Business Commons^™

Mountain Monitor - 3rd Quarter 2014, Kenan Fikri, Mark Muro

Mountain Monitor Quarterly

As a group, the 10 major metro areas of the Mountain West outperformed the national economy during the third quarter of 2014 on all four indicators of economic vitality measured by the Mountain Monitor: employment growth, output growth, unemployment, and house prices. In the three months ending in September, the country’s large metropolitan areas were anticipating the rapid uptick in national economic growth that took hold at the end of 2014. Mountain region metro areas led the way.

All but two major metro areas in the region added jobs, and six did so at a faster rate than the …

Understanding Brand Authenticity In Specialized Communities: An Interpretive Qualitative Study Of The Brit Iron Rebels Las Vegas Clan, Sullivan Charles

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Postmodern society is marked by a condition where traditional identity markers have degenerated in value. Without the spatial or temporal connection provided by traditional identity markers, individuals look to brands perceived to be authentic to aide in identity construction. Paradoxically, individualized identities need the interpretive support of other likeminded individuals in specialized communities to give legitimacy to constructed identities. These specialized communities often focus around a lifestyle or a brand. This research employed interpretive qualitative methodology to understand authenticity. Semistructured depth interviews were conducted with members of the Brit Iron Rebels Las Vegas Clan to understand the authenticity of Triumph …

Mountain Monitor - 2nd Quarter 2014, Kenan Fikri, Mark Muro

Mountain Monitor Quarterly

Economic growth returned to the 10 major metro areas of the Mountain West in the second quarter of 2014 after slippage in the first quarter of the year. The resumption of vitality progressed unevenly, however. Denver and Salt Lake City pulled ahead as the fastest-growing metro areas in the region. Ogden and Provo’s days of above-average growth appeared to be fading. Las Vegas’ economic recovery advanced strongly, but Sun Belt peers Phoenix and Tucson had more difficulty moving beyond the first quarter’s slowdown. Albuquerque, for its part, welcomed a return to employment and output growth.

Across the region’s 10 major …

Foundation For An Independent Tomorrow: Treatment Effects Of The Stages Of Employment Job Readiness Program On Program Completion And Employment Outcomes For Ex-Offenders, Michael Hammer, Stephanie Pocchia, Stacy Howell

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Foundation for an Independent Tomorrow (FIT) is a local not for profit organization that seeks to assist residents of Southern Nevada by providing workforce development services (e.g., interviewing skills, job searching techniques, resume assistance) to increase a program participant’s opportunities to obtain and maintain employment. FIT is currently being federally funded through the Department of Labor’s Workforce Investment Act (WIA) grant, with a specific goal of serving the re-entry, or ex-offender, population. This population presents with a very unique set of barriers to obtaining employment, and in order to combat these barriers, FIT created the Stages of Employment job readiness …

Attitudes And Perceptions Toward Sex Tourism In Las Vegas, Carolyn Willis

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this study is to explore attitudes and perceptions as they relate to the consensual and non-consensual aspect of sex and tourism. This practice of engaging in sexual activities, aligned with the tourism industry, is referred to as `sex tourism', `romance tourism', or `prostitution tourism'. This has evolved into a global phenomenon where sex has become a commodity in many tourist destinations. Previous research available from Asia, Europe, the Caribbean, and Central America will be used to demonstrate similar patterns in transnational motivations and practices by looking at concepts, perceptions, legality, and potential exploitation as it relates to …

The Role Of Self-Concept In Consumer Behavior, Marisa Toth

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Understanding the influences underlying consumption has become an increasingly important goal for marketers. This study examined the role of self-concept in consumer behavior, specifically product evaluation. The influences of various dimensions of the self-concept are examined in regard to four product dimensions: public luxury, public necessity, private luxury, and private necessity. Differences due to variations in individual levels of self-monitoring are also measured. Overall, results showed that the more conspicuous a product is (higher on luxury/public dimensions) the greater the relationship between evaluation and ideal self-images (ideal self and ideal social self) for both high and low self-monitors.

Learning From Las Vegas: Gambling, Technology, Capitalism, And Addiction, David T. Courtwright

Occasional Papers

Gambling has always led to addictive behavior in some individuals. However, the number and types of addicted gamblers have changed over time and in response to specific gambling environments. Recent work by historians, journalists, and anthropologists, reviewed in this paper, suggests that the situation worsened during the modern era, and that it has become worse still during the last half century. Technological, organizational, and marketing innovations have “weaponized” gambling, increasing both the likelihood that people will gamble and that they will gamble compulsively—a phenomenon with parallels to several other consumer products, including processed food, digitized games, and psychoactive drugs.

Mountain Monitor - 1st Quarter 2014, Kenan Fikri, Mark Muro

Mountain Monitor Quarterly

The quarter’s Mountain Monitor finds that the rate of economic recovery in the major metropolitan areas of the Mountain West is no longer impervious to national trends.

The previous edition of the Mountain Monitor observed that the regional rate of recovery seemed to be converging toward that of the nation. This edition of the Mountain Monitor suggests that the trend has progressed further.

The rate of economic recovery broadly slowed across the region from the fourth quarter of 2013 to the first quarter of 2014, just as it did nationally. The national headlines in the first three months of the …

Family-Friendly Las Vegas: An Analysis Of Time And Space, Diana Tracy Cohen

Occasional Papers

This paper explores the rise and fall of the “family-friendly” Las Vegas marketing era. Through analysis of casino advertisements, internal and external building infrastructure, and qualitative in-depth interviews with industry insiders, this work investigates the city’s reinvention of the early 1990s. Key factors that set the stage for the emergence of targeted family marketing are identified, addressing why this advertising approach ultimately did not sustain. Unique marketing case studies are identified throughout.

A Model Of Hospitality Employee Engagement, Hee Jung Kang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study focuses on employee's state-like psychological resources by investigating individual and organizational antecedents to employee engagement and valued human resource outcomes. The purpose of this study was to develop and test a theoretical model that explains the interrelationships among six constructs and to explore the mediating effects of employee engagement. Structural Equation Modeling using AMOS (18.0) statistical software was used to test the full structural model (measurement and structural model) of the hypothesized relationships among the variables with a sample of hospitality employees. The findings supported all hypothesized relationships except the direct relationship between employee engagement and turnover intention. …

Mountain Monitor - 4th Quarter 2013, Kenan Fikri, Mark Muro

Mountain Monitor Quarterly

The quarter’s Mountain Monitor finds that the pace of economic recovery in the Mountain West region’s major metropolitan areas converged toward that of the rest of the nation in the last quarter of 2013.

While quarterly performance on the Monitor’s four indicators of economic recovery—employment, output, the unemployment rate, and house prices—varied considerably across the 10 major metro areas of the region, their combined performance broadly slowed to track with the rate of national economic recovery. The quarter’s average job growth remained unchanged in the region at 0.4 percent as the national economy caught up. The gap between the national …