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In recent years, student-managed investment funds (SMIFs), experiential learning programs at an increasing number of universities, have attracted significant scholarly interest. In this article, we review the academic literature on this pedagogy.

We use the systematic review method to assess a sample of 85 articles published in 30 journals during the period 1975 to 2020.

Our literature review reveals four streams of research: best practices and challenges, investment management, innovation and trends and SMIFs in a research setting. We also propose future research directions, including specific gaps in the literature, a focus on innovations to traditional programs, systematic investment performance and expansion into behavioral finance issues.

We contribute a comprehensive view of the body of scholarship on SMIFs, identifying existing streams of research and future research directions that will help guide the development of SMIF research into a cohesive and productive space.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how a student-managed investment fund (SMIF) moved from an idea to an operational program over the period of a year at Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada. The aim is to provide insight to other institutions on how to build capacity when developing their own SMIF.

I summarize the choices made with respect to funding source, governance structure, faculty involvement, recruitment, investment activities and integration into curriculum.

Underlying these choices were challenges pertaining to capacity, student competencies, the existing finance program and ties to industry. Through the development of the SMIF, efforts ensured that capacity was suitably developed in each of these areas.

This paper provides insight to other institutions on how to build capacity while developing their own SMIF.

This account provides the field with a unique perspective. It is written following a year spent developing a SMIF that is about to launch.

This account provides the field with a unique perspective. It is written by a new faculty member following a year spent developing a SMIF that is about to launch.

The objective of this paper is to leverage a two-sided view of social capital to develop a model of board gender diversity and firm performance using social capital data from Northeast Regional Center of Rural Development.

The authors examine a large sample of 2,322 US publicly listed firms over the period 1996 to 2009. The final sample consists of 14,634 firm-year observations.

The authors find that when a firm's social network is not supportive of gender diversity, corporate boards have lower levels of female representation. The strength of a social network's social ties exacerbates the relationship between social capital and board gender diversity. The authors also report a negative relationship between female board membership and firm performance in social networks that are not pro-diversity. Robustness tests reveal that the authors’ social capital view of board diversity also applies to board ethnic diversity.

This study focuses primarily on blue chip firms due to data constraints. It will be interesting for future researchers to investigate a broader spectrum of firms from a broader perspective of diversity beyond the study’s gender and ethnicity findings. Furthermore, this study assesses the US context, and future research could investigate firm sociability in other national contexts.

This study contributes new insights to the discourse on gender diversity on corporate boards which stand to inform both policy and practice. The results of the study can inform the position of an industry association on board gender diversity, with guidance on how messaging across networks can be more effective should it account for the hidden bias that the authors uncover in the current study. From a manager's perspective, this study can help those managers and boards trying to enhance board gender diversity by providing a more complete understanding of the factors that can limit progress.

This study contributes a social capital view of board gender diversity to the growing literature of corporate governance, board diversity and local environmental influences on corporate policies.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it endeavors to document the current state of environmental, social and governance (ESG) pedagogy within undergraduate finance courses of business schools, and second, it seeks to show how business schools can leverage student managed investment funds (SMIFs) to swiftly integrate ESG pedagogy.

The study is comprised of two sections that use different methodologies. The first part of the study involves a manual content analysis of undergraduate finance course textbooks, and related instructor materials are used to estimate the average coverage of ESG-related topics. Next, a case study of a SMIF that has recently integrated an ESG framework is provided to illustrate how this pedagogical innovation is effective in teaching ESG skills.

The findings of the content analysis of the three most commonly used textbooks in a sample of 17 Canadian universities, as well as associated instructor material, provide evidence that the primary emphasis in traditional curriculum remains on the shareholder, with little attention paid to ESG factors. The case study of an existing SMIF clearly demonstrates how a student-led development of an ESG framework provides the setting for effective, experiential learning.

This study shows that while traditional teaching settings, like lectures, may be slow to adapt to the rapidly changing needs of industry, nontraditional teaching venues, such as SMIFs, can be leveraged to meet industry demand for ESG skills, thereby closing the skills gap, enhancing student employability and increasing the relevance of business school education.