto, Sellitto was a senior consultant of cyber risk services, where he created, imple- mented and executed information security and risk management policies and proce- dures for key retail, financial and health care clients. He has a bachelor's and master's degree from the UB School of Management. When not working, Sellitto enjoys running, skiing, computer programming (building new soware) and playing guitar. Murdock Nguyen Sellitto High turnover leads to more expensive, lower quality audits High turnover at accounting firms reduces audit quality and damages client relationships— that was the message Brandon Szerwo, assistant professor of accounting and law, shared with industry leaders, regulators and fellow academics at an invitation-only conference this fall. Szerwo presented research he co-authored with Joshua Khavis, assistant professor of accounting and law, at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's eighth annual Conference on Auditing and Capital Markets in October. The study is the first to quantify the costs of turnover within accounting firms on audits and client relationships. To conduct their research, Szerwo and Khavis obtained proprietary employee turnover data on 20 large U.S. accounting firms, including the Big Four, from a leading employment analytics company. Then, they parsed through data from 412 individual offices and 4,825 clients to calculate year-over-year turnover and its effects on audit quality and auditor-client relationships across several metrics. They found offices experiencing high turnover charge clients more in fees and spend less time on audits, and their clients are more likely to switch auditors the following year. "As headlines describe the 'Great Resignation' and staffing shortages become commonplace, our research is increasingly relevant," Szerwo says. "While our results are specific to the audit field, we shed light on the broader phenomenon of turnover across an entire industry and how it can affect firms, employees, customers and investors." Established by Congress through the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the PCAOB oversees the audits of public companies to protect investors and further the public interest. The Securities and Exchange Commission oversees the PCAOB's work to establish auditing standards and register public accounting firms that prepare audit reports. Khavis Szerwo N E W S A B O U T FA C U LT Y A N D T H E I R R E S E A R C H

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