Business Commons^™

Employees’ Response To Corporate Greenwashing, Jennifer Robertson, Wren A. Montgomery, Timur Ozbilir

Management and Organizational Studies Publications

Research on corporate greenwashing has expanded rapidly in recent years. At the same time, emerging studies in related literatures have found that employees are seeking out firms that are social and environmental leaders, and employee activism within firms is growing. However, the effect of firms’ exaggeration and misrepresentation of environmental claims, or greenwashing, on their own employees has been overlooked. Accordingly, we investigate greenwashing from an organizational psychology lens, exploring the impact it can have on employees, and whether these effects differ for different types of employees. Using data collected at three separate time points from a sample of employees …

A Psychological Profile Of The Digitized Economy: Who Buys Cryptocurrencies, Nfts, And Meme-Stocks (And Why)?, Nicole Wolfe

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

As the global digital economy continues to grow in interest and financial worth, it is imperative to harvest data to gain early information on this nuanced economy. Already, we have witnessed billions of dollars in losses and wins at the blink of an eye, encouragement to invest from well-known celebrities and politicians, and high anxiety from the newness, power consumption, and potential outcomes of this nuanced system. Stemming from the lack of solid evidence in this emerging field, we hope to gain more insight on the early players and variation within the digitized economy. Similarly, we hope to identify specific …

A Qualitative Look Into Repair Practices, Jumana Labib

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

This research poster is based on a working research paper which moves beyond the traditional scope of repair and examines the Right to Repair movement from a smaller, more personal lens by detailing the 6 categorical impediments as dubbed by Dr. Alissa Centivany (design, law, economic/business strategy, material asymmetry, informational asymmetry, and social impediments) have continuously inhibited repair and affected repair practices, which has consequently had larger implications (environmental, economic, social, etc.) on ourselves, our objects, and our world. The poster builds upon my research from last year (see "The Right to Repair: (Re)building a better future"), this time pulling …

Building Human And Organizational Capacity In A Small Nonprofit And Human Service Organization Through A Culture Of Leadership Development, Adam A. Silver

The Dissertation in Practice at Western University

Nonprofit organizations are typically comprised of staff from different backgrounds and education, and with varying degrees of leadership experience. In many cases, underequipped staff members are thrust into senior roles without mentorship or development that would prepare them for increased responsibility, leading to operational challenges, depleted morale, and staff burnout. Furthermore, without developing future leaders, issues of succession planning become evident both at the organizational level, and at the sector level. These concerns, in part, can be remedied by embedding strategic and intentional leadership development into the organizational culture of small nonprofit human service organizations. The problem of practice (PoP) …

Essays On Market Design And Auctions, Mingshi Kang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

My thesis consists of three chapters that contribute to redistribution-driven market design and sponsored link auctions.

Chapter 2 and 3 (co-authored with Charles Zheng) study redistribution-driven market design with endogenous buyers and sellers. In Chapter 2, we consider a large market environment with each individual endowed with equal shares of a limited resources and allowed to buy or sell the shares. We characterize the interim (incentive-constrained) Pareto frontier subject to market clearance and budget balance, and find that at most two prices are needed to attain any (interim) Pareto optimum. Under robust conditions of the primitives, the Pareto optimal allocation …

Gendered Language And Entrepreneurial Joiners, Mihwa Seong

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation explores the impact of gendered language in start-up job advertisements on the perceived attractiveness of start-ups among individuals (‘joiners’) interested in working for new firms. While entrepreneurship research has established the prominent role of entrepreneurial joiners in start-ups and the importance of building a gender-diverse team, we know relatively less about how start-ups can attract more women joiners. This dissertation seeks to investigate whether women’s ratings of the attractiveness of joining start-ups increases significantly when start-ups use more feminine language in place of male-centric gendered language. Compared to men, I theorize that women are more sensitive to the …

Digitizing And Cataloging A Corporate Annual Reports Collection: A Canadian Perspective, Alie Visser, Elizabeth Marshall, Joyce Cheung

Western Libraries Publications

Corporate annual reports provide a snapshot of a company's operations and financial status. Reviewing and comparing years of annual reports can provide a rich history of knowledge on a corporation. Preserving, storing, and digitizing Canadian annual reports has been a mission of the C.B. “Bud” Johnston Library in London, Ontario, Canada. In late 2019 when Western Libraries migrated to a new library services platform, Alma, there was a new opportunity to catalog and provide access to the digitized annual reports collection. This article describes a decade long plan to digitize the print collection by library staff and a subsequent project …

Effects Of Perceived Scarcity On Covid-19 Consumer Stimulus Spending: The Roles Of Ontological Insecurity And Mutability In Predicting Prosocial Outcomes, R. Bret Leary, Rhiannon Macdonnell Mesler, Bonnie Simpson, Matthew D. Meng, William Montford

Management and Organizational Studies Publications

In 2021, the United States government provided a third Economic Impact Payment (EIP) for those designated as experiencing greater need due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With a particular focus on scarcity and ontological insecurity, we collected time-separated data prior to, and following, the third EIP to examine how these variables shape consumer allocation of stimulus funds. We find that scarcity is positively associated with feelings of ontological insecurity, which, interestingly, correlates to a greater allocation of stimulus funds towards charitable giving. We further find evidence that mutability moderates the relationship between ontological insecurity and allocations to charitable giving. In other …

Application Of A Polynomial Affine Method In Dynamic Portfolio Choice, Yichen Zhu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis develops numerical approaches to attain optimal multi-period portfolio strategies in the context of advanced stochastic models within expected utility and mean-variance theories. Unlike common buy-and-hold portfolio strategies, dynamic asset allocation reflects the investment philosophy of a portfolio manager that benefits from the most recent market conditions to rebalance the portfolio accordingly. This enables managers to capture fleeting opportunities in the markets thereby enhancing the portfolio performance. However, the solvability of the dynamic asset allocation problem is often non-analytical, especially when considering a high-dimensional portfolio with advanced models mimicking practical asset's return. To overcome this issue, this thesis presents …

A Descriptive Analysis Of Sport Nationalism, Digital Media, And Fandom To Launch The Canadian Premier League, Farzan Mirzazadeh

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In April 2019, the Canadian Premier League (CPL), a professional domestic soccer league, launched in Canada, making it the first top-tier league in North America to begin operations in the modern digital era. The CPL represents a unique and timely opportunity to examine how a new professional sports league cultivates ties with fan-consumers via sport nationalism, digital media, and fandom. As yet, there are very few academic works on the CPL, and there is also a paucity of scholarly publications on the launch of new professional sports leagues in the 21st century. For this study, two types of qualitative data …

Systematizing Dark Personality Traits Within Broader Models Of Personality, Radosław Rogoza, Christopher Marcin Kowalski, Donald H. Saklofske, Julie Aitken Schermer

Management and Organizational Studies Publications

Previous research has attempted to derive arguments for the categorization of traits as ‘dark’ without theoretical justification or rationalizations. We begin with a description of current conceptualizations of the darkness of traits followed by a new perspective on the catalogue of dark personality traits and the theoretical boundaries of different shades of darkness within the broader personality structure. Finally, we address the redundancy problem observed within the field on dark personality traits. Our analyses are offered as a guide to future research towards a more parsimonious and useful set of criteria (a “compass” of sorts) for inclusion within the “dark” …