Business Commons^™

If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It: Understanding The Value In Producing Film Adaptations And Movie Franchises, Courtney Mcdonald

University Honors Theses

The business of making movies is not an easy one; in an industry where very few see financial success, risk aversion often takes the wheel. In order to combat the immense amount of uncertainty, existing research has attempted to establish factors of film success, including actor star power and reviews. However, statistical studies evaluating these factors have produced consistently inconclusive results. To approach this idea from another perspective, this paper investigates two specific areas of film—movie adaptations and film franchises—that contain valuable properties not always as explicitly connected to box office results. While many movies are referenced, two film franchises …

A New Studio Era: How Netflix Is Becoming A Threat To The Film Industry, Al Kasper

University Honors Theses

Movie streaming services have become an increasingly popular distribution method due to their widespread accessibility to film content across the globe. Netflix is the biggest competitor of movie streaming services and has led the charge in creating original content for its customers. With many of these streaming services creating their own content, both Hollywood and independent studios are being introduced to a new competitor in their market: studios that stream their own content. While this may seem to be an issue only within the industry, there are concerns about another oligarchy of studios being created out of these streaming services …

Branding In Motion: How Animation And Branding Intersect To Support Nonprofits In Need, Shannon M. Steed

University Honors Theses

Nonprofits often don’t receive the kind of attention needed to garner a wide audience. Especially during the pandemic when the world has largely gone online, it can be a challenge for many of these organizations to adapt to the fast-paced digital landscape. This is largely due to a lack of access to resources and modern design practices to create more community visibility. This thesis is an exploration of how thoughtful design can bring these nonprofit events a new life. I created design systems for two nonprofit events, each with a digitally-focused approach and a focus on deeply considering the audience. …

Tourism And Tradition In Chiang Mai, Jared Makana Kirkey

University Honors Theses

This paper is an attempt to delve deeper into the relationship between tourism and culture in Chiang Mai. The push and pull of these forces is of particular interest. On one side, tourism is beneficial for Chiang Mai's economy, and encourages the preservation of its unique culture. Tourist dollars support local businesses, and any further profits can be reinvested into the local economy. And because many of Chiang Mai's major tourist draws are its cultural attractions, their preservation seems commonsense. But this is not always the case. Oftentimes, tourist dollars are funnelled out of Chiang Mai as packaged tours, luxury …

Workers Of The Word Unite!: The Powell's Books Union Organizing Campaign, 1998-2001, Ryan Thomas Wisnor

Dissertations and Theses

The labor movement's groundswell in the 1990s accompanied a period of intense competition and conglomeration within the retail book sector. Unexpectedly, the intersection of these two trends produced two dozen union drives across the country between 1996 and 2004 at large retail bookstores, including Borders and Barnes & Noble. Historians have yet to fully examine these retail organizing contests or recount their contributions to the labor movement and its history, including booksellers' pioneering use of the internet as an organizing tool. This thesis focuses on the aspirations, tactics, and contributions of booksellers in their struggles to unionize their workplaces, while …

What Is The Nature Of The Conflict Experienced By Japanese Workers In International Companies Based In Japan And What Type Of Conflict Management Do They Access?, Tomoko Shinohara Le

Dissertations and Theses

The aim of this thesis was to identify and analyze workplace conflict by enquiring into the nature of conflict, conflict management, and human resources (HR) strategies for conflict management in international companies based in Japan (ICBIJ). This study explores one part of a conflict system comprising cultural issues, HR strategies, conflict, and its effect on retention. The research question is "What is the nature of the conflict experienced by Japanese workers in international companies based in Japan and what type of conflict management do they access?" 16 Japanese workers were surveyed yielding qualitative and qualitative data. Findings indicate that workplace …

Identity Construction And Language Use By Immigrant Women In A Microenterprise Development Program, Linda Eve Bonder

Dissertations and Theses

Researchers have explored immigrant identity in various contexts, but few studies have examined identity in low-income immigrant women entrepreneurs. To address this research gap, I conducted in-depth interviews with eight low-income Latino immigrants who were starting their own businesses and receiving support through a local microenterprise development program (MDP). The study explored how participants' microenterprise efforts affected their identities and their investments in learning English.

The research found that entrepreneurship promoted positive identity construction by providing opportunities for participants to develop personal and cultural pride, strengthened parental roles, and interdependence with the community. These benefits helped participants decrease family stress …

Crafting A Space: A Feminist Analysis Of The Relationship Between Women, Craft, Business And Technology On Etsy.Com, Elizabeth Gillette Offensend

Dissertations and Theses

In recent years, craft fairs, shows and markets where crafters sell their handmade goods such as pottery, jewelry, handmade clothes and needlework have grown in popularity across the United States. A common intent among individuals in this community echo political statements made by the turn of the century Arts and Crafts movement, while there are political aspects of the community that can also be seen as an extension of the third wave feminist do-it-yourself (DIY) ethic of the late 1990s. This newly enlarged community of crafters that congregates in person also has a strong online presence. Etsy.com plays a large …

Shaping The Future Past: Finding History, Creating Identity In The Kwan Hsu Papers, Lisa Chere' Donnelly

Dissertations and Theses

Dr. Kwan Hsu was neither a superstar nor a celebrity. Her name does not come up in conversations about important contributors to her field of biophysics nor is she instantly recognizable for her contributions to Portland State University's international program or the state of Oregon's business ties with China. Yet she was a contributor, a cog-in-the-wheel, at the very least, in all of these areas and more. She was a peripheral member of a well-known Chinese family, but few in the United States know of or perhaps have interest in, but otherwise, she had no great connections or family ties …

The Response To Left-Wing Radicalism In Portland, Oregon, From 1917 To 1941, Andrew Nils Bryans

Dissertations and Theses

In the early twentieth century industrial, political, and social conflicts occurred throughout the United States during a period of rapid industrialization and modernization. Examples of these disputes, such as labor strikes and political struggles, have frequently been the subjects of scholarly investigations. Yet certain aspects of these conflicts remain relatively unknown, particularly on the community and local levels. The purpose of the present study was to explore and provide the context for a better understanding of the motives behind the responses of antiradicals to left-wing radicalism. What were some of the social, cultural, and economic motivations of local antiradicals in …

An Analysis Of Women's Jobs In The Middle East, 610 A.D.-1982, Malakeh Taleghani

Dissertations and Theses

In this survey, women's roles (jobs) and their participation in the workforce in the Muslim Middle-Eastern countries will be discussed generally; moreover, some of the Middle-Eastern countries, such as Egypt and Iran, will be studied a little more specifically as a sample. The status of women, their education, skills, and profession, will be explained historically from the date of the Islamic period until today. The problems and factors that prohibited women from having outside jobs, social life, and equal rights in past and present times (from 610 A.D. to 1982) will be analyzed. On the other hand, the attempt is …

W. S. U'Ren And The Fight For Government Reform And The Single Tax: 1908-1912, David Elvin Lindstrom

Dissertations and Theses

In the study of Oregon politics, the importance of developments in the early twentieth century have been largely overlooked by popular historians. As a result, many have lost the perspective of the sweeping reforms that reformers presented to Oregon's electorate. Another complicating factor is that voters dealing with the issues during the period had such disparaging attitudes towards some of the reforms, that no thought was given to preserving their memory for future generations. In addition, the personal papers of W. S. U'Ren, Oregon's leading reformer, are not available. This makes perspective even more difficult. Therefore, the research problem is …