Digital Commons Network^™

The State Of The Region: Hampton Roads 2010, James V. Koch, Vinod Agarwal, Linda Candler, Lynn Clements, Chris Colburn, Vicky Curtis, Steve Daniel, Susan Hughes, Elizabeth Janik, Feng Lian, Sharon Lomax, Linda Mcgreevy, Janet Molinaro, Ken Plum, Wayne Talley, Ayush Toolsidass, Gilbert Yochum

Economics Faculty Books

This is Old Dominion University's 11th annual State of the Region Report. While it represents the work of many people connected in various ways to the university, the report does not constitute an official viewpoint of Old Dominion or it's president, John R. Broderick. The report maintains the goal of stimulating thought and discussion that ultimately will make Hampton Roads an even better place to live. We are proud of our region's many successes, but realize that it is possible to improve our performance. In order to do so, we must have accurate information about "where we are" and a …

Remembering To Remember And The Consequences Of Forgetting: The Role Of Prospective Memory In Consumer Intentions, Eyad M. Youssef

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Picking up your dry cleaning after work, returning library books before the due date, picking up a friend at the airport; all of these tasks have one underlying feature that links them together. The tasks cannot be completed when the initial intention is formed. Prospective memory can be defined as remembering to remember (Winograd, 1988). It can also be defined as either remembering to do something at a particular moment in the future or as the timely execution of a previously formed intention (Kvavilashvili and Ellis, 1996). Remembering to do things (prospective memory) is just as much a use of …

Emotional Intelligence And Its Potential In Engineering Management, Jesse Ray Toepfer

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Assuming that the modern connotation of Emotional Intelligence (El) took shape with Wayne Leon Payne's 1986 dissertation, A Study of Emotion: Developing Emotional Intelligence, Self-Integration, Relating to Fear, Pain, and Desire, EI is nearing its thirtieth birthday. Relatively speaking, EI is still very young, and there are a handful of researchers who are still trying to explore and define El. Significant efforts have been made to develop the concept of EI, and the ramifications of EI on an individual's professional performance.

Often more technical and exacting in nature, the field of engineering management exhibits many aspects that are unique relative …

Awareness Of Cotton Among Generation Y, Keidra Hatchett, Nichole Williams

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

The purpose of this study was to determine the awareness and use of cotton in fabric and clothing by Generation Y (college students 18-15) for enhanced product marketing.

The Effect Of The Governance Environment On International Business: Three Essays, Jun Wu

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

We examine how governance environment affects business activities across countries. Using an updated framework of governance environments, we classify countries into three groups based on their dominant modes of governance: (1) rule-based (strong rule of law), (2) relation-based (weak rule of law and strong informal network based on private relations), and (3) neither-based (absence of both public rules and private network). We then examine how different governance types affect trade patterns and foreign investment flows. Chapter 2 theoretically proposes that the governance environment of a society plays a significant role in influencing international trade and foreign investment across countries. Chapter …

Two Essays On Investor Sentiment And The Profitability Of Contrarian And Momentum Strategies, Changmei Zhang

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

This dissertation, by employing different trading strategies, addresses the trading profitability issue in a broad scope of different markets.

In the equity market, I construct a group of BUY-SELL portfolios based on prior stock returns, and find that contrarian and momentum strategies are both significantly profitable. Investor sentiment, in addition to firm-specific risks, provides behavioral explanations to the profitability. Three popular sentiment measures are used for the purpose of study: two reduced-formed sentiment indexes that are constructed by Baker and Wurgler (2006) and the survey-based University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index. Several interesting findings are revealed: (1) extreme sentiment levels …

A Re-Examination Of Stock Repurchase In Usa, Hua Yang

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Since the adoption of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Rule 10b-18 Safe Harbor for Issuer Repurchases in 1982, stock repurchases have been growing explosively. Extant literature has shed some light on the motivation behind companies' repurchase activities. The most popular beliefs include signaling undervaluation (Dann 1981, Vermaele 1981, Comment and Jarrell 1991), reducing free cash flow (Guay and Harford 2000, Jagannathan, Stephens and Weisbach 2000, Grullon and Michaely 2004), raising leverage ratio (Hovakimian, Opler and Titman 2001) and increasing earnings (Bens, Nagar, Skinner and Wong 2003).

Motivated by Stephens and Weisbach's (1998) research which found that companies on average …

What Is Influencing Financially-Driven Shareholder Activism In The Us And Uk—Principal-Agent Or Principal-Principal Problems?, Maureen I. Muller-Kahle

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Shareholder activism is a response to corporate underperformance by one or more shareholders of the corporation. Classic agency theory suggests that shareholder activism is a mechanism to curb principal-agent problems in the firm. However, the principal-principal perspective suggests that shareholder activism is a mechanism for dominant shareholders to extract resources from the firm. This dissertation extends the current research by developing and testing competing hypotheses to examine the antecedents of financially driven shareholder activism in the United States and the United Kingdom. The extant literature on financially driven shareholder activism (FDSA) is reviewed, research gaps in the literature identified and …

Three Essays On Cross-Listing, Liu Wang

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

This dissertation examines the role of cross-listing in shaping corporate earnings quality, stock price informativeness, and firm valuation, as well as its impact on a listing firm's home country information asymmetry and stock misvaluation.

The first essay addresses the information asymmetry between Chinese local A-share and foreign B-share markets and its impact on the B-share discount puzzle. In contrast with the widespread belief that domestic investors are better informed than foreign investors, this study indicates that foreign investors actually possess more value-relevant, firm-specific information in an emerging market such as China, where information transparency and investor protection are relatively weak. …

Utilizing Knowledge Transfer To Promote Management Of Countervailing Risks In Value Stream Analysis, Jeffery A. Temple

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Organizations are frequently faced with the challenges of modifying and streamlining their processes by utilizing the latest process improvement techniques such as Lean Thinking. They use these techniques to allow them to better perform their organizational purposes through the elimination of waste and non-value added steps. Personnel performing these modifications need to account for potential outcomes and risks when streamlining processes. An association of knowledge transfer and experience to the identification and handling of these countervailing or alternative risks when performing Lean Thinking value stream analysis is investigated. The elements of risk management, Lean Thinking and knowledge transfer are described. …

How To Improve Project Management For Agile Federation Development, Priyanka Kotikalpudi

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Developing a simulation federation out of a variety of heterogeneous simulation solutions is a complex task requiring very effective project management support in order to accomplish the common objectives and goals of this M&S federation. This thesis study conducts a detailed survey of available literature to identify the project management methods that can be extended to be applied to manage the development of simulation systems. The literature review led to the following two main results: (a) in general, there is insufficient literature dealing with M&S challenges for project management, (b) in particular, the two challenges of often changing requirements leading …

The Effects Of Emotions On Strategic Decision-Making: A China-U.S. Cross-Cultural Experimental Study, Weichu Xu

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

This dissertation examines how two different emotions—pride and guilt—experienced by managers influence their strategic decision-making. Four different aspects of strategic decisions are investigated: risk, comprehensiveness, speed, and resource commitment. The dissertation also investigates how culture moderates the relationship between emotions and different aspects of the strategic decision-making process.

The hypotheses of this study were tested using a 2 x 2 experimental design with two emotions (guilt and pride) and two cultures (U.S. and China). The experimental design used scenarios to elicit these two emotions. Next, PANAS-X scale was used to check the effectiveness of emotion manipulation. Finally, respondents were asked …

Against Strong Copyright In E-Business, Dylan E. Wittkower

Philosophy Faculty Publications

As digital media give increasing power to users—power to reproduce, share, remix, and otherwise make use of content—businesses based on content provision are forced to either turn to technological and legal means of disempowering users, or to change their business models. By looking at Lockean and Kantian theories as applied to intellectual property rights, we see that business is not justified in disempowering users in this way, and that these theories obligate e-business to find new business models. Utilitarian considerations support disempowering users in this way in some circumstances and for the time being, but also show that there is …

Thomas Kuhn And Corporate Governance Research, William Q. Judge

Management Faculty Publications

Back in the dark ages (i.e., 1980s) when I was pursuing my doctoral degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I read Thomas Kuhn’s (1962) book on how science evolves over time. That book had a big influence on my thinking then, and it continues to influence me. Indeed, that book seems especially pertinent to this particular issue for reasons which I will explain later on in this essay.

Risk And System-Of-Systems: Toward A Unified Concept, C. Ariel Pinto, Michael K. Mcshane, Rani Kady

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The scope of this paper is the survey of both fundamental and most recent publications in system-of-systems, business and insurance, as well as risk analysis, modeling, and management for the purpose of better describing the concept of risk in recognition of emergence and complexity which characterizes many systems within the concern of engineering and business managers. The ultimate goal is to provide engineering and business managers the necessary perspective on the concept of risk and in its management for the next generation of sustainable systems - including various descriptions of risk and discussion of the relevance of properties of system-of-systems …

An Evaluation Of Risk Management Courses Offered In Engineering Management Programs, S. Jimmy Gandhi, C. Ariel Pinto

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

For this paper, the authors have surveyed a total of 22 engineering management (EM) programs in the United States (both accredited and non-accredited). The purpose of this study was to analyze the offering of risk management courses as part of the engineering management curriculum. The findings showed that the majority of the programs did not offer a single dedicated course on risk management and merely covered the topic as part of other courses such as project management. The authors have made recommendations that risk management should be included as a required part of the EM curriculum due to the higher …

Project And Risk Management: A Systematic Approach, Baqer Alali, C. Ariel Pinto, Andreas Tolk, Rafael Landaeta

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The main purpose of this paper is to discuss three related topics of project management, systems management, and risk management. The issue that would be addressed in this paper is how risks are addressed in project and systems management, and how risks are propagated between projects and systems. A framework is proposed to overcome the problem of risk propagation from project to the systems. It was shown that the proposed framework can be deployed to existing risk management process with reasonable interventions (e.g. process prescribed by PMI). Finally a proof-of-concept application shows potential of the framework for various types of …

Towards A Center For Modeling And Simulation: The Case For Jordan, Ghaith Rabadi, Hazem Kaylani, Joseph Barjis (Ed.), Murali Mohan Narasipuram (Ed.), Ghaith Rabadi (Ed.), Jolita Ralyt (Ed.), Pierluigi Plebani (Ed.)

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Modeling and Simulation (M&S) has recently become an important area that is pursued by many researchers and practitioners due to the role it plays in understanding complex systems and problems. We have therefore witnessed the establishment of many M&S organizations in the last two decades especially in the more developed world. Less developed countries are starting to recognize the need for such capability especially that the problems they face are not less complex. In this paper, we present a preliminary study towards a business plan for establishing a scientific center for Modeling, Analysis, Simulation and Animation in Jordan (JoSAMA) and …

Development Of A Framework To Evaluate Human Risk Towards Sustainable Risk Management, Ra'ed M. Jaradat, Rani A. Kady, C. Ariel Pinto

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Risk managers are constantly faced with the challenge of making decisions at various levels of their organizations. One of the challenges, which often times is unavoidable, lies in assigning a monetary value to human risks. Such challenge necessitates engineering managers to make educated decisions on the level of risk that the organizations and businesses should accept when it comes to human. The purpose of this study is to suggest a suitable framework that captures this aspect of engineering Risk Management in order to make rational and sustainable decisions about such assessed risk. This will be accomplished by exploring the tools, …

Does Service Matter? An Examination Of Donor Perceptions Of Service Quality In College Athletics, Stephen L. Shapiro

Human Movement Sciences & Special Education Faculty Publications

Service quality has been recognized as a strategic tool for improving organizational performance. Many non-profit organizations have taken a market-based approach to fundraising, which enhances the importance of service excellence. The purpose of this investigation was to examine donor perceptions of service quality in college athletics. First, an adapted version of Sargeant's (2001) non-profit service quality instrument was examined to assess its appropriateness within the context of college athletic donors. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and validity and reliability analyses provided evidence of an adequate model fit. Subsequently, three multiple linear regression models were developed to examine the relationship between service …