UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — For the past two years, Penn State online learner Olivia Bolinsky has conducted research into white-collar crimes with Renee Flasher, an associate professor of accounting at Penn State Harrisburg. Bolinsky recently presented an academic paper on their research at a conference, where she said she gained valuable experience for her career development.
Bolinsky is studying accounting through Penn State World Campus. She and Flasher are exploring the relationship between the number of agencies involved in crimes against financial institutions and the results of the prosecutions.
The two co-wrote a paper, “From Investigation to Incarceration: Beyond a Single Agency Prosecuting Financial Institution-Related Crimes,” and Bolinsky presented it at the 54th Annual Conference of the Northeast Decision Sciences Institute, which was held in March in Hershey.
“I wanted to make the most out of my college experience as an online learner,” said Bolinsky, who lives in New Hampshire. “I’m just really proud of myself for putting myself out there to have this incredible opportunity.”
Undergraduate research is one of the ways Penn State World Campus learners can enrich their experience through the same kinds of opportunities available to students attending Penn State’s residential campuses. Students can seek research projects individually with faculty members or through a handful of labs.
Seeking out an individualized research project
Bolinsky said she wanted to get involved in research as soon as she began her studies and started working with Flasher after connecting with her through a recommendation from her academic adviser. Flasher teaches and advises accounting students at the Harrisburg campus and coordinates the graduate certificate in accounting and master of professional accounting degree through World Campus. Her research interests are in ethics, standard-setting, fraud enforcement resources and data breaches/privacy.
Hoping to go to law school after she graduates with her bachelor of science in accounting next year, Bolinsky said she wanted to find a research project that would combine her academic interests.
This kind of experience is valuable for both students and faculty, Flasher said.
“It increases both of our knowledge bases and further grows our curiosity,” Flasher said. “It’s been shown in prior research that if students have more engagement in the academic journey, like research, they’re more likely to complete their degree.”
Getting experience in the research process
Bolinsky found a public data set of federal white-collar crime prosecutions from the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. She and Flasher decided to look deeper into the prosecutions of crimes like fraud and embezzlement against banks and other financial institutions.
Bolinsky collected publicly available data from press releases and local news reports to find out more about the cases, such as whether the defendant was a senior executive in the company, which criminal codes were violated and if the person was convicted. In the paper, the researchers explored patterns of interagency cooperation to investigate and support the prosecution of white-collar crimes. They found that criminal penalties such as incarceration, probation or supervised release were more likely to occur in cases where multiple agencies worked together.
Bolinsky spoke about her research as part of a panel. Flasher said the presentation generated both questions and feedback that they will use to revise the paper before submitting it for publication consideration in a peer-reviewed journal.
“It landed fairly positively with the audience,” Flasher said. “We created some discussions and questions, and people were engaged.”