Natural disasters and their policy implications for business schools

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of Hurricane Sandy and a series of snowstorms that affects two universities in the northeast.

Design/methodology/approach

A survey instrument was used to assess the educational impact that these storms had on the college students at two AACSB business schools located in the New York City area. Utilizing 519 observations from Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and 441 observations from the snowstorms in the Spring of 2015, the paper is able to document the impact these natural disasters had on the college students in a few selected areas. The paper conducts univariate t-statistics for mean differences, principal component analysis determining eigenvalues, and a multivariate logit model using log likelihood functions.

Findings

The empirical results illustrate that the two different events had different impacts upon the students. In addition, the events in certain circumstances had different impacts upon the student responses between the two universities. Students perceived an increase in preparation by the faculty more significantly when make-up classes were conducted in classrooms as opposed to additional online work. Dorm residents at the suburban university felt greater financial hardship than their counterpart dorm residents at the urban university. Commuter students overall felt an increase in concerns related to their overall education.

Originality/value

The empirical results are robust to multiple specifications, and the authors are able to identify the predominate factors that affected the students during the two natural disasters. The unique survey based nature of the data set provides valuable insights into the students’ behavior that has not previously been documented.

Citation

Wynne, K., Leary, D. and Sholes, J. (2018), "Natural disasters and their policy implications for business schools", Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 100-114. https://doi.org/10.1108/JARHE-10-2017-0123