Raj Aggarwal
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Raj Aggarwal is an author and contributor to the fields of finance and international business studies. Aggarwal was the dean of the University of Akron College of Business Administration from 2006 until 2009. He was elected as a fellow of the
Academy of International Business Academy of International Business (AIB) is the leading association of international business scholars and specialists. Established in 1959, it has over 3400 members in about 90 countries. Membership is open to organizations as well as individual ...
. He has worked as an engineer, financial analyst, strategic planner, department chair, university budget planner and corporate board member. He has authored or co-authored over a dozen books or
monograph A monograph is generally a long-form work on one (usually scholarly) subject, or one aspect of a subject, typically created by a single author or artist (or, sometimes, by two or more authors). Traditionally it is in written form and published a ...
s and over a hundred scholarly articles that have cited over 5,000 times according to his profile in Google Scholar.


Biography


Education

Aggarwal received his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the
Indian Institutes of Technology The Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) are a network of engineering and technology institutions in India. Established in 1950, they are under the purview of the Ministry of Education of the Indian Government and are governed by the Inst ...
in 1968. He then earned his MBA in operations management from
Kent State University Kent State University (KSU) is a Public university, public research university in Kent, Ohio, United States. The university includes seven regional campuses in Northeast Ohio located in Kent State University at Ashtabula, Ashtabula, Kent State ...
in 1970, working with Professor James C. Baker, then studied international economics with Professor Harry Johnson at the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
from 1972 to 1973. He earned his doctorate in corporate finance and international business at Kent State in 1975. In 2000, he became a
Chartered Financial Analyst The Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) program is a postgraduate professional certification offered internationally by the US-based CFA Institute (formerly the Association for Investment Management and Research, or AIMR) to investment and financia ...
(CFA) charterholder.


Scholarly career

Aggarwal is the editor of the Journal of Teaching International Business, was the finance area editor for the '' Journal of International Business Studies'' and was an editor of ''Financial Education and Practice'', a journal published by the Financial Management Association. He has served on editorial boards of scholarly journals in international business and many journals in finance and economics. In a 2005 issue of the ''Journal of International Business Studies'', Aggarwal was ranked as the most influential scholar in international business literature. He has over 6700 citations with an H-Index of over 40 in Google Scholars. He has held many elected and appointed leadership positions in academia and in business, including; president of the Eastern Finance Association and the Northeast Ohio Financial Executives International. He has been a consultant to the UN, the
World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...
, the US SEC and Fortune 100 companies. He serves on business and non-profit boards including Manco Inc (Duck, LePage, and
Loctite Loctite is an American brand of adhesives, sealants, surface treatments, and other industrial chemicals that include acrylic, anaerobic, cyanoacrylate, epoxy, hot melt, silicone, urethane, and UV/light curing technologies. Loctite products ar ...
brands), Ancora Mutual Funds, Financial Management Association, the Cleveland Council on World Affairs, and the Financial Executive Research Foundation. He is or was on the Board of Directors of Goodwill Industries of Akron, Ohio and the Kent State University Foundation, Kent, Ohio. The Eastern Finance Association elected Raj Aggarwal as their president, and he has been a trustee since 1999. In 2002, Aggarwal co-founded the CIO Forum, which is an invitation only best practices group of large company CIOs in Northeast Ohio with meetings limited to CIOs with no direct reports. Aggarwal has spoken numerous times on
WCPN WCPN (104.9 FM broadcasting, FM) is a non-commercial educational radio station licensed to Lorain, Ohio, featuring a public radio format as a repeater of Kent, Ohio, Kent–licensed WKSU. Owned by Ideastream, Ideastream Public Media, the stat ...
and
NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...
, including several interviews on NPR affiliate, WCPN concerning the
2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...
. Additionally, he has been considered an authority on Northeast Ohio's business and financial markets. Finally, Raj Aggarwal's academic leadership is reflected in Hoshino, M., "An Interview with Professor Raj Aggarwal, Department Editor for JIBS", and his business leadership was reflected in, "The Super CFO: Changing Roles of the CFO".


Academic career

Aggarwal was the Frank C. Sullivan Professor of International Business and Finance of the University of Akron College of Business Administration from 2006 to 2013 and was dean for three years. While Aggarwal was serving as dean, the College of Business Administration (CBA) received its first ever ranking of their business program in ''
BusinessWeek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'' (and before that ''Business Week'' and ''The Business Week''), is an American monthly business magazine published 12 times a year. The magazine debuted in New York City in Septembe ...
'', in 2009. Additionally, the CBA received a 'Best Graduate Business School' ranking from ''
The Princeton Review The Princeton Review is an education services company providing tutoring, test preparation and admission resources for students. It was founded in 1981, and since that time has worked with over 400 million students. Services are delivered by 4, ...
''.


Major research


International capital structure

The
capital structure In corporate finance, capital structure refers to the mix of various forms of external funds, known as capital, used to finance a business. It consists of shareholders' equity, debt (borrowed funds), and preferred stock, and is detailed in the ...
of a company is the proportion of its assets financed with other people's money, also defined as the proportion of its capitalization financed by long-term
debt Debt is an obligation that requires one party, the debtor, to pay money Loan, borrowed or otherwise withheld from another party, the creditor. Debt may be owed by a sovereign state or country, local government, company, or an individual. Co ...
. Too little debt often means foregoing the tax, monitoring, and other advantages of debt, a less expensive form of
capital Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econom ...
compared to equity. However, too much debt can expose a company to a higher than acceptable risk of default or not being able to pay its
creditor A creditor or lender is a party (e.g., person, organization, company, or government) that has a claim on the services of a second party. It is a person or institution to whom money is owed. The first party, in general, has provided some propert ...
s (who can then sue to
bankrupt Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the de ...
the company). Trade-offs like these become more complicated when companies have operations and debt in many countries. Aggarwal has been writing about this topic for many years, and has demonstrated that average levels of debt used by companies differ in various countries in
Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...
,
Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
, and
Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...
. Additionally, he has been able to show that this average proportion of corporate debt varies across national borders depending on a number of factors including the level of disclosure timeliness, institutional trading activities, and enforcement of anti-
insider trading Insider trading is the trading of a public company's stock or other securities (such as bonds or stock options) based on material, nonpublic information about the company. In various countries, some kinds of trading based on insider informati ...
laws. Finally, Aggarwal showed that financing activities by the 300 largest banks in the world are determined first by the location (country) of the bank and second by the bank's size itself.


Foreign financial risk management

Financial risk management Financial risk management is the practice of protecting Value (economics), economic value in a business, firm by managing exposure to financial risk - principally credit risk and market risk, with more specific variants as listed aside - as well ...
takes a new meaning when applied to companies operating internationally with many currencies as currency values can change abruptly and unexpectedly. To combat the associated foreign exchange risks, companies have implemented many of the following tactics and strategies; First, multinational companies have to assess at the individual country and consolidated levels three kinds of
foreign exchange The foreign exchange market (forex, FX, or currency market) is a global decentralized or over-the-counter (OTC) market for the trading of currencies. This market determines foreign exchange rates for every currency. By trading volume, it i ...
exposure for various future
time horizon A time horizon, also known as a planning horizon, is a fixed point of time in the future at which point certain processes will be evaluated or assumed to end. It is necessary in an accounting, finance or risk management regime to assign such a f ...
s, transactions exposure, accounting exposure, and economic exposure. Once a company has these measures, it can develop policies and hedge these various exposures directly by buying or selling offsetting currencies in spot and futures markets or indirectly by making appropriate offsetting operating changes. Additionally, his research focused on countertrade opportunities that allow MNCs to take money out of restricted countries. Aggarwal began writing about these topics when he discussed the importance of FASB 8 within the multinational corporation's needs.


Third World multinational corporations

A recent development in the evolution of
multinational corporations A multinational corporation (MNC; also called a multinational enterprise (MNE), transnational enterprise (TNE), transnational corporation (TNC), international corporation, or stateless corporation, is a corporate organization that owns and cont ...
(MNCs) is that they have started originating in
emerging markets An emerging market (or an emerging country or an emerging economy) is a market that has some characteristics of a developed market, but does not fully meet its standards. This includes markets that may become developed markets in the future or we ...
. While traditional MNCs from the
industrialized countries A developed country, or advanced country, is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy, and advanced technological infrastructure relative to other less industrialized nations. Most commonly, the criteria for eval ...
have used
brand names A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and ...
and technology to overcome the liability of foreignness when they invest overseas, there is much interest in understanding how the new MNCs from the emerging economies overcome the liability of being foreign when they invest overseas. Research in this field is important and shows how large companies in emerging markets develop. Especially, how they overcome the liabilities incurred when investing overseas and this research has exposed specific dynamics of these entities. Beginning two decades ago, Aggarwal began writing and researching on this topic. His research began by determining the dynamics and characteristics of MNCs in developing nations. He has also modeled the business-government relations during the process of firm nationalization, which accompany the
economic development In economics, economic development (or economic and social development) is the process by which the economic well-being and quality of life of a nation, region, local community, or an individual are improved according to targeted goals and object ...
of several nearly industrialized countries. He has also focused his research on the challenges that Western firms face because of the emergence of multinational corporations from
developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a less-developed Secondary sector of the economy, industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to developed countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. ...
.Aggarwal, Raj, "Third World Multinationals: A New Strategic Challenge for Western Multinationals," in Guth, William D. (ed.) Handbook of Business Strategy: 1985/1986 Yearbook (New York: Warren, Gorham & Lamont, 1985): 3-1 - 3-5.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aggarwal, Raj Year of birth missing (living people) Living people IIT Delhi alumni Kent State University alumni University of Akron faculty University of Chicago alumni CFA charterholders