Digital Commons Network^™

The Effect Of Auditing Standard No. 5 On Audit Delay And Audit Fees, Mark Washburn

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

Formed under the provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) was charged with providing the interpretive guidance for auditors to use in carrying out their responsibilities under Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404. Auditing Standard No. 2 (AS2) provided the initial guidance to auditors beginning in 2004. Early research on audit delay and audit fees under these new requirements revealed significant increases in both. Although audit delay and audit fees decreased in subsequent years, they remained much higher than predicted. As a result of the concerns and complaints of the accounting profession and the public firms …

Personal Power And Trust As Mediators Of The Relationship Between Servant Leadership And Affective Organizational Commitment, George D. Bingham

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

This research was designed to investigate the potential mediating role of personal power and of trust in the relationship between servant leadership and affective organizational commitment. The research responds to calls for increased understanding of the mechanisms at work between leadership models and outcomes. Especially unique in the available literature is the quantitative study of the relationship between servant leadership and personal power. All of the constructs in the research model are based on existing instruments, including those developed for personal power (PP; Hinkin & Schriesheim, 1989; Raven, Schwarzwald, & Koslowsky, 1998), trust (T; Mayer & Gavin, 2005), servant leadership …

The Relationship Between High-Performance Human Resource Management, Organizational Citizenship Behavior, And Unit Performance And Voluntary Turnover In The Fast Food Franchise Industry, Martin C. Luytjes

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to advance knowledge and practitioner understanding of human resource dynamics of the U.S. fast food franchise (FFF) industry, one plagued by extraordinary voluntary turnover (VTO), estimated at 75% of total turnover, and its effects on unit productivity. Following the research of Sun, Aryee, and Law (2007), this study looks for the potential of improving the VTO problem through the practice of high-performance human resource management (HPHRM) and the potential benefits of service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (SOCB) that it offers. This study used primary research, namely the domestic operating units of a nationally franchised sub …

The Impact Of Social Disclosures Within Fixed Rate Peer-To-Peer Lending Markets, Robert A. Jordan

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

Financial journals have just begun to examine the implications of unsecured fixed-rate loans between lenders and borrowers administered over the internet. This study observes 31,550 loans issued between June 2007 and April 2013 with a 36-month term, that are fully paid or charged off, based on a data set from the largest P2P lending website. Initial findings within peer-to-peer (P2P) lending markets have identified that social disclosures may influence these markets. The result of this analysis unambiguously confirms social disclosures influence lenders and the factors significant for funding a loan are inconsistent with the factors significant to repayment of the …

Two Essays On Employee Brand Behavior, Jose R. Siqueira

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation offers two essays on the engendering and the consequences of employee brand behavior. The first essay addresses the impact of employee brand behavior on customer experience in the retail environment. Retailers, with some exceptions, paid relatively little attention to the role that employees play in the experience they provide to their customers. While there seems to be a general consensus regarding both the importance of customer experience and the role of employees in delivering it, there has been no study attempting to measure the impact front-line employees have on the overall customer experience process from the consumer point-of-view. …

The Relationship Between External Turbulence And New Product Development Practices, Michael W. Maxwell

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation considered whether new product development practices employed resolved the uncertainty and equivocality in information processing created by external turbulence. With external turbulence coming from more sources and arriving with greater frequency, this wave of change must be addressed to achieve desired project outcomes. Healthcare was the target industry for this research and respondents were selected from members of HIMSS, the Healthcare Information Management Systems Society. Five hundred sixty-three survey responses were collected about completed new product development projects. The aspects of the projects reported included the external turbulence experienced, flexible new product development practices employed, the effectiveness of …

The Impact Of Local Economic Development Activities On Perceived Brand Equity In The Higher Education Sector – An Examination Of Three Stakeholder Segments, John R. Lax

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

Branding and brand equity, both as theoretical constructs and as a critical part of applied marketing, have received considerable attention in the academic and practitioner literature. Brand equity, generally considered to be the differential in positive brand image and loyalty enjoyed by one brand as compared to that of a lesser known brand, is often attributed to the activities the firm undertakes to promote the brand and communicate its value or benefits. Branding activities, and the resulting brand equity, have been successfully employed by both consumer and industrial firms and those activities may range from those as conventional as television …

Impact Of Product Label Communication Congruency On Attitude Certainty And Purchase Intention For Food Allergy Stakeholders Under High And Low Levels Of Elaboration, Roger W. Wortman

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

Food allergies within the United States and Europe have become exceedingly prevalent in children, adolescents, and adults. In the United States alone, over 12 million people have been diagnosed with at least one food allergy. If the allergen is accidentally consumed, the food allergy sufferer may suffer a life-threatening condition known as anaphylaxis. More than 200 U.S. food allergic consumers die annually as a result of anaphylaxis due to ingestion of food allergens. To safely manage food allergies, food allergy sufferers and stakeholders (such as caregivers) require clear and complete ingredient information to avoid certain allergens in packaged food products. …

Corporate Diversification And Ceo Turnover Among Financially Distressed Firms, Jana Lynn Cook

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

A comprehensive examination of the differences in compensation and turnover between domestic and multinational firms in distress from 2003 - 2008 was completed. An examination of three major theories of turnover is examined within the boundaries of distressed firms and support is found for the Scapegoat Theory as proposed by Huson in 2004. The results found no significant differences between total compensation levels between domestic and international firms. And with turnover rates of 26 percent and 51 percent, these groups have only board size as a significant impacting variable.

Adoption Factors Impacting Human Resource Analytics Among Human Resource Professionals, Roslyn Vargas

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

In today’s fast paced, ever-changing world, one cannot help hearing the terms Big Data and analytics. The Internet holds vast amounts of data and this data, for example in retail, is being used to predict shopping habits, current needs, trends, and more. Why should this be limited to the retail side of an organization? Today, there is a more significant push for Human Resource (HR) professionals to be strategic business partners, and, therefore, HR professionals need to work on leading, not lagging, in the area of measurements and analytics. Some organizations that have adopted the use of analytics in their …

Two Essays On Governance At The National And Corporate Level, Laura Savory Miller

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

ESSAY 1
We examine the effect of governance environment on the composition of a country's external capital structure, specifically foreign equity investment. In addition to the absolute quality of the host country's governance environment, we consider the host country's governance quality relative to that of the source (investor) country. Unlike previous studies, which utilize country totals, we examine foreign investment positions between pairs of individual countries. Our sample includes 3,891 bilateral investment positions among 49 source countries and 69 host countries for years 2009 through 2011. We find that relative governance, rather than absolute governance, plays a role in foreign …

Transnational Companies And Radical Transformation Processes: A Study Of Performance In Comparison To Other Multinational Companies, Jorge Alejandro Palacios

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this study was to answer the following question: Do organizations that were defined as having successfully adopted the transnational model, as per Bartlett and Ghoshal (1989), and labeled as transnational companies (TNC), perform significantly better than other multinational companies (MNC) when going through radical transformation processes?

This research question was answered through a mixed method research design. The first part used a quantitative research approach and evaluated the financial performance of TNCs selected from the Bartlett and Ghoshal (1989) research, using secondary data sources from 6 TNCs and 20 MNCs. The second part used a qualitative approach …

Follow Me! Followership, Leadership And The Multigenerational Workforce, Ronald M. Johnson

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

This research was designed to develop an understanding of today's multigenerational workforce with respect to a preferred styles or characteristics of followership and leadership. Specifically this research sought to determine if there was a relationship between an individual's generational cohort and the preferred styles of leadership and followership, as measured by implicit theories of leadership and followership. Therefore, this study draws upon generational theory (Mannheim, 1952), implicit theories of leadership (Epitropaki & Martin, 2004) and implicit theories of followership (Sy, 2010). The changes in the composition of the US workforce which have occurred, and which will continue to occur in …

Effects Of A Support System On A First Generation College Graduate's Career Development, Matthew Kaufman

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to identify and describe the impact of the support system on the career development of first generation college graduates.

Research Questions:

--What comprises the first generation college graduates' support system for each generation (i.e. social network, friends, family and colleagues and mentors)?

--What is the relative importance/influence of each support system component in career development for each generation?

Design/Methodology/Approach: There were a total of 21 in-depth interviews with equal number of participants for all three generations (Baby Boomers, X and Y). The interviews were recorded, transcribed and then coded. Further, there are cross …

Internal Brand Training In The Learning Industry, Audrey Ellison

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

Companies in the learning industry are in the business-to-business marketplace and the companies focus on providing services to their customers. In service businesses delivering on the brand promise is aligned with the services employees deliver to customers. The learning industry was used to research whether a commitment to internal brand training impacts business performance. Two of the initial hypotheses were supported; a learning orientation increases commitment to internal brand training and internal brand training increases employee commitment to the brand. The third hypothesis, employee brand commitment improves business performance, was not supported. A re-specified model found.

* Learning orientation directly …

Organizational Practices Leading To A Positive Safety Culture: A Delphi Approach, Andrew Matthew Cwalina

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

A positive safety culture has been shown to contribute to a firm's ability to avoid or reduce the occurrence of occupational accidents and injuries. In American workplaces alone 3,582 people died and 5.1 million people were disabled in 2009 and the cost to corporate America was $169 billion and an additional productivity loss of 95 million work days. The economic cost to each American household is about $1,200. Firms that establish and maintain a positive safety culture are able to achieve a competitive advantage in the market.

While much research exists showing the relationship between safety culture and accident reduction, …

A Comparative Analysis Of The Moral Development Of Emergency Personnel Based On The Defining Issues Test, Romeo Balagtas Lavarias

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

Utilizing Lawrence Kohlberg's cognitive moral development theory as the guiding theory, the research undertaken sought to explore the moral decision-making process of emergency planners in the state of Florida. To assess the quantitative measurement for moral judgment, the research applied and used the Defining Issues Test (DIT) developed by James Rest (1979).

The research examined the relationship between education, gender, age, and ethics training against the moral maturity of Florida emergency planners. With ethical maturity level as the dependent variable, analysis showed a significant difference between males and females, where females had higher postconventional scores than males regardless of educational …

Modularization (Md) And Its Impact On The Chinese Auto Industry, Yunshan Lian

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

Modularization (MD) in the auto industry is relatively new when compared to its use in other industrial areas. It is regarded as the third revolution in the history of the auto industry after Henry Ford's assembly line production system and Toyota's JIT (just in time) management. Modularization brought a major reorganization to the automotive parts supplier industry by realizing the firm's strategic positional advantage through mass customization While academic interest in this area also experienced significant growth in recent years, few empirical studies have been conducted because it is a difficult task to operationalize the multi-faceted, complex modularization.

Although modularization …

An Empirical Investigation Of The Relationship Between Transformational Leadership And Work Environment, Timothy Dweylan Wilson

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

The research herein was developed to gain a robust understating of the relationship of transformational leadership and work environment in East Africa (Bass & Avolio, 1994). Likewise, the study provides additional data and an examination of what correlation and impact the aforementioned have on organizational commitment. The research faced many challenges, including examining a new model in a high context society that relies heavily on enriched clan, subclan, tribes, super tribes, and communal relationships, which had not been tested prior. Valid and reliable survey instruments included 60 questions from the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ-5X), 90 questions from the Work Environment …

Two Essays On Small Capitilization Public Family And Nonfamily Firms, Philip Louis Fazio

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

This research links together disparate literature on family and nonfamily firms, large and small firms, and risk for small firms. The literature is not coherent in one theme: whether family firms operate with greater risk relative to nonfamily firms. Yet the literature finds performance advantage to family firms without an explanation of why family firms on average generate better accounting returns and values relative to nonfamily firms other than for reduced agency costs translated into value. The first essay examines two measures of risk--debt ratio and idiosyncratic risk--of small publicly held family firms relative to nonfamily firms to investigate differences …

Sales Promotions Effects On Brand Loyalty, Marife Mendez

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation the field of promotion marketing was examined by studying the impact of sale promotions on brand royalty. More specifically, for products with different levels of involvement, the study assessed how effective different nonmonetary and monetary promotions are at retaining brand loyalty.

Two research questions were posed: (a) Will the effect of nonmonetary and monetary promotions on brand loyalty vary according to the extent of hedonism or utilitarian benefits for low and high involvement products? (b) Will the preference for nonmonetary or monetary promotions on brand loyalty have a greater or lesser effect for low and high involvement …

Cross Sectional Study Of Agile Software Development Methods And Project Performance, Tracy Lambert

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

Agile software development methods, characterized by delivering customer value via incremental and iterative time-boxed development processes, have moved into the mainstream of the Information Technology (IT) industry. However, despite a growing body of research which suggests that a predictive manufacturing approach, with big up-front specifications, detailed estimates, and speculative plans applicable to manufacturing domains, is the wrong paradigm for software development, many IT organizations are still hesitant to adopt agile approaches (Larman, 2004).

This study extends research based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, & Davis, 2003) into the domain of business processes. …

The Effect Of Wisdom In Organizations On Team Cohesiveness, Interpersonal Trust, And Intrinsic Job Satisfaction, Partially Mediated By Emotional Intelligence, Charles Dean Oden

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

Wisdom, though ancient in concept, has only recently grown in empirical research. Often seen as the pinnacle of human development, wisdom includes the key aspects of exceptional insight, reflection, discernment, knowledge, and judgment, which are required for guiding the long-term future of an organization. Wisdom is believed to enhance an organization's ability to work towards multiple goals simultaneously, assist in appropriately assigning priorities, and lessen the organization's reliance on guidance or rules. Utilizing simultaneous regression analysis, available through partial least squares modeling, this research study included 230 full time non-instructional staff from both a traditional university setting and numerous branch …

The Motivation Of Npo Workers For Accepting International Assignments, Abraham Johannes Oberholster

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the underresearched topic of the motivation of non-profit organizational (NPO) workers for accepting international assignments (IAs). In the literature review, the motivation and reasons for working and living outside the home country by multinational corporate expatriates, international migrants, and long-term international volunteers are summarized. With the reasons for expatriation distilled from the literature, a self-determination theory (SDT) approach, and open-ended questions, the motivations for NPO workers to accept IAs are factor analyzed and triangulated using data from a sample of more than 140 Christian mission and humanitarian workers originating from 25 countries and representing 48 sending organizations. …

The Influence Of Intrinsic And Extrinsic Job Satisfaction Factors And Affective Commitment On The Intention To Quit For Occupations Characterized By High Voluntary Attrition, Kenneth Mark Baylor

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to determine the antecedents to the intention to quit in an occupation characterized by a high degree of voluntary attrition. This study posits that job satisfaction and affective commitment are antecedents to voluntary turnover. The study concerns the application of Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory to determine the influence of intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction factors and affective commitment on the intention to quit among drivers in the solid waste management industry. Participants were volunteers taken from an industry leading publicly listed company, a premier privately held organization, and a unionized operation which represent all three …

The Relationship Between Perceived Leadership Practices And Organizational Culture Within The Aerospace Industry, Bradley Michael Mccain

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

There is a common thread of leadership research that theorizes the dynamic between a leader's behavior and their followers is essential in encouraging employees to exceed expectations, thereby increasing organizational performance (Bass, 1985; Bennis & Thomas, 2002; Kouzes & Posner, 1987). Research indicates transformational leadership correlates well with organizational culture, but the number of empirical studies is few. Kouzes and Posner (2002) maintain that organizations create culture; therefore a leader's behavior can and does affect organizational performance. Schein (2004) maintains it is leadership's duty to step outside the organizational culture to initiate changes (by their behavior) when warranted.

The purpose …

A Macroeconomic Approach Of Foreign Direct Investment (Fdi) In Post-Castro Cuba, Orlando Raimundo Villaverde

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

The Republic of Cuba has been experiencing economic fluctuations for at least the last 50 years due to endogenous and exogenous socio-economic and political conditions. Based on these factors, Cuba has lost market share and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). This dissertation studied macro variables from 13 countries and tested their relationships with FDI to Cuba during the period of 1998 through 2008. The results showed that level of technology, GNI per capita, and human capital had significantly impacted FDI to Cuba. The result also determined that financial capital, energy and natural resources, transportation and communication, market type, environmental factors and …

Organizational Capabilities As Predictors Of Effective Knowledge Management: An Empirical Examination, Kimberly K. Anderson

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

Knowledge management has become one of the most important trends in business, yet many knowledge management initiatives fail. To understand the success and failure of knowledge management, firms must identify and assess the organizational capabilities required for the effort to prosper, which is the focus of this study. Literature has offered important theoretical grounding for this study with regard to organizational capability as a predictor of knowledge management effectiveness, but empirical examination is lacking. The organizational capabilities have been identified as knowledge infrastructure capability (consisting of cultural, structural, and technological) and knowledge process capability (consisting of knowledge acquisition, conversion, application, …

Customer Satisfaction, Loyalty, And Repurchase: Meta-Analytical Review, And Theoretical And Empirical Evidence Of Loyalty And Repurchase Differences., Tamilla Curtis

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

Despite the large volume of research in the area of loyalty-repurchase-satisfaction, the findings on the relationship between these variables are conflicting. It seems that links between loyalty, repurchase, and satisfaction are not fully understood yet.

The study provided the theoretical background on loyalty, repurchase, satisfaction, and their interrelationships. The Theory of Planned Behavior and the Expectation Confirmation Theory were discussed. The loyalty-repurchase differentiation with five contributing factors was addressed. From the literature review nine hypotheses were proposed.

The study was conducted in three phases. The purpose of the first phase was to statistically identify the magnitude and the direction of …

The Effect On Corporate Performance Of Firms That Won The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, John Richard Horne

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the business results of companies that won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (NQA). It used performance data before and after the award to determine if there were significant differences in three key performance indices after

adoption of those business techniques that enabled these companies to win their NQA.

The three key indicators were return on assets (ROA), earnings per share (EPS) and the current ratio. The study examined the data in two ways; first tests were made by comparing company performance before and after winning an NQA. The second way of

testing was by comparing the …