Business Commons^™

All Quiet On The Digital Front: The Unseen Psychological Impacts On Cybersecurity First Responders, Tammie R. Hollis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Driven by the increasing frequency of cyberattacks and the existing talent gap between industry needs and skilled professionals, this research study focused on the crucial human element in the domain of cybersecurity incident response. The objective of this dissertation was to offer a meaningful exploration of the lived experiences encountered by cybersecurity incident responders and an assessment of the subsequent impacts on their well-being. Additionally, this study sought to draw comparisons between the experiences of cybersecurity incident responders and their counterparts in traditional emergency response roles. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a cohort of 22 individuals with first-hand experience working …

All Quiet On The Digital Front: The Unseen Psychological Impacts On Cybersecurity First Responders, Tammie R. Hollis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Driven by the increasing frequency of cyberattacks and the existing talent gap between industry needs and skilled professionals, this research study focused on the crucial human element in the domain of cybersecurity incident response. The objective of this dissertation was to offer a meaningful exploration of the lived experiences encountered by cybersecurity incident responders and an assessment of the subsequent impacts on their well-being. Additionally, this study sought to draw comparisons between the experiences of cybersecurity incident responders and their counterparts in traditional emergency response roles. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a cohort of 22 individuals with first-hand experience working …

Human Vs Machine: Hyper-Realistic Avatars And Their Efficacy As A Communication Channel, Jill S. Schiefelbein

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Hyper-realistic avatars (HRAs), a form of synthetic media, are custom-created digital embodiments of a human, created by capturing and combining that person’s video and vocal likeness. This is the first known study of the efficacy of videos delivered by hyper-realistic avatars as a communication channel in comparison to videos delivered by their human counterparts. An experiment testing how information retention, engagement, and trust vary between viewers of videos delivered by a real human, videos delivered by the HRA representing that same human, and videos delivered by the HRA that discloses to viewers that it is a hyper-realistic avatar is presented. …

Human Vs Machine: Hyper-Realistic Avatars And Their Efficacy As A Communication Channel, Jill S. Schiefelbein

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Hyper-realistic avatars (HRAs), a form of synthetic media, are custom-created digital embodiments of a human, created by capturing and combining that person’s video and vocal likeness. This is the first known study of the efficacy of videos delivered by hyper-realistic avatars as a communication channel in comparison to videos delivered by their human counterparts. An experiment testing how information retention, engagement, and trust vary between viewers of videos delivered by a real human, videos delivered by the HRA representing that same human, and videos delivered by the HRA that discloses to viewers that it is a hyper-realistic avatar is presented. …

Effectiveness Of Virtual Onboarding, Shanker Menon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

During the COVID pandemic that began in 2020, interest in onboarding efficacy increased with going virtual. This survey research study focused on the effectiveness of virtual onboarding by comparing it with face-to-face (traditional) and hybrid onboarding. It spanned 12 different business sectors and involved 730 respondents, including executives, managers, technical personnel, and non-managerial staff. This exploratory study investigated the influence of the onboarding process on important organizational variables, including turnover intention and perception of self-performance. In addition, the study investigated the perception of success of the onboarding process. Results indicated that hybrid onboarding was the most effective followed by virtual …

Effectiveness Of Virtual Onboarding, Shanker Menon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

During the COVID pandemic that began in 2020, interest in onboarding efficacy increased with going virtual. This survey research study focused on the effectiveness of virtual onboarding by comparing it with face-to-face (traditional) and hybrid onboarding. It spanned 12 different business sectors and involved 730 respondents, including executives, managers, technical personnel, and non-managerial staff. This exploratory study investigated the influence of the onboarding process on important organizational variables, including turnover intention and perception of self-performance. In addition, the study investigated the perception of success of the onboarding process. Results indicated that hybrid onboarding was the most effective followed by virtual …

An Examination Of Reward-Based Crowdfunding Performance And Success, Matthew Alan Grace

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Reward-based crowdfunding (RBCF), where fundraisers raise funds from a crowd of investors in return for a reward, has carved a niche as a proven option for not just entrepreneurs seeking early-stage funding, but also for established firms looking to presell or market a new product or service. Establishing crowdfunding performance and success factors is important for researchers and practitioners alike. Fortunately, a large portion of the RBCF academic literature is immediately applicable to entrepreneurs, with very little additional interpretation required. However, important questions about RBCF remain. The first paper in this three-part dissertation, a systematic literature review, examines some of …

An Examination Of Reward-Based Crowdfunding Performance And Success, Matthew Alan Grace

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Reward-based crowdfunding (RBCF), where fundraisers raise funds from a crowd of investors in return for a reward, has carved a niche as a proven option for not just entrepreneurs seeking early-stage funding, but also for established firms looking to presell or market a new product or service. Establishing crowdfunding performance and success factors is important for researchers and practitioners alike. Fortunately, a large portion of the RBCF academic literature is immediately applicable to entrepreneurs, with very little additional interpretation required. However, important questions about RBCF remain. The first paper in this three-part dissertation, a systematic literature review, examines some of …

Communicating For Success: The Importance Of Fairness In Pre-Merger Communication, Correy Retzloff

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This phenomenological study explores the complexities and influences of pre-merger communication on M&A outcomes from a stakeholder perspective, using the Fair Process Theoretical Framework. The study identified the following six key themes related to pre-merger communication broken down into two distinct categories: important aspects to employees, which include Open and Honest Communication, Engagement and Clarity, Participation and Collaboration, and best practices managers can implement, such as Undertake Fair and Engaging Communication, Prioritize Strategic and Cultural Communication, Ensure Effective and Compliant Communication. The study also found that effective pre-merger communication can positively influence perceptions of fairness in the merging process. These …

For Love Or Money: Investor Motivations In Equity-Based Crowdfunding, Jason C. Cherubini

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Crowdfunding is an increasingly popular method for entrepreneurial ventures to raise financing from a large number of small supporters (the “crowd”) instead of raising it through a small number of larger supporters. Crowdfunding is normally conducted through online platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo, where the entrepreneurial venture runs a campaign directly seeking support from individual funders. Most of the research into crowdfunding to date has been focused on what elements of the crowdfunding campaign lead to eventual successful funding, especially in the rewards-based crowdfunding space. The comparatively new equity-based crowdfunding has not been as heavily researched and is technically …

Turmoil In The Workforce: Introduction Of The Nomadic Employee, Catrina Hopkins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This phenomenological study is designed to define a “nomadic employee,” a figure who has emerged in the ever-changing labor force, and to define what drives these workers to move between companies within a short period of time (generally within a 12-month period). These nomadic employees are driving higher turnover rates and causing rising onboarding costs. Relationships between employees and their employers have changed drastically in recent decades. Business concepts have evolved, and, thus, so have employee motivations. With the introduction of the millennial generation into the workforce and the emergence of the technology revolution, workforces have transformed, again establishing the …

Attention-Grabbing Tactics On Social Media, Arjun Kadian

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

News posts are popular among social media users. Since news reading is critical for both social media platforms and news providers, the use of attention-grabbing tactics, such as hyperbole and expressed emotional arousal, is commonplace to increase news readership. However, there is scant empirical evidence to explain the impact of attention-grabbing tactics on social media users’ reading intentions and behavior in social media. Therefore, I first explore how and why the use of hyperbolic statements in news headlines influences users’ interest and intention to read the news. Drawing on expectation violation theory, I propose competing hypotheses. I conducted three experiments …

Commitment To Change Dimensions: The Influence Of Innovative Work Behavior And Organizational Environments, Michael Holmes

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the phenomenon of commitment to organizational change using both positive and negative organizational contexts and employee behaviors that may influence an employee’s commitment to change dimensions (affective, continuance, normative). A cross-sectional survey was used to collect data from 407 physician assistants across a national healthcare system and analyzed using descriptive statistics, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and multiple regression to test the relationships among constructs. Results indicate that commitment to change dimensions are related to innovative work behavior, climate for innovation, and organizational constraints. Affective commitment was positively related to innovative work …

Interlocking Directorates: How Interpersonal Relationships Build Corporate Boards, Matthew A. Forrester

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In an inductive network analysis research design, this dissertation seeks to understand the influence of the interlocking directorate networks on the selection of directors. Its intent is to understand both what the individual and organizational factors are and how those factors influence selection. A practice-inspired method was developed heavily influenced by my two decades within the United States Intelligence Community to create a common network structure to define an individual director’s relationship to a board in a given year. Then using manual approaches, I developed the networks of directors that form interlocking directorates from that network structure. I analyzed these …

Building A Mentor-Mentee Maturity Model, Leroy A. Alexander

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In an exploratory, qualitative, traditional dissertation, this study proposes a framework for mentoring within federal government contractor firms. It seeks to understand how government contract firms draw value from their mentorship experiences and which aspects of mentorship programs are more important for this market segment. Two key issues have been identified: (1) government contractor firms are applying incompatible mentorship frameworks; and (2) managers responsible for developing their organizations’ capabilities through the implementation of mentoring programs are unaware of the characteristics unique to work groups within their firms. Observance of a federal government contractor firm struggling to implement a mentorship program, …

Essays On Contributions In Social Knowledge-Sharing Platforms And Their Impact On Employee Performance And Job Mobility, Moe Esmaeili

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, the interest of practitioners and managers in social networking applications and social knowledge-sharing has increased. While these platforms allow individuals to collaborate, form/maintain social ties, and share/receive knowledge and expertise, and share/receive knowledge/expertise, they also provide a unique collaborative environment for organizations, enabling leaders to promote communication and collaboration among employee silos, engage them with others, and promote corporate core values once adopted internally.

Despite increasing efforts by scholars to uncover the underlying factors that influence members' participation in such platforms, there is still a lack of understanding of the fundamental motivating factor for such contributions and …

Designation, Stagnation, And Representation: A Qualitative Exploration Of The Self-Perception Of Power Among Ncaa Division I Senior Woman Administrators, Tayler M. Onion

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite significant growth and advancement for women and girls participating in sports, we have not seen the same trend for women in leadership roles in athletics – even with the introduction of the Senior Woman Administrator (SWA) designation. The SWA designation was implemented in 1989 to ensure that at least one woman would be involved with the leadership of athletic departments following the NCAA’s takeover of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) in 1981. Confusion and misperceptions have surrounded the role, and, as a result, impacted the women who serve in it. This study’s phenomenological design aimed to …

Using Online Reviews To Identify How Hotels Can Satisfy Travelers With Pets While Making Money, Sonia Weinhaus

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A Qualitative Content Analysis of user generated content in the form of online reviews reveals an opportunity for hotels to better serve Travelers With Pets and collect partitioned fees. Examining more than 3,000 reviews of 92 hotels from five geographical regions of the United States identifies how to close the gap between what customers want and what hotels offer. This study derives the Minimum and Maximum Typologies of pet policy structures from the coding of online reviews. Travelers With Pets are willing to pay partitioned fees if the fee is viewed as fair. Improving saliency of pet fees is revenue …

Microbusinesses Practices During Disruptor Events: Perceptions, Adaptations, And Performance, Debra Lynn Frank

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

During COVID-19 closures, business owners and managers experienced a disruptor event that pushed them to find new ways to navigate their businesses practices. The purpose of this qualitative study was to learn how business owners and managers adapt their business models to survive disruptor events. The objective was identification of factors owners and managers of microbusinesses perceived as critical to avoiding closures, assessment of the effectiveness of the adaptations adopted during closures that enabled businesses to remain open, and analysis of the results of those adaptations. Owners and managers of businesses in the craft brewing industry were interviewed. The four …

An Enterprise Risk Management Framework To Design Pro-Ethical Ai Solutions, Quintin P. Mcgrath

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The effective use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has immediate business benefits for an organization and its stakeholders through efficiency and quality gains, and the potential to explore and implement new business models. However, there are risks of unintended ethical consequences. Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) focuses on managing risk while maximizing business value from exploiting opportunities. Using applied ethics as a basis and the perspective that ethics includes both enabling human flourishing and not violating accepted norms, I argue that greater business value is achieved when an organization simultaneously targets the maximization of benefits and the minimization of harms for the …

Hidden Struggles Within The Mental Healthcare Workplace, Tammy V. Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

For decades, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) have reported on the worldwide pervasiveness and increasing societal costs associated with Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). A recent post on the WHO website cited recent scientific research (2022) indicating the magnitude of harmful effects attributed to ACEs, even classifying them as “violence against children.” Esaki and Larkin (2013) indicate that ACEs are prevalent among many social service professionals, including mental health clinicians.

This study uses mental health clinicians as the sample population to identify the impact of ACEs on job performance. Findings from a volunteer …

An Analysis Of International Soccer Fans’ Knowledge Of Qatar, Perceptions Of Qatar’S Country Image, And Intention To Support The 2022 Fifa World Cup, Taleb Al-Adbah

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

International sporting competitions have become an essential tool for countries to promote a favorable image of themselves around the world. This study focuses on the FIFA 2022 World Cup, which will be hosted by Qatar - the first Arab country ever to host the event. Since 2010, when Qatar was awarded the FIFA 2022 World Cup, several studies have shown that soccer fans are hesitant to attend matches in Qatar. This study investigates the correlations between soccer fans’ level of knowledge, soccer fans’ perception of Qatar using a 4D model of country image, and soccer fans’ behavioral intention to support …

The Need To Address Religious Diversity At Work: An All-Inclusive Model Of Spirituality At Work, Ivonne Valero Cázares

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses the importance of embracing religion and spirituality in the workplace as an aspect of workplace diversity. This document aims to help us understand the definition of spirituality at the workplace and its constituents.

We conducted a literature review from predominant scholars about the salience of spirituality and religion at the workplace and its relevance to building meaning, connectedness, and a sense of belonging. We will also review Maslow's theory of Human Needs, his research on human peak-experiences, and its correlation to self-actualization and transcendence.

We will present a new model of Spirituality and Religion at the workplace …

Creating A Short, Public-Domain Version Of The Cpai-2: Using An Algorithmic Approach To Develop Public-Domain Measures Of Indigenous Personality Traits, Mukhunth Raghavan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this study we aimed to create a short, public-domain analogue of the Cross-Cultural (Chinese) Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI-2; F. M. Cheung et al., 1996). Emic (culture-specific) traits measured by the CPAI-2 are purportedly specific to the Chinese culture and argued to not be fully captured by the consensus Big Five personality trait taxonomy. Research suggests that CPAI-2 traits may have unique predictive power, especially in non-Western contexts. However, research has been hampered by several limitations of the measure. The inventory is proprietary and long, with 341 items forming 28 scales and four factors. Cross-cultural personality research would benefit from …

Incorrect Athlete, Incorrect Woman: Ioc Gender Regulations And The Boundaries Of Womanhood In Professional Sports, Sabeehah Ravat

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Professional sports are a cornerstone of mainstream capitalist society, a site where issuesof race, class, gender, nation, and religion amongst others are produced, contested, and negotiated. In particular, gender regulation policies serve to delineate the acceptable boundaries of racialised gender and create sanctioned opportunities to surveil transgressive bodies. In this thesis, I posit that professional sports rely on and protect uniformity of gender experience to regulate and exclude trans* and intersex participation and, furthermore, that gender regulation policies delineate the boundaries of gender and particularly womanhood in a way that further marginalises nonbinary athletes. Using critical discourse analysis, a methodology …

Understanding Nonprofit Boards: An Exploratory Study Of The Governance Practices Of Regional Nonprofits, Susan Ryan Goodman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Many researchers have catalogued best practices of board governance. Most of the existing research employed surveys to review compliance with these practices, and the results are highly quantitative as well as self-reported. This study used interviews of board members representing a cross-section of nonprofits to examine conformity with recommended governance best practices and procedures as well as to provide insight into how these practices have changed during their tenure.Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 nonprofit board members in the Tampa Bay area. Using the thematic coding approach proposed by Braun and Clark (2006), four themes emerged from the data: Recruiting, …

Fighting Mass Diffusion Of Fake News On Social Media, Abdallah Musmar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Fake news has been considered one of the most challenging problems in the last few years. The effects of spreading fake news over social media platforms are widely observed across the globe as the depth and velocity of fake news reach far more than real news (Vosoughi et al., 2018). The plan for the following dissertation is to investigate the mass spread of fake news across social media and propose a framework to fight the spread of fake news by mixing preventive methods that could hinder the overall percentage of fake news sharing. We plan to create a study on …

Engagement And Meaningfulness As Determinants Of Employee Retention: A Longitudinal Case Study, Calvin Williams

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The lack of financial resources has long challenged government institutions to move employee wages toward the market rate average for hourly and salaried positions. This area of public employment, where motivation other than a pay increase is necessary due to constrained budgets, is not well studied or understood. The primary purpose of this longitudinal case study is to investigate factors that influence Administrative Service employees and increase their level of retention at the University of South Florida (USF), a state funded university. The objective of the case study was to better understand how enhanced psychological meaningfulness, and increased employee engagement …

Exploration Of Post-Merger Integration Meetings, Through A Qualitative Study Of Individuals’ Perceptions, Ruben Cintron

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 2020, the United Sates mergers and acquisitions (M&As) had a total value of $1.2 trillion. Organizations engage in M&As for a variety of reasons, such as to gain economies of scale and scope, obtain technologies, enter new markets, or gain competitive advantage by eliminating competitors or combining forces. However, studies indicate that less than half achieve their stated strategic and financial goals. Two factors cited within the M&A literature that contribute to the failure rate are cultural clashes and post-merger integration activities. This three-paper dissertation explores the influence organizational cultures and post-merger integration activity (post-merger meetings) may have on …

Successful Leadership Through Rapid, Unplanned Change, Robert "Darin" Grimm

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The studies of leadership and leadership models are voluminous, as is the work onchange within organizations. While scores of information can be found on each of these topics, the combination of the two is less ubiquitous. The grouping of specific leadership models related to corporate changes, be it structural or operational, provides an opportunity for new knowledge. Notably, the literature is scant when the added variable of rapid unplanned change is included in the combination of leadership and change. This study sought to better understand the impact of specific leadership behaviors and the impact on an organization during rapid, unplanned …