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Posted: 9/16/21

TAMIU A. R. Sanchez, Jr. School of Business Doctoral Students Publish Paper on Country-level COVID-19 Death Determinants

 

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An academic paper authored by three Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) A. R. Sanchez, Jr. School of Business doctoral students exploring critical determinants of death rates in pandemics such as COVID-19 has been published in the prestigious International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.

TAMIU Ph.D. in International Business Administration students Arman Canatay, Tochukwu Emegwa and Farid Hossain Talukder, authored the paper titled, Critical Country-Level Determinants of Death Rate During COVID-19 Pandemic.  It appeared in the Journal's October 2021 edition.

The paper has also  been listed as a reference in the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Global Literature on Coronavirus Disease online.

In short, the paper examined the critical determinants of death rate in a pandemic such as COVID-19 and looked at whether cultural differences such as power distance and individualism among countries play an important role in death rates.

Power distance is a concept that refers to the relationship between higher-ranking and lower-ranking individuals that depends on how the latter react to the former. People in societies with a high power distance are more likely to follow a hierarchy where everybody has a place and does not require further justification -- and high-ranking individuals are respected and looked up to. Individualism refers to a social theory favoring freedom of action for individuals over collective or state control.

Using WarpPLS, a software designed by TAMIU Regents Professor Dr. Nereu Kock, and data collected from 168 countries, the study looked at the effects of four sets of country-level factors, including Gross Domestic Product (GDP), education, gender, cultural factors, and number of physicians on death rate. In addition, the authors examined Lockdown as a moderating factor.

The authors' findings reveal that cultural factors, gender and age affect the death rate more than other socio-economic factors they used in the study. They also affirm that Lockdown levels have a more significant moderating effect on cultural factors rather than other socio-economic factors.

Based on their findings, the authors conclude that Lockdown needs to be practiced more strictly where the countries possess excessive power distance or excessive individualism.

Doctoral Students

TAMIU A. R. Sanchez, Jr. School of Business doctoral students pictured from left to right: Tochukwu Emegwa, Farid Hossain Talukder, and Arman Canatay

 

Talukder, one of the authors, said the paper seeks to educate the public, health policy makers and governments on factors that are critical to combating the COVID-19  Pandemic.

"The cultural differences among countries need to be recognized while taking actions to fight against COVID-19 or any pandemics," he said, "The same precautions could result in different significance levels of results in different cultural environments and that needs to be recognized as well as evaluated carefully by the governments and policy makers."

Dr. Kock, who designed the software utilized by the doctoral students in their research, commended the students for their paper publication.

"The doctoral students used the software WarpPLS, which enables structural equation modeling via the partial least squares technique - this is an advanced quantitative research method," he said, "It is not common to see doctoral students contributing to the debate among the broader community in such an important topic through an empirical investigation."

Kock continued, "A good command of advanced quantitative research methods is one of the most important skills that business doctoral students must have to succeed in the academic marketplace. This study is an indication of the scholarly orientation of our doctoral students, who clearly have this skill, and of what they are capable of achieving in terms of research even before graduation."

Emegwa, another author, said the findings have implications for international business.

"International business is influenced by culture and culture has direct impacts on death rate during the pandemic," he said, "The pandemic affects international businesses, so, our finding on culture is quite insightful in all ramifications."

Another author, Canatay, explained that it took over one year to research and write the paper, while constantly updating the statistics of the study as the pandemic kept evolving.

"Time constraint was a major challenge as we had to combine the research with our doctoral classes," he said, "The reward of every researcher is the impact their discovery is making in creating a better world to live in. That is why we need to circulate it. Also, the spotting of our research by a prestigious journal for publication is also rewarding as a signal of quality."

Emegwa, said that prior to publishing the work, the group had already presented it at the Sanchez Business School's Doctoral Symposium in Fall 2020.

"We are (now) even more motivated to generate another research," he said.

TAMIU's learning environment played an instrumental role in the students' publication success, Talukder said.

"TAMIU is a great place to learn with experienced professors in research," he said, "We learned quite a lot from them, which made collaboration for us possible. As we mentioned earlier, we have presented our research last year in the Sanchez Business School's 'Research Presentation Series,' where we collected valuable feedback."

The three students represent TAMIU's diverse and international student body.  All international students, Talukder is originally from Bangladesh, while Emegwa is from Nigeria and Canatay from Turkey.

For more information, please contact TAMIU's Office of Public Relations, Marketing and Information Services at prmis@tamiu.edu, call 956.326.2180 or visit offices located in the Sue and Radcliffe Killam Library, room 269

Additional information on the A. R. Sanchez, Jr. School of Business and its programs can be found here: https://www.tamiu.edu/arssb/