Business Commons^™

Developing An Employee Training Addendum For A Sustainable Hospitality Operation, Devonne A. Williams

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

As sustainability has become an important part of everyday life for American consumers, it is important that the hospitality industry do whatever it takes to meet their needs. Consumers expect businesses that they patronize to have policies in place for waste reduction, air and water conservation, and improved air quality and environment. Without the support of the front line employees, however, a hospitality operation has no chance to obtain sustainable success in these arenas. By creating addendums to previously existing employee handbooks, businesses are able to provide their employees with new policies and expectations of sustainable behaviors. This professional paper …

Meatpacking Workers' Perceptions Of Working Conditions, Psychological Contracts And Organizational Justice, María Teresa Gastón

Student Work

What are Latino immigrants’ beliefs about the obligations of their employers in the meatpacking industry? How fairly do they feel they are treated as workers? This study explores these questions in the context of U.S. meatpacking history and theories of psychological contract and organizational justice. Perceptions of informational justice, interpersonal justice, procedural justice, safety, satisfaction, and psychological contract of 429 line workers in five Nebraska communities were assessed. Differences by union status, gender, and work site were explored. Evidence of low procedural justice and high injury rates confirm reports of dangerous working conditions for both men and women. Advantages of …

Exploring The Effectiveness Of Environmentally Sustainable Practices In Municipal Government: A Case Study Of The City Of Knoxville’S Department Of Parks And Recreation, Anthony Michael Brown

Masters Theses

Sustainability practices produce programs and services that meet current needs while preserving the environment and natural resources for the future. City parks and recreation departments are facing budget shortfalls and increasing expectations from customers. Governments are now embracing sustainability practices to create financial savings while also fostering relations with customers.

The purpose of this single case study was twofold: (1) to examine the effectiveness of one city department’s strategies in outsourcing its environmental sustainability program through a performance contract with Ameresco; and (2) to examine the perceptions of key department employees about the effectiveness of the sustainability initiative. A …

Gambling With Lives: A History Of Occupational Health In Southern Nevada, 1905--2010, Michelle Ann Turk

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In April 2009, the Pulitzer committee awarded its public service prize to the Las Vegas Sun for its coverage of the high fatalities on Las Vegas Strip construction sites. The newspaper attributed failures in safety policy to "the exponential growth in the Las Vegas market." In fact, since Las Vegas' founding in 1905, rapid development in the region has always strained occupational health standards. From transporting hazardous railroad cargoes to building Hoover Dam, chemical processing at Basic Magnesium, nuclear testing, and dense megaresort construction on the Strip, workers, residents, and tourists alike have been exposed to the threat of living …

Fueling Ukraine’S Future: Using Microfinance As A Tool For Reducing Energy Dependency And Changing Lives, Justin Cole

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Ukraine is a country heavily dependent on other countries for its natural gas supply, leaving it vulnerable to interruptions in supply. One of its largest suppliers, Russia, has twice taken drastic means of physically closing the pipelines, thereby cutting off this supply and illustrating to Ukraine and the world the leverage that it can exercise. While at the present time the cut-offs have lasted no longer than a few weeks, future cut-offs could become more common and longer in duration. When compounded with the troubled history between the two countries, one can quickly see the precipitous situation that has the …

Partial Budgeting Analysis Of Conventional Pump Over Versus Pulsair Cap Management System For A Large–Scale California Winery, Zachary Thomas Hicks

Agribusiness

The purpose of this project was to evaluate the financial feasibility of implementing an automated gas injection system from Pulsair as an alternative to the traditional pump over cap mixing technique that is used during the alcoholic fermentation stage of winemaking.

There were various costs involved in this project that were determined and explained through the use of the partial budgeting method. The costs that were thoroughly analyzed included equipment, labor, utility, and initial investment costs for the Pulsair system as well as the related pump over operation costs. After the two methods associated numbers were evaluated, they were then …

Global Transformations, Local Activism: “New” Unionism’S Engagement With Economic And Health Care Transformation In Urban Central Appalachia, Rebecca Adkins Fletcher

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

It has long been argued that the organization of the U.S. health care system is shaped by the struggles between capital and labor, and this relationship is of increasing significance today. Transformations from an industrial to a service economy, rising insurance costs, neoliberal social policies, and decreased labor union power have increased the number of Americans with reduced access to health care, especially for service workers and women. This dissertation is an ethnographic study of how workers in two leading unions in the “new” unionism movement, the Retail, Wholesale, and Distribution Service Union (RWDSU) and the United Steelworkers (USW) in …

Taking A Deep Breadth: The Rhetorical Construction Of Solidarity In The American Labor Movement, William O'Shannon Murphy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the rhetorical fragments in three case studies of the American Labor Movement constituting movement members in solidarity. Using Kenneth Burke's discussion of rhetorical substance, this project explores the possibilities for developing deep and broad forms of solidarity within the American Labor Movement. Rhetorical fragments of the Industrial Workers of the World, the United Farm Workers, and contingent faculty unionization efforts are explored.

I argue Burke's ideas of substance and identification provide a powerful lens through which we can examine the solidary practices of social movements. Through the examination of the case studies mentioned, I demonstrate that solidarity …

A Theory Of Mental Credit, Jason Soll

CMC Senior Theses

Many philosophical subjects attempt to analyze the basis of human welfare. Theories of desert, distribution of property, and happiness tend to dominate philosophical discourse. Mental credit, which is the mental acquisition of credit for one’s accomplishments and the satisfaction one derives from this credit, is absent from this discourse despite its underlying role in the way people think about their lives. Mental credit is an eternal cognitive good that deserves thoughtful attention and pious decisions for implementation. The following theory of mental credit seeks to serve as a unifying theory for the mental calculations that guide life’s most imperative decisions, …

The Next Catalyst For Change: How Corporate Shared Value Is Reshaping Capitalism, Emily Davenport

CMC Senior Theses

Both corporations and their global conglomerates are looking into the face of an evolving idea of capitalism. As businesses become more intertwined with society, this special relationship is becoming increasingly deterministic of the condition of the world. This paper explores the possibility that if businesses integrate shared value -- a way to combine economic and social value -- into their long-term business plans, that not only will society be better off, but the businesses themselves may be able to explore previously unrecognized potential for profits.

The Estimated Value Of A Premium Division One Football Player: The Argument Supporting Pay For Play, Travis S. Roher

CMC Senior Theses

Abstract

The gap between the revenue generated by division one football players and the value of an athletic scholarship is the marginal revenue product of these athletes. Because of the monopsonistic behavior of the NCAA, division one institutions capture an economic rent from their student athletes. This paper measures the rents generated by NCAA division one football players in the six powerhouse conferences by using linear regressions based on variables such as university revenue, future NFL draft picks, undergraduate population, and weekly AP Top-25 rankings. This paper will inform its readers on how much money these student athletes are generating …