Digital Commons Network^™

Sophisticated Vs. Rugged: Examining Gendered Brand Communication Styles And Social Media Engagement, Joanne T. Cao, Jamye Foster, Gallayanee S. Yaoyuneyong, Lacey K. Wallace

Faculty Publications

Advertising and marketing managers understand that not all brands need to be on social media, but what is not clearly understood is consumers’ engagement expectations for brands that are on social media. Therefore, this study investigates the impact of brand personality, specifically sophisticated and rugged brands, and gendered communication styles on consumers’ expectations of social media engagement. A scenario-based experiment is performed to test the hypotheses using a mock brand. The main study consisted of a Qualtrics consumer panel, and a MANOVA was utilized to examine three components of social media engagement (consumption, contribution, and creation) on the two brand …

Prioritizing Facilities Linked To Corporate Strategic Objectives Using A Fuzzy Model, Devin Depalmer, Steven J. Schuldt, Justin D. Delorit

Faculty Publications

Excerpt: Limited facilities operating and modernization budgets require organizations to carefully identify, prioritize and authorize projects to ensure allocated resources align with strategic objectives. Traditional facility prioritization methods using risk matrices can be improved to increase granularity in categorization and avoid mathematical error or human cognitive biases. These limitations restrict the utility of prioritizations and if erroneously used to select projects for funding, they can lead to wasted resources. This paper aims to propose a novel facility prioritization methodology that corrects these assessment design and implementation issues.

Innovative Accounting Interviewing: A Comparison Of Real And Virtual Accounting Interviewers, Matthew D. Pickard, Ryan Schuetzler, Joseph S. Valacich, David A. Wood

Faculty Publications

Recent technological advances have made it possible to create automated, virtual interviewers, called embodied conversational agents (ECAs). We study how an ECA compares to a human interviewer in three experiments. In experiment 1, we show that two theoretically motivated factors—making the ECA facially and vocally similar to the interviewee—result in the ECA performing similarly to or better than human interviewers for six antecedents of disclosure quality. In two additional experiments, we show that employees are on average between 21 and 32 percent more likely to disclose violating internal controls to an ECA than to a human interviewer, even if the …

Cyber War And Deterrence: Applying A General Theoretical Framework, Isaac Nacita [*], Mark Reith

Faculty Publications

There is a saying that politicians and generals are always fighting the last war, which is emphasized when the weapons and characteristics of warfare are changing rapidly. However, if this is true, it is often not due to an inability to learn lessons from previous conflicts, but to “overlearn” or overcompensate for the failures and experiences of the past. In reality, this is not a learning problem but one of forming poor implications from historical events, which leads to poor applications of doctrine the next time around. The DOD now acknowledges that warfare has extended into cyberspace, and it is …

Promoting Cross-Functional Team Interactions Within General Business Classes, Christopher J. Mckenna

Faculty Publications

This session discusses an attempt to integrate both unitary team and cross-functional team deliverables among general business students designing a complex client solution within an “IT for managers” class.

Management Communication Failures In Faculty Hiring Processes: A Case Study, Christopher J. Mckenna

Faculty Publications

While universities contribute directly to the future successes of students through the delivery of content knowledge and the development of key career skills, they might also reasonably be expected to model the “best practices” of industry professionals. However, based upon a three-year study of the communications between universities and graduate students applying to nearly two-hundred faculty positions, universities often fail the best practice test when interacting with job candidates. Ironically, they do so even when recruiting for faculty positions that target candidates specializing in the pedagogies and practices of effective communication.

Pragmatism And Pluralism: A Moral Foundation For Stakeholder Theory In The 21st Century, Paul C. Godfrey, Ben William Lewis

Faculty Publications

Donaldson and Preston (1995) defined the three pillars of stakeholder as descriptive, instrumental, and normative. Because of their close alignment between the instrumental and normative pillars and the moral philosophies of utilitarianism and deontology, the latter became the default moral foundations of stakeholder theory. In this chapter, we argue that the moral foundation of the descriptive pillar, pragmatism, provides a moral foundation for twenty-first century stakeholder theory. As we show, pragmatism and its close cousin pluralism fits a stakeholder theory concerned with the descriptive questions that characterize current work in stakeholder theory. Pragmatism and pluralism both see eudemonia, or human …

Scaling Up Your Story: An Experiment In Global Knowledge Sharing At The World Bank, Shad Morris, James B. Oldroyd, Sita Ramaswami

Faculty Publications

Timely and effective knowledge transfer is increasingly important in today’s technologically advanced global market. However, a myopic focus on efficiency has frequently rendered most organizational knowledge ineffective. By coupling technology with a formal system that captures informal stories in an engaging and entertaining way, actors within an organization may be more willing to listen to what geographically dispersed colleagues are doing, and may be more likely to ascribe value to that information. Focusing on the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank Group, we conducted interviews with those sharing and using knowledge, and performed content analyses of 175 knowledge-sharing narratives. …

How Are Brand Names Of Chinese Companies Perceived By Americans?, Marc Fetscherin, Adamantios Diamantopoilos, Allan K.K. Chan, Rachael Abbott

Faculty Publications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper was to conduct an experimental design of Americans’ preferences for the English version of Chinese brand names by drawing from prior research in psychology, linguistics and marketing. The impact of string length and semantic relevance to English on meaningfulness, memorability and likeability of brand names from Chinese companies was assessed. Design/methodology/approach – A 2 × 2 experimental design was used, whereby brand names are categorized by string length (short vs long) and semantic relevance to English (with vs without). Respondents’ perception of the Chinese language in terms of pronounceability, language familiarity and language …

Examining The Determinants Of Hotel Chain Expansion Through International Franchising, Ilan Alon, Liqiang Ni, Youcheng Wang

Faculty Publications

This study proposes and tests an agency-based organizational model of internationalization through franchising in the hotel sector. Using data obtained from a Franchisor Questionnaire 2001-2008, we analyzed a panel of 117 observations of 17 U.S.-based hotels. Our analysis reveals that a hotel franchisor’s decision to internationalize through franchising is positively related to the percentage of franchises, the ratio of franchised units to the total number of units. The article contributes to the literature by empirically modeling international franchising of hotels, which present unique characteristics among franchising companies, with a high investment capital requirement, maturity in the product life cycle, and …

A Study Of Visual Puffery In Fragrance Advertising: Is The Message Sent Stronger Than The Actual Scent?, Mark Toncar, Marc Fetscherin

Faculty Publications

Purpose - This paper investigates visual exaggerations of fragrance advertisements by comparing subjects’ expectations resulting from print ads to their subsequent product evaluations. It then considers whether the actual scents fall short, meet or exceed these expectations.

Design/methodology/approach - By means of a semiotic analysis we capture the corresponding literary attributes of the ads to develop adjective pairs describing the meaning of the ads. Interviews are conducted to assess the meaning that consumers draw from the fragrance ads and we supplement these findings by performing a blind olfactory product evaluation of the fragrances. Paired sample t-tests are used to compare …

Branding In China: Alternative Brand Strategiesbranding In China: Global Product Strategy Alternatives, Ilan Alon, Romie F. Littrell, Allan K.K. Chan

Faculty Publications

This article reviews and discusses issues in translation of international brand names to Chinese, and provides a framework for international brand managers who want to expand into China. Linguistic differences between Chinese and English are wide and deep, making translation of brand names difficult. Cultural context, pronunciation, written vs. oral language, and meaning of characters are just a few examples of such difficulties. We discuss four global-product-naming strategic alternatives available to country/brand managers, along with their usage, and give examples of brands utilizing the different approaches. The four approaches we discuss include (1) dual extension, (2) brand meaning extension, (3) …

Writing Across Curriculum: Evaluating A Faculty-Centered Approach, Marilyn K. Easter, Rolanda P. Farrington Pollard

Faculty Publications

This paper discusses research on a pilot study for implementing a Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) program in the College of Business (CoB) at a California Public University. Data analysis focused on faculty and writing assistant satisfaction using interviews, and on student learning as measured by evaluation of progressive writing assignments. Discussion includes: 1) assumptions on which the pilot was based and its goals, 2) overview of how the program was structured and implemented, 3) outcomes of the pilot program, and 4) recommendations for future programs. Results suggest both faculty and student participants were satisfied with the pilot program implementation …

Building Literacy For Knowledge Economies: Reading And Writing About Trends And Issues In Business Week, Clive Muir

Faculty Publications

Knowledge economies require highly skilled workers to perform complex, information-based tasks with minimum supervision. Yet, studies in Canada and the United States show that even college educated workers often lack the information literacy skills necessary to perform their jobs. In this session, we will discuss how reading and writing about business trends and issues can help to improve business students’ analytical and critical thinking abilities.

Corporate And Products Identity In The Post-National Economy: Rethinking U.S. Trade Laws, Lan Cao

Faculty Publications

In the global economy, a General Motors automobile may involve South Korean assembly; Japanese engines; German design and style engineering; Taiwanese, Singaporean, and Japanese small components; British advertising and marketing; and Irish and Barbadian data processing. What is the country of origin of this product? How should U.S. trade laws evaluate a product's origin, if it is a global composite with research, assembly, processing, and manufacturing performed in different countries? Similarly, corporations have become increasingly global in orientation and operations. Even "national" corporations have lost their territorial ties to the state of their nationality. Through a phenomenon termed "global outsourcing" …