Private Innovation in the Public Interest
Jul 9, 2026 · 28 min · 7 segments
**Professor Rachelle Sampson** has long studied the challenges that executives face to increase short-term earnings by cutting investments with longer-term investments. After decades of research on…
Rochelle SampsonGuest
Anita McGahanHostYou're listening to the Pi Squared Podcast.
Our website is at pisquared.burncenter.org, where you can subscribe to our newsletter at pisquared.burncenter.org backslash sign up.
Rochelle is associate professor at the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland.
She's also a senior research fellow at the ESG Institute at the Wharton School and also a senior policy scholar at Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy.
Rochelle's research focuses on how organization structure influences investment time horizons and R&D productivity.
Her recent work exposes kind of this problem of rising short-termism in US firms and capital markets.
And she thinks about what the implications of this are for firm productivity and growth and, of course, innovation within firms.
She wants to think about sustainability practices and ESG performance and employee engagement and think about how this translates into longer-term financial performance or maybe in a diminishing amount of long-term performance.
Rochelle is also co-principal investigator on the Connected Leadership Study, which is exploring the impact of consciousness, expanding experiences on leadership styles and org change.
And I see you smiling because I bet you're anticipating that I'm going to ask you about that.
She's published extensively in our top journals, and she regularly presents her work within the ESG investment community.
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You're listening to the Pi Squared Podcast.
Our website is at pisquared.burncenter.org, where you can subscribe to our newsletter at pisquared.burncenter.org backslash sign up.
Rochelle is associate professor at the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland.
She's also a senior research fellow at the ESG Institute at the Wharton School and also a senior policy scholar at Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy.
Rochelle's research focuses on how organization structure influences investment time horizons and R&D productivity.
Her recent work exposes kind of this problem of rising short-termism in US firms and capital markets.
And she thinks about what the implications of this are for firm productivity and growth and, of course, innovation within firms.
She wants to think about sustainability practices and ESG performance and employee engagement and think about how this translates into longer-term financial performance or maybe in a diminishing amount of long-term performance.
Rochelle is also co-principal investigator on the Connected Leadership Study, which is exploring the impact of consciousness, expanding experiences on leadership styles and org change.
And I see you smiling because I bet you're anticipating that I'm going to ask you about that.
She's published extensively in our top journals, and she regularly presents her work within the ESG investment community.
