Digital Commons Network^™

The Interplay Between Change And Project Management For Business Results, Taiwo O.O. Abraham

Theses and Dissertations

The present study investigates the potential interplay between change management and project management. The research aims to determine the causal effect between the two concepts. Data is collected from a focus group comprised of various managers. The study concludes that managers readily apply the concepts of both change management and PM when making decisions. Also, there is significant appreciation of the value of both PM and change management in the contemporary business environment. Future studies need to investigate the relevance of the change management models on PM strategies.

Three Essays On Venture Capital Backed Firms And Peer To Peer Lending, Abdelhamid Riani

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation includes three separate essays related to venture capital backed firms and peer to peer lending. The first essay, presented in Chapter II, studies underpricing and buy and hold abnormal returns in venture capital backed firms.

In this chapter, I conduct an analysis of underpricing and buy-and-hold abnormal returns in venture capitals' portfolio of firms using a sample of 991 venture backed IPOs between 1985 and 2018. I show that the more experienced the venture capital is, the larger the underpricing and the lower the buy-and-hold returns of the whole portfolio. Venture capital investors underprice significantly their portfolio of …

Essays In Corporate Finance, Bina Sharma

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I explore the effects of exogenous shocks on firms' and managers' behaviors. The first essay examines the effect of shareholder-initiated litigation risk on opportunistic insider trading by exploiting US states' staggered adoption of Universal Demand (UD) laws, which weakened shareholders' ability to file derivative lawsuits against corporate insiders. I find that UD laws lead to significantly more profitable insider trades, specifically insider sales. After the adoption of UD laws, insider sales on average avoid an additional loss of about 2 percent ($24,000) per month in buy-and-hold abnormal returns. The benefit of UD laws is greater for insiders …

Essays On The Roles Of Employee Representatives On The Board In Corporate Policy-Making, Amirhossein Fard

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of four chapters, investigating the roles of employee representatives on the board in corporate policies in a sample of European countries. I examine the role of employee representatives on the board in firms’ merger and acquisition intensity and performance. In addition, I study the value-creating roles of these directors. In particular, I study the effects of employee representative directors on the firms’ pay gap between the CEO and average employees. In chapter Ι, I describe the background on the idea behind the presence of employee representatives and how the laws mandating this presence have changed in Europe. …

Essays On Market Linkages In Nafta And Latin American Countries: Studies Of Cointegration And Contagion, John K. Tarwater

Theses and Dissertations

The globalization of securities in recent years has led to an increase in market linkages. These linkages are strong among countries that have entered into bilateral and multilateral trade agreements. I investigate the linkages of stock markets in NAFTA countries by exploring their cointegrating relationship, and I explore market linkages in Latin America by showing evidence of financial contagion between Brazil and her Latin American neighbors.

In the first essay, I employ a vector error correction model to examine the linkages between price stock indexes of NAFTA countries that have been segregated into tiers based on market capitalization. In each …

A Contingency Approach For Supply Chain Preparedness To Pursue Circular Economy Business Models, Santosh Nandi

Theses and Dissertations

A growing stream in circular economy (CE) research is about circular economy business models (CEBM). It suggests how firms could learn to adopt unique material and product designs, newer business models, value chain networks and potential enablers that satisfies CE ideologies about economic, environment, and society. However, the understanding about how firms could integrate CEBM practices at internal, supply chain, and external levels is limited. Given the rising complexities in supply chains, the goal of this dissertation is to: (a) understand the landscape of CE concepts within the supply chain management context, and consequently (b) comprehend how firms’ preparedness about …

Essays On American Depositary Receipts: New Fears, Investor Attention And Financial Bubbles, Juan P. Gutierrez

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of four chapters, focusing on American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) and how they are affected by new measures of investor sentiment, new proxies of investor attention, and financial bubble detection. ADRs are negotiable certificates of ownership in foreign companies that are traded in the U.S. financial markets.

In Chapter I, I make a brief introduction of ADRs. The types of programs there are, the market capitalization and volume in general and to some specific countries.

In Chapter II, I show that negative investor sentiment measures, derived from internet aggregate search indices, have a contemporaneous negative effect on ADR …

Three Essays On Economic And Financial Development In Latin America: Evidence From The 2000s Commodity Boom, Andre Coelho Vianna

Theses and Dissertations

The dynamic forces of commodity prices have become a subject of large interest due to the uprise of a commodity supercycle in the beginning of the 21st century. The main purpose of this dissertation is to assess the role of commodity shocks and international trade in Latin American financial and economic development in the last two decades. The first essay examines how commodity market structural shocks explain the variations in commodity prices. Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) results from 1997 to 2015 show that aggregate demand shocks are more evident during the recent commodity boom period and are robust to different …

Essays On Financial Markets And Investments, Shahil Sharma

Theses and Dissertations

Essay I examine regime-switching in the response of U.S. stock price to oil price shocks. We find statistically significant, time-varying, and dynamic state dependent response that resembles to high and low response regimes. Furthermore, we examine whether the timing of the regime shifts are consistent with three (direction, magnitude, and business cycle) manifestations of asymmetry by modeling the transition probabilities governing the switching process as functions of state variables. We observe strong and statistically significant support that stock price responds more aggressively to oil specific shocks during recessions than during expansions, while findings suggest weaker evidence of asymmetry pertaining to …

The Effects Of Developed Country Equity Markets On Developing Country Trading Partner Growth, Jorge S. Maldonado

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three chapters, focusing on the effects that developed countries have on their developing country trading partners with the consideration of macroeconomic variables. In Chapter I, I explore the differences in the drivers and the corresponding magnitude effects on domestic real stock returns during fixed and floating exchange rate regimes. In Chapter II, the equity developed market effects on domestic real stock returns is determined during the pre- and post-great recession periods under floating exchange rate regimes. Chapter III summarizes the findings and provides concluding remarks regarding the benefits and disadvantages in adopting a floating exchange rate …

Essays On Financial Decision Making, Corey A. Shank

Theses and Dissertations

Individuals make financial decisions daily, yet the literature on the mechanisms that drive financial decisions is limited. This dissertation looks to examine how physical characteristics, and personality subconsciously influence financial decision making by conducting an experiment. Furthermore, this dissertation examines biased decision making in the betting market by using data from covers.com. First, this dissertation finds that the cognitive impairments associated with having a higher body mass index is positively related to poor financial decision making and being more likely to commit the present bias, and distorting probabilities. Second, this dissertation finds that business students are more apt to fit …

Regression-Discontinuity Analysis Of The Effects Of Government Housing Policies, Alejandro Rojas

Theses and Dissertations

An influential literature has applied regression-discontinuity (RD) analysis to investigate the effects of government housing policies. This literature has failed to identify substantial effects of these policies, but may also suffer from various biases and limitations. This dissertation carefully examines what, if any, issues face RD analysis in this context. Chapter II considers the Affordable Housing Goals (AHGs) and Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), affordable housing policies that compel Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (F&F) and depository institutions, respectively, to increase access to mortgage credit for borrowers perceived by some as “underserved” by the mortgage market. Chapter III considers the overall …

Hormonal Influence On Female Consumption Of Revealing And Sexy Fashion Products, Ngoc B. Pham

Theses and Dissertations

This doctoral dissertation addresses the biological and psychological components of consumers’ decision-making processes. Particularly, it investigates the impact of female sex hormones on women’s consumption behaviors regarding fashion products. These hormones reach peak level when women are near ovulation, and this research examines how these hormones, when at peak level, influence women’s attitudes and purchase intention towards sexy and revealing fashion products.

The research is based on two theoretical frameworks: ovulatory shift hypothesis (OSH) and theory of reasoned action (TRA). Specifically, the OSH, based on the female ovulatory cycle postulates that women change their sexual preferences for men with perceived …

Two Essays On International Capital Flows And Cross-Listings, Lu Sui

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores two interesting issues: international capital flows and cross-listings. With high volatility of capital flows and imbalance of capital flows between emerging and advanced economies, the topic of capital flow management is always attractive to researchers and policy makers. The first essay explore how capital flows in G20 countries are significantly impacted by pull and push factors. The results show that international capital flows are significantly associated with domestic financial development, which is measured by stock market liquidity and domestic credit. Moreover, international capital flows are affected by some push factors such as, the growth of world economy …

Essays On Non-Traditional Activities In The Banking Industry, Lijuan Sun

Theses and Dissertations

Starting in the 1980s, financial innovations and technology improvements led to important changes in corporate financing, primarily a significant decrease in the share of bank loans and an increased share of bonds and stocks. This change challenged the traditional banking business. The Gramm–Leach–Bliley (GLB) Act of 1999 allowed banks to engage more freely in non-traditional activities such as investment banking, venture capital, security brokerage, insurance underwriting, and asset securitization. Further, GLB encouraged changes in banks' business models and income mix that were already underway. Chapter I shows an introduction of non-traditional activities. Chapter II examines the relationship between non-traditional activities, …

Essays On Stock Market Contagion: Evidence From The Americas, Juan Andres Rodriguez-Nieto

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation we examine the financial contagion from the U.S. to the Americas during the U.S. financial crisis.

First, we examine the relationship between the U.S. perceived market volatility (VIX), perceived credit risk (TED spread), and the U.S. financial crisis, on the stock returns of these countries. Our findings suggest that VIX has negatively effects on the stock returns of all these countries and that this relationship increases significantly during the U.S. financial crisis. We also identify that increases in the TED spread, have negative effects on the stock market returns of Canada and Latin America, and this increases …

Essays On The Unintended Consequences Of Banking Regulation, John Patrick Ned

Theses and Dissertations

Ned, John Patrick, Essays on the Unintended Consequences of Banking Regulation. Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), August 18, 2017, 77 pp., 11 tables, references, 34 titles. The introduction of new financial regulatory reforms are designed to usually provide a positive impact for the firms in the banking system. However, there are some unintended consequences to the firms in the banking industry after the introduction of new banking regulations. In the two essays, I examine the impact of introducing new banking regulation on the different firms in the financial services industry and the impact of the new banking regulation on the commercial …

Essays On Corporate Governance, Wonseok Choi

Theses and Dissertations

Corporate governance is one major research topic in financial economics. Studies in this area explore how much severe agency problems firms have and how to mitigate such agency problems to benefit the firms and their investors. In this dissertation, I investigate whether outside directors’ dissention has a monitoring role. The first essay tests whether outside directors’ dissention increases firm value through outside directors’ monitoring role. The second essay examines outside directors’ dissention on earnings management. I found supportive evidences that outside directors’ dissention can increase firm value and reduce earnings management. Also, only aggressive dissentions can lead higher firm value …

Three Essays On Shareholder Activism, Khoa Huu Nguyen

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation includes three separate studies related to shareholder activism campaigns. The first study, presented in Chapter II, examines the question whether shareholder activism creates value for the targets’ shareholder. I find positive and significant abnormal returns on a day of the targeting announcement, 1.55%, and one day after, 1.33%. For Buy-and-Hold return analysis, I find that stock prices of the targets start to decrease 24 months before activism campaign announcements. Further results indicate that the targets are also underperforming to the market and to their matchings at pre-announcement periods. For post-announcement periods, however, targets’ stock returns recover and outperform …

Antecedents And Outcomes Of Customer Engagement: Bridging Customer Value Co-Creation Behavior And Customer Psychological State Engagement, Samaneh Torkzadeh

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation draws on service-dominant logic and reviews the engagement literature to explore the antecedents and outcomes of two multi-dimensional customer engagement constructs: psychological state engagement (PSEngagement) and value co-creation behavior. PSEngagement is a precursor to value co-creation behavior, with the latter also known as behavioral engagement in prior research.

The model proposed in this dissertation was tested in two service contexts: higher education, with a sample size of 454, and fitness, with a sample size of 122. To minimize the common method variance typical of survey research (Podsakoff, et al. 2003), the model was tested twice per context, once …

Equity Mispricing, Firms' Innovation And Institutional Investors, Hamid Sakaki

Theses and Dissertations

First essay has two primary objectives. First, I investigate the relation between institutional investors and firms’ innovation activities and second, the impact of different types of institutional investors on firms’ innovation by classifying institutional investors into five groups. After controlling for other determinants of innovation, the results show that higher institutional ownership stability boosts innovation activities measured by the number of patents and citations. The results also indicate that banks, insurance, and investment companies have a positive and significant effect on firms’ innovation, while investment advisors could affect innovation activities negatively. Moreover, when I classify the institutional investors based on …

Essays On The Performance And Earnings Management Of Cross-Listing Firms, Klaus S. Beckmann

Theses and Dissertations

I investigate the performance and earnings management of firms that cross-list in foreign markets. In the first essay, I analyze and compare the underpricing and buy-and-hold abnormal returns of depositary receipt equity offerings with preceding Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) and Seasoned Equity Offerings (SEOs) of the same firms to identify differences and motivations of equity offerings free of any matching bias. I find that domestic equity offerings entail significantly larger underpricing than subsequent foreign equity offerings. The average buy-and-hold abnormal returns of depositary receipt equity offerings are significantly lower than the underlying firm’s performance at preceding domestic equity issuances over …

Essays On The Role Of Institutional Ownership In Bank Governance, Mohammad Jafarinejad

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three chapters, focusing on U.S. bank holding companies from 2007 to 2013 to explore the role of institutional ownership in bank governance. In addition to the impact of ownership proportion, I explore the impact of ownership dispersion among institutional investors on bank safety, profitability and performance.

In Chapter I, I show that the proportion of institutional ownership in banks has increased significantly after the recent financial crisis. Moreover, I examine the impact of institutional ownership proportion and dispersion on bank safety using capital ratios (i.e., Tier 1 and Tier 2 capital ratios) and credit risk (i.e. …

Profitability And Financial Characteristics Of U.S. Publicly Traded Health Services Companies, Alessandra Rios

Theses and Dissertations

The health industry is affected by economic factors like income and prices. From 2007 to 2013, two turning points affected the healthcare industry, the financial crisis and the Affordable Care Act. This study is an attempt to measure the effects these turning points had on profitability of health services firms. To examine the potential changes the two events had on profitability, quarterly financial data was used to create a basic model that measures the Return on Assets, Return on Equity, Total Margin and Operating Margin of the firms. OLS regressions were run and results indicate that both ROA and ROE …

Identifying Elements Of A Climate For Sustainability, Rosemond A. Moore

Theses and Dissertations

Sustainability as an area of research is growing in importance not only among academicians, but practitioners as well. A 2010 Accenture study of 700 CEOs found that 93% identified sustainability as important to the long term future success of their organizations. Utilizing CEO sustainability statements Content Analysis was conducted to understand and identify those key elements necessary for a climate for sustainability. A climate for sustainability is one in which sustainability policies, practices, and procedures drive behaviors that are rewarded, supported, and expected within an organization.

Content analysis of CEO statements from organizations recognized for both their sustainability practices as …

Assessment Of The United States National Security Space Management And Organization, Charles G. Simpson

Theses and Dissertations

This research analyzes the results of the Report of the Commission to Assess the United States National Security Space Management and Organization, dated January 11, 2001 in order to determine which recommendations were beneficial, which recommendations are still in effect and what additional measures should be undertaken to continue, and even advance, our standing as a premier space power. It analyzes the potential managerial and organizational shortcomings of National Security Space within the United States Government, specifically the Department of Defense. Additionally, this paper reviews the various management and organizational force restructuring which occurred as a result of the commission’s …