Business Commons^™

Two Essays On Investor Sentiment, Amin Amoulashkarian

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

The body of literature on investor sentiment underlines its impact on future stock returns, with general consensus that investor sentiments and future returns are negatively correlated (Baker and Wurgler, 2006; Brown and Cliff, 2004). This extends to the notion that a bullish investor would expect returns to be above average, while a bearish investor anticipates below-average returns (Brown and Cliff, 2004).

The first essay proposes a model to examine the influence of unexpected volatility of investor sentiment on the equity risk premium. Assumptions underpinning the model include risk-averse investors, homogeneous expectations regarding asset returns and price changes, and sentiment-influenced expectations …

Firm Capabilities, Great Power Competition, And The Structural Reshaping Of Globalization, Samuel Wilson

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

The changing nature of modern globalization has given rise to strategic competition between great power states, who utilize global firms and policy interventions in commercial markets to pursue state-level objectives. Multinational executives operating in global markets must contend with the consequences of great power competition between countries like the US and China, developing novel strategies and capabilities to defend firm performance in the face of trade wars and geopolitical confrontation. Through the analysis of risk factor disclosures of foreign multinational firms operating in China, as well as cases of Chinese economic and industrial espionage against US firms, this study utilizes …

Two Essays On Industry Tournament Incentives, Sarah Almisher

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

A large body of literature has developed on the disparities in compensation among chief executive officers. Financial media has highlighted the fact that CEOs in the United States receive excessive pay and that the gap among executive compensation is soaring. High compensation creates incentives for CEOs to take higher risk in firm policies to land a more attractive position managing another firm and attaining higher pay which is considered the ultimate prize (Kale, Reis, and Venkateswaran 2009; Coles, Daniel, and Naveen 2006). This creates a tournament in the managerial labor market. We define this tournament as the pay differential between …

Human Psychology Factors Influencing Agile Team Autonomy In Post-Pandemic Remote Software Organizations, Ravikiran Kalluri

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Agile project management methods are gaining in popularity in the software industry as software development teams are being asked to be adaptive to market needs and resilient to change and uncertainty. With increasing market uncertainty, global competition, and time-to-market pressure, it is becoming a challenge to develop an innovative product and deliver it on-time without the opportunity that comes from team autonomy to experiment and learn from failures in a remote workplace. To resolve this challenge, it is critical to understand the myriad human psychological factors in play that influence Agile team autonomy in a remote work environment.

The role …

Towards A Formal Theory Of Humor In Organizations, Richard Joseph Hayes

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Current theories and models of humor conceptualize humor at the individual, dyadic, and organizational level. These theories laid the foundation for research and empirical findings that have established humor’s impact in the workplace. Yet, because these theories are not integrated, they individually do not offer a comprehensive view of humor in the workplace across different levels, hindering the development of multilevel research designs. Additionally, the ambiguity of these narrative theories hampers empirical testing precision. This dissertation expands the literature by introducing a mathematical, multilevel model of humor and tests that theory using computational simulation methods. Synthetic environments reproduced observed correlations …