Business Commons^™

Binoculars: Management Strategies In Film, Kamryn Fall

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

No abstract provided.

The Influence Of Mindfulness During The Travel Anticipation Phase On Search And Choice Behaviors, Search And Choice Outcomes, And Trip Evaluations, Lorraine Taylor

All Dissertations

Anticipation is the first travel phase (Clawson & Knetsch, 1966) and consists of the vacation planning process. Tourists may exhibit varying levels of mindfulness during this phase. Mindfulness is associated with analytic decision making through a heightened sensitivity to one's environment and openness to new information (Langer & Moldoveanu, 2000). This study considered the influence that mindfulness during the travel anticipation phase has on: search and choice behaviors, search and choice outcomes, and trip evaluations. Analysis was also conducted to determine if there was a significant influence on the relationships based on the mediating effect of the amount of the …

The Effect Of Infrastructure Changes On Railway Operations., Martin J.R. Schmidt 1966-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper makes use of standard simulation programs in combination with the tools of applied statistics to simulate railway operations. The purpose of the use of this tool is to evaluate and compare different possible kinds of railway infrastructure, like different types of signaling procedures, different network configuration or operational procedures. A railway system is a logistic network and because of the demand for improved railway operation, much work has been undertaken lately in this scientific field. However the author postulates the hypothesis based on a literature review that in a lot of these works there is a lack of …

Optimizing Consumer-Centric Assortment Planning Under Cross-Selling Effects, Ameera Ibrahim

Doctoral Dissertations

Central to modern-time, consumer-focused retailing is the ability to provide attractive and reasonably-priced product assortments for different customer profiles. To this end, retailers can benefit from the use of data analytics in order to identify distinct customer segments, each characterized by their buying power, shopping behavior, and preferences. Further, retailers can also benefit from a careful examination of alternative procurement options and cost levers associated with products that are considered for inclusion in the assortment. Issues of assortment planning lie at the interface of operations and marketing. Profitable planning trade-offs can be identified using an optimization methodology and are simultaneously …

State Space Modelling Of Dynamic Choice Behavior With Habit Persistence, Kang Bok Lee

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I present a new approach to capturing dependence across time in dynamic choice data. To achieve this, I develop a state space dynamic choice model and a novel algorithm to fit the data. Instead of capturing dependence in outcomes through lagged response variables, referred to as state dependence, I introduce a lagged utility term through the latent state equation. The lagged utility term captures habit persistence, which has not been explored directly in earlier models (Heckman, 1981b). The autoregressive nature of the lagged utility provides a significantly richer summary of prior utility than a lagged outcome variable. …

Can I Smile With Spirit? Towards A Process Model Associating Workplace Spirituality And Emotional Labor, Ashwini Gangadharan

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Workplace spirituality (WS) is a framework of organizational values embedded in the culture of the organization that promotes employees to experience a sense of meaningfulness at work, sense of connection with coworkers, congruence of organizational values with theirs' and experience transcendence through their work. This dissertation presents workplace spirituality as an organizational intervention to manage the problem of emotional labor and its dysfunctional consequences among the service employees.

The main thesis of the dissertation is that workplace spirituality will enable service employees to appraise emotional labor as a positive stressor (challenge stressor) rather than a negative stressor (hindrance stressor). The …

Multi-Criteria Decision Modeling For Best Value Selections In Target Value Design Integrated Project Delivery, Brent Patrick Griffis

Master's Theses

Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) combined with Target Value Design (TVD) is a better way to deliver value for the client than traditional guaranteed maximum price (GMP) methods. With traditional GMP delivery methods, the interests of the parties are often at odds. The goal of IPD is to align all party interests in order to achieve a win-win scenario. Due to the aligning nature of IPD and the fact that each party’s success is dependent on achieving the project objectives as a whole; a non-biased, transparent, decision-making process is necessary in order to deliver the project objectives within the constraints of …

Indefinite Knapsack Separable Quadratic Programming: Methods And Applications, Jaehwan Jeong

Doctoral Dissertations

Quadratic programming (QP) has received significant consideration due to an extensive list of applications. Although polynomial time algorithms for the convex case have been developed, the solution of large scale QPs is challenging due to the computer memory and speed limitations. Moreover, if the QP is nonconvex or includes integer variables, the problem is NP-hard. Therefore, no known algorithm can solve such QPs efficiently. Alternatively, row-aggregation and diagonalization techniques have been developed to solve QP by a sub-problem, knapsack separable QP (KSQP), which has a separable objective function and is constrained by a single knapsack linear constraint and box constraints. …

Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing For Healthcare Provider Supply Chain Processes, Martha Isaura Gonzalez

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In a time when healthcare costs continue to rise, nearly a third of hospital operating expenses are related to supplies, and the healthcare supply chain is complex, it is pertinent for healthcare providers to have a clear understanding of their healthcare supply chain process costs. Having a clear picture into how these costs are driven and where opportunities for cost reductions exist can support supply chain efficiencies. In this research, we develop a Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing (TDABC) supply chain cost management tool for healthcare providers. A TDABC management system can provide healthcare providers with valuable product and process supply chain …

Elements Of The Nordic Leadership Framework, Origins, And Transferability, Maggie H. Chen

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Leadership styles can be classified into different buckets based on previously developed leadership framework theories such as transformational, transactional, charismatic, and democratic leadership. This thesis explores the characteristics that define the Nordic style of leadership from a cross-cultural perspective. Under the assumption that the four Nordic nations: Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden share a similar set of leadership practices, my capstone investigates the linkage between the Nordic national cultures and the influences on the leadership approach. The four small, but powerful nations are the homes to many corporations recognized for their highly innovative solutions to meet consumer needs. Nordic leaders …

Does Optimism Pass On To The Employees? The Impact Of Supervisor Optimism On Employees In Small And Medium Sized Businesses, Roger S. Brown

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The focus of this dissertation primarily examines the optimism contagion from the supervisor to his/her employees. Though the literature has discussed different types of optimism such as dispositional optimism (Scheier & Carver, 2006; Chang, 1998; Segerstrom, 2006) and unrealistic optimism (Weinstein, 1980; McKenna, 1993; Radcliffe & Klein, 2002), this paper will focus on trait and state optimism. State optimism (which relates to particular situation) is theorized as being easily transferrable when compared to trait optimism. The level of the transfer will depend on the emotional expressivity of the supervisor. The facets of emotional expressivity are impulse strength, positive expressivity and …

Unifying Specific Climate Research With A Molar Climate Measure: A Situational Affordances Approach, Alice Brawley

All Theses

Organizational climate - briefly, the shared perceptions of a workplace - was originally studied as a molar concept, but this approach generally lacked focus and thus resulted in unmanageable measures. Organizational climate research has been subdivided into many areas of specific climate research focusing on particular organizational factors or outcomes, such as safety or customer service (Schneider, Ehrhart, & Macey, 2013). While the study of specific climates has been and remains worthwhile, recent literature in the area has called for a return to the molar or global conceptualization of organizational climate (Kuenzi & Schminke, 2009; Schneider et al., 2013). In …

Modeling Pharmaceutical Risk-Sharing Agreements, Reza Mahjoub

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Many new and expensive drugs have been introduced in the past 10 years. However, at the time of introduction, the effectiveness of these drugs outside of clinical trials is often unknown. This creates a risk to third-party payers, as the outcome of these drugs in real-world practice is uncertain at the time of introduction. A pay-for-performance risk-sharing agreement is a type of contract that shares part of this risk with the manufacturer by linking the performance of a drug to the manufacturer’s revenue. This dissertation consists of three essays to examine the performance of two types of pharmaceutical pay-for-performance risk-sharing …

Wmu Career And Student Employment Services – Present Practices And Future Recommendations For Employer Relations, Amanda Jeppesen

Honors Theses

Career services offices currently find themselves in a rapidly changing environment. Due to economic hardship, students and employers are expecting more effective and fruitful engagement, and offices must create innovative solutions to provide such engagement on shrinking budgets. Career services staff charged with conducting employer relations activities are charged with brokering these relationships between employers, students, faculty and staff, and the offerings of their departments. The purpose of this study is to determine current practices for the career services offices at Western Michigan University, Oakland University, and Central Michigan University. Then, best practices identified by industry experts will be explored …

Technological, Organizational, And Environmental Factors Affecting The Adoption Of Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (Erp) Systems, John Njenga Kinuthia

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the differences between organizations that adopted Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (Cloud ERP) systems and organizations that did not adopt Cloud ERP systems based on the Technological, Organizational, and Environmental (TOE) factors. Relevant technological factors were identified as relative advantage of Cloud ERP systems, compatibility of Cloud ERP systems, and security concern of Cloud ERP system environment. Organizational factors included top management support, organizational readiness, size of the organization, centralization, and formalization. External environment factors were identified as competitive pressure and vendor support.

A survey was developed using constructs from existing studies of …

Assessing Organizational Effectiveness Through The Competing Values Framework A Data Envelopment Approach, Raghavender Macherla

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This study proposes a model to diagnose organizations using the mathematical principles of data envelopment analysis (DEA) to the variables generated using competing values framework (CVF) in order to evaluate overall organizational effectiveness. The notion of organizational effectiveness is abstract and difficult to measure due to its complexity and multi-functional nature. Over the years, measurement of organizational effectiveness has remained a challenge due to the lack of agreement on the factors that should be assessed to determine effectiveness. This research is aimed at shedding some light into this topic by using data envelopment analysis as a tool to measure relative …

A Change Management Approach To Enhance Facility Maintenance Programs, Stanton P. Brown

Theses and Dissertations

A recent study assigned a grade of D+ on the nation's public infrastructure. Because of this poor asset condition, many organizations tend to respond to maintenance in a reactive mode; however, relying on corrective maintenance leads to increased maintenance costs due to unplanned downtime, increased labor costs, and inefficient use of personnel. To address this situation, asset management (AM) principles should be employed to transition organizations towards a proactive maintenance program. Unfortunately, it has been shown that two-thirds of the organizations failed to implement general change efforts. Therefore, an organizational change management framework should be followed to implement a change …

Open-Minded Discussion In Interdepartmental Collaboration : Contribution Of Goal Interdependence And Social Motives, Jiewei, Antonia Lu

Theses & Dissertations

Combining theories of social motives, goal interdependence, and conflict management, this study theorized a model in which interdepartmental goal interdependence affects conflict outcomes between different departments through open-minded discussion dynamics adopted by employees from different departments in the organization. This study also proposes that social motives moderate the link between inter-departmental goal interdependence and open-minded discussion.

A sample of 133 employees from different business organizations in China were interviewed to recall a critical incident when they had a conflict with their coworker from different departments. SEM results and other analysis results support the hypotheses that cooperative interdepartmental goal interdependence and …

Turnaround Response To Performance Decline In Family- Controlled Publicly-Traded Firms: A Three-Essay Investigation, Giacomo Laffranchini

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation investigates the first strategic response to performance decline (i.e., the retrenchment stage in the turnaround process) in family-owned businesses (FOBs). Specifically, I study how the interplay between financial and non-financial objectives in FOBs affects the strategic preferences of family-owners when circumstances put the wealth (financial and non-financial) of the family at stake. In this three-essay Dissertation, I employ the behavioral agency model (BAM) or the socioemotional wealth (SEW) preservation perspective to explain and predict the effect of SEW on an FOB's retrenchment strategies. While the SEW construct was used by previous studies, its direct measurement and the methodologies …

Developing A Method For Measuring "Working Out Loud", Dennis E. Pearce

Theses and Dissertations--Finance and Quantitative Methods

Enterprise social network software platforms (ESNs) are increasingly being deployed in firms across almost every industry as a means of fostering employee collaboration. Although benefits in increased productivity, innovation, and employee engagement are highly touted, there is a high failure rate of these deployments. This often occurs because (1) there is a misapplied focus on technology adoption rather than adoption of the employee behaviors that are ultimately required to obtain those benefits, and (2) it is unclear what those behaviors are and how to measure them.

“Working Out Loud” is one possible framework for understanding and measuring the behaviors necessary …

The Role Of Followership During Periods Of Absent Leadership, Robert Alan Leonard

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

With a culture focused on leadership, the purpose in this study was to explore untested assumptions about followers and their being ignored as independent productive actors in the workplace. The lived experience of followers and their impact on the success or failure of organizations during periods of absent leadership was explored via 4 independent situations. A qualitative, phenomenological research design based primarily on the theoretical framework of Moustakas and the research design of Patton guided the study. The 3 key research questions were explored with regard to followers during periods of absent leadership: how they respond, what actions they take …

Direct-To-Consumer Advertising Of Drugs And Patients' Health Care Seeking Behaviors, Patricia Elaine Kennedy-Tucker

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Known as direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA), pharmaceutical companies in the United States are permitted to advertise prescription drugs directly to consumers. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if an association exists between DTCA and health care-seeking behaviors. The theoretical framework for this study involved social learning theory, information integration theory, and prospect theory. The research questions identified if exposure to DTCA (a) is associated with physician office visits, (b) influences a patient/physician conversation regarding a prescription, (c) influences requesting a prescription, and (d) has an impact on patients' ratings of the overall interaction with the physician. Data were …

Influential Leadership In A Diverse Retail Environment: Implications For Reducing Voluntary Employee Turnover, Stuart Jackson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Many investigators have documented the impact of high attrition rates on an organization's ability to deliver its expected results. However, limited information is available regarding the efficacy of a specific bundle of variables, which would support a leader's ability to influence voluntary employee turnover. This quantitative study investigated the effectiveness of a 60-day treatment implemented to address the problem of voluntary employee turnover in a diverse retail environment. The research questions examined the effectiveness of an increase in communication, answering, recognition, and training on voluntary employee turnover and job satisfaction in a diverse retail environment. The theoretical foundation of the …

Prioritizing Offshore Vendor Selection Criteria For The North American Geospatial Industry, Simon Wolfgang Musaeus

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The U.S. market for geospatial services totaled US $2.2 billion in 2010, representing 50% of the global market. Data-processing firms subcontract labor-intensive portions of data services to offshore providers in South and East Asia and Eastern Europe. In general, half of all offshore contracts fail within the first 5 years because one or more parties consider the relationship unsuccessful. Despite the high failure rates, no study has examined the offshore vendor selection process in the geospatial industry. The purpose of this study was to determine the list of key offshore vendor selection criteria and the efficacy of the analytic hierarchy …

A Correlational Analysis Of Empowerment And Experience With Resistance To Change, Rita Elizabeth Burgess

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Despite more than 60 years of research about the nature of change, resistance to change remains a problem across industries. Health care leaders have limited knowledge of how health care managers' perceptions of empowerment, years of experience, and resistance to change (RTC) relate. The purpose for this nonexperimental correlational study was to examine the relationship between empowerment, years of experience, and RTC among managers via an online survey. The theoretical framework incorporated Kanter's structural empowerment theory and Kotter's change theory. The sample included 245 out of 1,181 health care managers from Veterans Administration (VA) hospitals in the New York metropolitan …

Sustainability Efforts Of One Oil Company In Niger Delta Of Nigeria, Charles Afam Anosike

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Environmental degradation and socioeconomic dilemma continue to stigmatize oil production in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. Sustainability programs of oil companies often determine the improvement of living conditions in the region. This explanatory qualitative case study, guided by systems thinking theory and sustainable value framework, explored practitioners' perceptions of sustainability programs to identify its impact on business and the host communities. The research question was designed to address how sustainability efforts of a single oil company in the Niger Delta contributed to the business performance and the livelihood of the local people. Research data were gathered from a sample of …

Impact Of Middle-Level Managers' Well-Being And Happiness On Direct Reports' Performance, Respent Green Iii

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The happy productive worker (HPW) theory states that happy employees perform at higher levels than unhappy employees do. Despite the explanatory power of the HPW theory, it was unknown if a happy middle-level manager would be associated with productive direct reports. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to address that gap by exploring the impact of middle-level managers' well-being and happiness on the performance of their direct reports. Key research questions examined how middle-level managers' well-being and happiness influenced the performance of their direct reports and how middle-level managers' application of the HPW theory influenced social change. Twenty middle-level …

Modelling Risk Management In Banks: Examining Why Banks Fail?, Daniel Onyebuchi Okehi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The persistent bank failures in the Nigerian financial system have been a major concern of the government, depositors, shareholders, and the general public because of the important roles banks play in the economy. The aim of this research was to determine why there have been persistent bank failures in Nigeria and to investigate whether ineffective risk management in banks, coupled with poor corporate governance practices and nonadherence to regulations (independent variables), play a significant role in the banks' performance(dependent variable). The variables were operationalized by taking VaR as the proxy for risk management, having CRO as proxy for ERM , …

Sustainable Revenue Generation System For Nonprofit Institutions Of Higher Education, Graig Arcuri

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Social and individual spending on higher education has outpaced social and individual economic growth, resulting in nonprofit institutions of higher education (NIHEs) growing increasingly dependent upon unsustainable governmental subsidies and tuition increases. The purpose of this study was to examine the interactions among components of the nonprofit university system, existing revenue generation methods, and sustainability of revenue generation, thereby generating a new sustainable revenue theory for nonprofit universities within the United States. This qualitative grounded theory study used a multiphase design incorporating data from the literature review, historical documents, and phone interviews from a theoretical sampling of 10 NIHEs. Participants …

Idiosyncratic Deals To Employee Outcomes: Mediating Role Of Social Exchange Relationships And Social Comparison And Moderating Role Of Unit Climate, Satvir Singh

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The individualized work related agreements known as idiosyncratic deals (i-deals), that are negotiated between the employee and the employer has been shown to affect employee outcomes. Researchers have used social exchange theory to explain the relationship between i-deals and outcomes. In this study, I suggest that social comparison theory, in addition to social exchange theory, can be used to explain the effect of i-deals on employee outcomes. Because i-deals are different for each employee, the social comparisons employees make, affect their work attitudes and behaviors. This study explains the process through which i-deals lead to positive employee outcomes in the …