Business Commons^™

Resource Allocation In Subsidy Welfare Programs: Managerial Insights For Nonprofits, Governments, And Service Providers, Wei Wei

Doctoral Dissertations

Subsidy welfare programs provide financial assistance to economically disadvantaged individuals and families to access essential and life-altering services (e.g., education, child care, and housing) that they might not otherwise have access to. Access to these services is considered critical to achieving a better and more sustainable future for all. As such, these high-quality services are directly related to several United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which were adopted as a universal call to action to end poverty, save the planet and improve the lives and prospects of everyone, everywhere." In particular, the need for these affordable and high-quality services has been …

Hospital-Physician Integration And Physician Collaboration: Implications For Care Efficiency And Outcomes, Hui Jia

Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis focuses on healthcare operations management and consists of two essays that investigate empirically how the relationship between physicians and hospitals and the relationship between peer physicians, respectively, affect clinical care outcomes and care efficiency.

In the first essay, I study hospital-physician integration as a type of organization-service provider relationship. Many prior studies have provided insights into the benefits of a tight collaboration between hospitals and physicians. However, neutral and even negative effects of this relationship on healthcare performance have been observed and discussed in the literature. This mixed evidence points to a need for further study to elucidate …

Essays On Supply Chain Economic Networks For Disaster Management Inspired By The Covid-19 Pandemic, Mojtaba Salarpour

Doctoral Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic, which was declared by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020, negatively impacted virtually all economic and social activities across the globe. As of March 7, 2022, more than 6 million deaths have been associated with COVID-19 disease. This health disaster, unlike many other disasters, is not limited to time or location. It has resulted in intense global competition for many essential products, from Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to ventilators and vaccines and food products. In this dissertation, I construct, analyze, and quantitatively solve a spectrum of supply chain economic network models inspired by realities in …

Privacy In Online Communities: How Control And Assurances Influence Intention To Disclose Personal Information, Oscar E. Lopez Arizaga

Doctoral Dissertations

Online Health Communities provide a rich, context-specific scenario for the study of privacy, which promises to enhance our knowledge of this complex phenomena. Online communities are only successful to the extent that individuals join and participate in the communities, and privacy concerns are a barrier to this success. In this dissertation, the privacy calculus and the agentic perspective of social cognitive theory provide the theoretical foundation for studying privacy in online communities. The first study represents a comprehensive literature review of online privacy in IS. Several research opportunities are found in the literature including limited empirical work on the roles …

Les Deux Jeannots: An Investigation Of Firm Behavior In Corrupt Environments, Howard Jean-Denis

Doctoral Dissertations

Historically, members of the African Diaspora have endured the brunt of slavery, colonization, economic challenges, and corruption which was imposed on them by their colonial rulers. As a proud descendant of these original, indigenous African groups of people, I embarked on this dissertation to explore the role of the managerial perceptions and indigenous philosophies held by this focal group on their ultimate organizational strategy. Strategic management research has established that organizations with valuable resources and relevant competencies, as well as those which are dynamically capable, will perform better than firms that do not have these capabilities (Barney, 1991; Teece, 1997, …

Analytics-Based Optimization For The Integration Of Drones Into Last-Mile Logistics, Amro M. El-Adle

Doctoral Dissertations

The growing volume and consistency of online ordering has renewed focus on the optimization of logistics and interest in technology-driven supply chain operations. Recent trials have demonstrated the viability of using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), known colloquially as drones, in last-mile deliveries. In minimizing delivery times for customers, reducing the load of logistics workers, and reducing congestion and pollution per delivery, the integration of drones into traditional delivery networks presents transformative potential to benefit consumers, firms, and society at large. This dissertation investigates operational and tactical problems that inform routing and assignment decisions for vehicle-drone delivery systems. In three essays …

Essays On Size Asymmetry In Supply Chain Disruptions, Yu Chu

Doctoral Dissertations

While size asymmetry (e.g., large buyer and small supplier) has been discussed in a no-disruption operation context (Lee & Johnson, 2012), little is known whether, how and why a large buyer reacts differently when different-sized suppliers cause different types of disruptions. Extant research suggests in a supplier-induced disruption supplier’s recovery actions yield various effects in a dependence-unbalancing setting, indicating a need for a deeper understanding of what buyers prefer in order to resolve disruptions caused by facing different sized suppliers and the rationales behind the decisions. Accordingly, this dissertation examines whether and how the supplier size and supplier-induced disruption type …

Multiple Identities In Sport Fandom: Balance, Conflict, & Negotiation, Aaron Mansfield

Doctoral Dissertations

Simultaneous to the sport industry’s ascent, obesity has become an issue of growing societal concern. Scholars have explored the role of social-psychological identification in both fandom and physical health, but have not yet explored the intersection of the two. Throughout life, individuals must negotiate all of their identities, including their attachment to sport teams, yet understanding of role identity within sport management is limited. Likewise, scholars have noted the need for greater illumination of the relationship between fandom and physical well-being. I address these gaps through three studies. In Study One, I completed semi-structured interviews with individuals who consider both …

Essays On Competitive Perishable Food Supply Chain Networks: From The Impacts Of Tariffs And Quotas To Integration Of Quality, Deniz Besik

Doctoral Dissertations

Food, in the form of fresh produce, meat, fish, and/or dairy, is necessary for maintaining life. In this dissertation, I focus on the modeling and analysis of some of the inherent issues in competitive perishable food supply chain networks. I investigate the impacts of trade policies such as tariffs, quotas, and their combination – tariff-rate quotas, as well as the integration of food quality deterioration into food supply chains. The research is especially timely given the prevalence of trade wars and tariffs in todays global political environment. The work is multidisciplinary with constructs from food science integrated into the economics …

Three Essays On Firm Behaviors In Online Market Platforms, Erfan Rezvani

Doctoral Dissertations

Across many online market platforms, customer reviews have become a prevailing mechanism to evaluate firms and disseminate information about the quality of their products/services. While prior research has well-documented the impact of such customer-generated information on firm performance such as sales (e.g. Chevalier & Mayzlin 2006, Liu, 2006), understanding how firms react to customer evaluations generates an interesting yet an underexplored topic for research. This dissertation, through three studies, aims to investigate how customer reviews tat are posted on online platforms shape how firms learn, communicate, and compete. Chapter 1 shows that learning from own experience follows an inverted U-shaped …

How Tempered Radicals Pursue Ideological Change Within Their Organization, Saleh M. Bajaba

Doctoral Dissertations

Organizations that are adaptive, diverse, and socially responsible are often built by employees who are able to implement change “under the radar” of those in the organization who would ordinarily fight significant change. These “tempered radicals” are insider activists who serve as the catalyst for incremental constructive changes which, over time, build better organizations. Unfortunately, little is known about what motivates tempered radicals to enact changes within their organizations. In order to better understand the motives of these internal change agents, I develop a measure of tempered radical motives (TRM). In Study 1, I develop a measure of TRM by …

Blood Supply Chain Networks In Healthcare: Game Theory Models And Numerical Case Studies, Pritha Dutta

Doctoral Dissertations

A crucial component of every healthcare system is the safe and steady supply of the life-saving product, blood. In order to meet the demand for blood consistently, it is imperative to maintain a robust supply chain. The blood banking industry in the United States, faced with emerging challenges, which include, an increase in operating costs, rise in competition among blood centers, insufficient reimbursement from payers such as insurance companies and government programs, in addition to inherent challenges such as donor motivation, seasonal shortages, perishability, is trying to adapt to the changing dynamics to sustain itself economically. The altruistic nature of …

The Linkages Among Market Structure, Market Conduct, And Service Quality: Analysis Of The U.S. Domestic Airline Industry, Amirhossein Alamdar Yazdi

Doctoral Dissertations

As supported by the dynamic structure-conduct-performance (S-C-P) paradigm, market structure affects conduct, and conduct determines firms’ performance (Mckinsey & Company Quarterly, 2008). Several researchers have looked at the S-C-P relationship with focus on price. Boreinstein, 1990; Beutel and McBride, 1992; Kim and Singal, 1993; Morrison, 1996; Veldhuis, 2005; Peters, 2006; Zhang and Round, 2009 looked at the effect of airline mergers on fares; some others have looked at the linkage between the imposition of fees and stock values (Barone, et al., 2012), ticket prices (Henrickson & Scott, 2012; Brueckner, et al., 2015); and some examine the effects of low-cost carriers …

Managing Traditional Pipeline And Platform Innovation, Shaoling Katee Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores emerging innovation phenomena in two domains: pipeline and platform innovation domains, which are distinguishable because innovations are very much different under them. Innovations under the pipeline innovation domain are often classified into a certain form, such as product innovations, while innovations in the platform innovation domain are not singularly confined to one form. Regarding the pipeline innovation domain, extant innovation literature has taken the predominant technological view while paid less attention on non-technological perspective. However, marketing innovations, which are non-technological type of innovation, are increasingly adopted worldwide. Thus, I introduce my Essay 1 to explore how marketing …

Integrated Routing Models For Enhanced Product And Service Delivery, Mohammad Reihaneh

Doctoral Dissertations

Logistics constitutes a key function of modern-day supply chains and an indispensable prerequisite for the support and growth of conventional brick-and-mortar and online businesses. Whether for procurement or delivery purposes, manufacturers and service providers seek efficient and reliable logistical services. A 2014 Bloomberg survey reports that 73% of supply chain managers are experiencing a shift in their attitude towards transportation services; a function they now view as a key element of their business strategy. The advent of new mobile technologies and online platforms, the use of intermodal logistics, and the multiplication of customer-selected delivery options continue to prompt the development …

When Doing Good Backfires: The Effects Of Corporate Social Responsibility Fit On The Decisions Of Long And Short-Term Investors, Chezham Sealy

Doctoral Dissertations

Investors, analysts, and news outlets have expressed concerns that corporate social responsibility (CSR) has deviated from its original altruistic purpose of improving society to a marketing ploy aimed at managing perceptions of shareholders and improving the bottom line of companies. In this study, I analyze how the fit of a company’s business operations to their CSR activities affects the investment willingness of long and short-term investors. While prior research shows numerous positive outcomes associated with CSR, I predict and find that low fit CSR activities can decrease the investment willingness of long-term investors when companies are involved in controversial “sin” …

Improvisation And Leadership Development: Understanding Improvisational Theater Arts As Leadership Skills, Jack Skalican

Doctoral Dissertations

Leadership development is immersed in a philosophical struggle. Past efforts at developing leaders have missed a set of skills important to the role of today’s leaders. Since Frederick Taylor invented the practice of scientific management, the study of management and leadership has largely focused on traits, practices, and behaviors that conform to this model such as planning, analysis, control, and monitoring. Missing in this focus, however, are less transactional leadership skills like intuition, improvisation, and creativity. As a result, organizations have begun drawing on improvisational theater skills as one answer to fill this leadership development gap.

This case study focuses …

The Role Of Family Endorsement In Venture Creation And Sustainability, Thomas Daniel White

Doctoral Dissertations

Entrepreneurship research has shown that family social support is an important factor in an entrepreneur’s venture creation and sustainability efforts, yet little is known about the nature and impact of family processes that occur prior to venture start, or how early endorsement of a venture impacts the entrepreneur. These processes are important to consider, because they may facilitate or inhibit ongoing family social support and influence the entrepreneur’s venture creation and sustainability decisions. Utilizing a family systems theoretical framework, I draw on theories of self-perception, social support and conservation of resources to address three issues. First, I introduce the construct …

Game Theory For Security Investments In Cyber And Supply Chain Networks, Shivani Shukla

Doctoral Dissertations

In a constantly and intricately connected world that is going digital, cybersecurity is imperative to not just the success but also the survival of a business. The ubiquitous digital transformation is fueled by a convulsive growth of devices and data that are leading important innovations in the domain of cyber-physical systems. However, this growth has also enabled internal and external threats to skyrocket, depicting the inherent dichotomy. With an evolving threat landscape, a perpetrator has to be successful once, while the defenders have to continually succeed in fending-off attacks to protect critical infrastructure and digital assets. Businesses are facing a …

Modeling The Consumer Acceptance Of Retail Service Robots, So Young Song

Doctoral Dissertations

This study uses the Computers Are Social Actors (CASA) and domestication theories as the underlying framework of an acceptance model of retail service robots (RSRs). The model illustrates the relationships among facilitators, attitudes toward Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), anxiety toward robots, anticipated service quality, and the acceptance of RSRs. Specifically, the researcher investigates the extent to which the facilitators of usefulness, social capability, the appearance of RSRs, and the attitudes toward HRI affect acceptance and increase the anticipation of service quality. The researcher also tests the inhibiting role of pre-existing anxiety toward robots on the relationship between these facilitators and attitudes …

Multi-Criteria Decision Making When Planning Sustainable Multimodal Transportation Routes In A Linear Corridor, Marie Louis

Doctoral Dissertations

In urban and suburban locations, public transit can be seen as an effective mode of daily transportation. The majority of the time, travelers would seek the cheapest, shortest, and possibly most eco-friendly means of transit. When designing public transit network systems, transportation planners and decision-makers, with input from stakeholders, should strive to optimize transportation services to meet the needs of the population most efficiently and at the lowest cost, that is, providing a transportation system that s the three E's of the sustainability concept: environment, social equity, and economic. Previous studies have focused on sustainability as the primary concern in …

Affective Responses To Technology Use: Examining The Dark Side, Exploring The Bright Side, David Agogo

Doctoral Dissertations

The study of individual, affect-related consequences from technology adoption and use is gaining traction in the information systems (IS) discipline. Efforts to explore affective reactions to technology have considered various positive, affective constructs (e.g., enjoyment, computer playfulness, and flow), with a more recent focus on the dark side of technology use and constructs such as technostress, technophobia, and computer anxiety. While some research has examined these negative affective responses to technology, construct definitions and relationships are not well-defined or theoretically grounded. A recent theoretical advance in IS, the Affective Response Model (ARM) categorizes affective responses to technology based on five …

Understanding The Effects Of Regulatory Focus On Proactive Behavior, Brian P. Waterwall

Doctoral Dissertations

Over the past decade, motivation research has focused on what motivates employees to engage in behaviors that fall outside of ones' job/task requirements and bring about meaningful change in the organization's environment, proactive behaviors (Bateman & Crant, 1993; Crant, 2000). Recently, regulatory focus theory has received considerable research attention because of its potential to explain additional variance in behavior beyond other motivational constructs. Regulatory focus theory suggests that during goal striving, people will display behaviors associated with their current motivational state. Drawing from prior research examining motivation and behavior, I propose and test a model that examines the effects of …

Individual And Organizational Celebrity: Two Essays On Media Attributions And Organizational Agency, Laura D'Oria

Doctoral Dissertations

Organizational researchers are increasingly interested in how organizations are perceived by their constituents, because such perceptions have important implications for strategy formulation, strategy implementation and organizational outcomes. In this two-essay dissertation, I focus on a specific type of social approval asset, celebrity – the extent to which a social actor attains high levels of public attention and elicits positive emotional responses. Specifically, I examine how celebrity emerges at different organizational levels.

In Essay 1, I first develop a theoretical multilevel framework of business celebrity, building on agenda setting theory and framing theory. Second, I propose a typology of business celebrity …

Social Loafing Construct Validity In Higher Education: How Well Do Three Measures Of Social Loafing Stand Up To Scrutiny?, Jacquelyn Deleau

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the construct validity of social loafing using convergent and discriminant validity principles. Three instruments that purport to measure social loafing were factor analyzed: A ten-item instrument by George (1992), a 13-item instrument by Mulvey and Klein (1998), and a 22-item instrument by Jassawalla, Sashittal, and Malshe (2009) for a total of 45 items that were compiled into a single instrument with which data were collected, correlated, and factor analyzed.

One hundred and sixty graduate and undergraduates enrolled in management courses at a small private Northern California university were surveyed. Thirteen classes were …

Constrained Multi-Group Project Allocation Using Mahalanobis Distance, Abdulaziz Saud Alkabaa

Doctoral Dissertations

Optimal allocation is one of the most active research areas in operation research using binary integer variables. The allocation of multi constrained projects among several options available along a given planning horizon is an especially significant problem in the general area of item classification. The main goal of this dissertation is to develop an analytical approach for selecting projects that would be most attractive from an economic point of view to be developed or allocated among several options, such as in-house engineers and private contractors (in transportation projects). A relevant limiting resource in addition to the availability of funds is …

Developing Entrepreneurial Ecoystems: Integrating Social Evolutionary Theory And Signaling Theory To Explain The Role Of Media In Entrepreneurial Ecosystems, Jason Andrew Strickling

Doctoral Dissertations

Entrepreneurship drives innovation, social change, and economic development locally, regionally, nationally, and worldwide (Konczal, 2013). The activities, relationships, and entities utilized to enhance entrepreneurial activity are just one important part of what scholars have termed the entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE), in acknowledgement of the interconnectedness of these factors with other market dimensions.

This dissertation integrates previous definitions of the EE and proposes a new definition that emphasizes the importance of the social environment and the role of communication for change and EE development. Building on evidence from diverse streams of research to further our understanding of entrepreneurial ecosystem activity, this dissertation …

Retail Analytics And Optimization For Store-Wide Shelf-Space Management, Tulay Flamand

Doctoral Dissertations

A major constituent of modern-time economies, retailing is a vibrant business sector that is marked by high competition, tight profit margins, novel business strategies in online and in-store environments, and demanding consumers. Driven by massive volumes of point-of-sale data, retail analytics has become instrumental for unveiling better managerial practices. Our research falls under the umbrella of retail shelf space management. In self-service outlets, shelf space constitutes a scarce resource and its management is central to ensuring an attractive shopping experience and a profitable business. We investigate how, under a given store layout, the allocation of product categories can be optimized …

Service Improvement And Cost Reduction For Airlines: Optimal Policies For Managing Arrival And Departure Operations Under Uncertainty, Heng Chen

Doctoral Dissertations

Annual U.S. air travel demand has been growing steadily by 4-5% over the last decade, and it is estimated that the demand will nearly double in the next twenty years. It has also been estimated by the International Civil Aviation Organization that global demand for commercial aircraft will increase at an average annual rate of 4.1% by 2034 (IATA, 2014). However, airport expansions and aviation infrastructure upgrades have not kept pace with the increase in air traffic demand, as only 3% of all the new airport projects around the world are planned in the U.S. (CAPA, 2015). Thus, the operation …

Network Game Theory Models Of Services And Quality Competition With Applications To Future Internet Architectures And Supply Chains, Sara Saberi

Doctoral Dissertations

The Internet has transformed the way in which we conduct business and perform economic and financial transactions. One key challenge of the Internet is the inefficiency of the mechanisms by which technology is deployed and the business and economic models surrounding these processes (Wolf et al. (2014)). Equilibrium models for the Internet generally assume basic economic relationships. However, in new paradigms for the Internet and in supply chain networks, price is not the only factor; quality of service (QoS) is also of increasing importance. Supply chains networks, which give us the means to manufacture products and deliver them to points …