Digital Commons Network^™

The Vortex Of Continuous Development Of Embedded Systems: An Inquiry Into Agility Orchestration, David A. Bishop

Business Administration Dissertations

Agile methodologies have become a popular and widely accepted method for managing software development. Since the inception of the Agile Manifesto over ten years ago, agile development techniques have superseded waterfall methods in many, if not most, software development organizations. Despite its apparent success, many companies have struggled with the adoption and implementation of agile, and exactly what level of adoption provides optimum agility. Agility is commonly held in the literature to be constructed of elements external to a company or project but may in fact be composed of both external and internal elements. The exact relationship of the adoption …

The Impact Of Inventory Leanness And Slack Resources On Supply Chain Resilience: An Empirical Study, David J. Lyons

Business Administration Dissertations

When a major disruption occurs, an organization’s performance is usually negatively affected. The great recession of 2008 – 2009 was such a disruption which had global implications that had not been seen since the great depression that started in the 1930s. This thesis is intended to contribute to the understanding of how leanness and slack resources affect firm performance in the presence of disruptions that test supply chain resilience, or the ability to restore the firm’s performance to its original condition after encountering stress or a large disturbance. These disruptions may not only affect the firm’s financial performance during the …

An Emerging Market: A Grounded Theory Analysis Of Underserviced Consumers Within The U.S. Banking Subsector Of The Financial Services Industry, Rebecca Staunton

Business Administration Dissertations

This research is empirical and exploratory in nature. It examines the emergence of a market of underserviced consumers within the U.S. banking subsector of the financial services industry. The aim of this research is to introduce generalizable sociological theory that explains the formation of an underserviced consumer market. This new social theory called Underserviced Consumer Market Formation Theory (UCMFT) is then applied to the U.S. banking subsector of the financial services industry in order to address the research question of, Why has an emerging market of underserviced consumers formed within the U.S. banking subsector of the financial services industry?

In …

Developing Sense-And-Respond Capability In A Mobile Service Firm Enabled By Dispatching Technology: An Action Research Study, Timothy A. Crim

Business Administration Dissertations

All organizations, including mobile services enterprises, must be able to adapt and respond to discontinuous and rapidly changing business environments. Although mobile service providers have considerable IT-enabled dispatching options, knowledge is limited on how to leverage these technologies to augment adaptive management practices that improve business performance and create customer benefits. Against this backdrop, my collaborative action research study adapted the framework and principles of sense-and-respond (S&R) adaptive enterprise design to help a mobile service provider, LSG, Inc., develop the transactional and transformational capabilities it needed to improve outcomes in providing field services for the State of Georgia’s lottery terminals. …

Factors That Influence Application Migration To Cloud Computing In Government Organizations: A Conjoint Approach, Barry C. West

Business Administration Dissertations

Cloud computing is becoming a viable option for Chief Information Officers (CIO’s) and business stakeholders to consider in today’s information technology (IT) environment, characterized by shrinking budgets and dynamic changes in the technology landscape. The objective of this study is to help Federal Government decision makers appropriately decide on the suitability of applications for migration to cloud computing. I draw from four theoretical perspectives: transaction cost theory, resource-based theory, agency theory and dynamic capabilities theory and use a conjoint analysis approach to understand stakeholder attitudes, opinions and behaviors in their decision to migrate applications to cloud computing. Based on a …

Modeling The Dynamics On The Effectiveness Of Marketing Mix Elements, Mallik Greene

Business Administration Dissertations

The objective of this study is to conduct a marketing mix modeling to measure the effectiveness of past marketing activities on the product sales using a time-varying effect model (TVEM) approach. The longitudinal intensive data for this study has come from a large ice cream manufacturer in USA. Traditionally, static regression models have been used to measure the effectiveness of marketing mix variables to predict sales. And, these models used to find the time independent effect of the covariate on the dependent variable. On the other hand, a dynamic model such as time-varying effect model takes time into consideration. Researchers …

The Impact Of Psychological Contract Fulfillment On Employee Engagement In The Millennial Generation: The Moderating Effects Of Generational Affiliation, Traron Moore

Business Administration Dissertations

Prior empirical and theoretical research suggests that engaged employees are more productive and, in turn, those companies are more successful. The present study empirically examines the relationship between psychological contract fulfillment and employee engagement. It also examines whether Millennial generational affiliation moderates this relationship. The study uses archived secondary data of a major U.S. retail chain where the employees rated themselves on various items including psychological contract fulfillment items and employee engagement items. Two hypotheses were developed and tested while controlling for employee tenure, supervisory status and gender. Hierarchical regression was used to determine the extent of the relationship between …

The Effect Of Student Default Rates For The Underprivileged: Engaging The University, Katherine Napier

Business Administration Dissertations

As the cost of higher education continues to grow at astounding rates, research shows that, in most cases, students and their families face some level of debt to pay for their undergraduate degrees (Layman, 2011). This research study will use an engaged scholarship approach to address the reason some students repay their educational debt and some students’ intent to repay their debt is quite different from the desired behavior. Additionally, we review the factors that affect students from underprivileged socioeconomic backgrounds that are, unfortunately, the largest contributor of delinquent student loan debt. Specifically, this study will identify elements using qualitative …

Information Sharing Tears Of Irony: An Exploratory Study Of The Information Sharing Paradox In The Intelligence Community, Kevin Odom Sr.

Business Administration Dissertations

The sharing of information across government intra- and inter-agencies provides enormous benefits to Intelligence operations, but it also poses risks to Intelligence organizations’ operational capability. These benefits and risks of sharing information within Intelligence Communities introduce a paradox that disturbs decision-making abilities and affect existing and future relationships with local and national Intelligence partners. With this paradox, there exist particular forces that affect the paradox, such as organizational factors and the behavior of an information sharer, the responsible actor that decides on how, when and with whom to share the information. Combining the two can produce a positive (desired) outcome …

An Empirical Investigation Of Successful, High Performing Turnaround Professionals: Application Of The Dynamic Capabilities Theory, Scott R. Baird Dr.

Business Administration Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This research is about identifying the characteristics or success profiles of professionals working in the turnaround industry. The turnaround industry possesses a number of dynamic capabilities in processes, positions, resources and paths that are unique to its industry. The firms that compete in the turnaround industry serve their clients, the dying organizations, by using a mix of these dynamic capabilities. While these dynamic capabilities are seen as the turnaround firms’ “secrets of success,” they have over time evolved into “best practices.” This commoditization of best practices in the turnaround industry has created a need for turnaround firms to search …

Justice-Based Normative Recovery Expectations In Enterprise Information Technology Services: The Effect Of Failure Severity And Criticality On Disconfirmation And Satisfaction, Andrew C. Tang

Business Administration Dissertations

In the areas of Service Failure Recovery and Expectancy-Disconfirmation, the extant literature contains studies of predictive expectations conducted in a consumer services setting, which show how a customer believes a seller would respond during a service failure situation. However, a focus on the expectations of enterprise managers and purchasing decision-makers for how a provider should respond in such a situation has not been explored. In addition, the literature contains studies that support the influence of service criticality and failure severity on recovery satisfaction, but the mechanisms by which these variables impact recovery satisfaction has not been extensively discussed. In order …

The Impact Of Systematically Hiring Top Talent: A Study Of Topgrading As A Rigorous Employee Selection Bundle, Michael S. Lorence

Business Administration Dissertations

This research contributes to the employee selection literature by examining the various aspects of value creation derived from systematic approaches to selective hiring and onboarding best practices. These best practices covering the end-to-end spectrum of talent acquisition activities from pre-recruitment to post-hiring performance management are examined through the construct of employee selection bundles. A rigorous type of employee selection bundle called Topgrading is examined across six case studies. This research builds on the employee selection literature by exploring the cross section of organizational learning theory, goal setting theory, and process management theory on the employee selection bundle as a mechanism …

Motives And Barriers To Cloud Erp Selection For Smes: A Survey Of Value Added Resellers (Var) Perspectives, Michael L. Garverick

Business Administration Dissertations

Small to Mid-size Enterprises (SMEs) typically are slow/late to adopt new technologies due to a conservative bias, cost factors and possible lack of knowledge. Implementation of a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is a major, costly undertaking for a company of any size, especially SMEs, but there is the potential for huge paybacks touted by advantages afforded by the cloud. Cloud based ERP technology for SMEs is relatively new and poses a potential large risk-reward payoff. Given that these SMEs are currently functioning with their existing systems, why would they want to risk switching to "Bleeding Edge" Cloud ERP …

Improving Recurrent Software Development: A Contextualist Inquiry Into Release Cycle Management, Syed M. Kamran

Business Administration Dissertations

Software development is increasingly conducted in a recurrent fashion, where the same product or service is continuously being developed for the marketplace. Still, we lack detailed studies about this particular context of software development. Against this backdrop, this dissertation presents an action research study into Software Inc., a large multi-national software provider. The research addressed the challenges the company faced in managing releases and organizing software process improvement (SPI) to help recurrently develop and deliver a specific product, Secure-on-Request, to its customers and the wider marketplace. The initial problem situation was characterized by recent acquisition of additional software, complexity of …

Software Service Innovation: An Action Research Into Release Cycle Management, Neda Barqawi

Business Administration Dissertations

Fierce competition in the market is driving software vendors to rely on Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) strategies and to continuously match new software versions with customers’ needs and competitors’ moves. Although release management as a recurrent activity related to SaaS arguably shapes how a vendor services its customers, the literature is surprisingly limited on how software releases are managed to support SaaS strategies. Against this backdrop, we present a collaborative action-research study with Software Inc., a large multi-national software provider, focused on improving the release cycle management process for a complex security software service. The study is part of a comprehensive intervention …