Business Commons^™

Materialistic Consumers Who Seek Unique Products: How Does Their Need For Status And Their Affective Response Facilitate The Repurchase Intention Of Luxury Goods?”, Winnie Wing Yin Chan, Chester K.M. To, Alice Wai Ching Chu

Faculty of Design & Environment (THEi)

It is generally known that status consumption fulfils the hedonic needs of luxury goods consumers; affective response generated from the purchase behavior of luxury goods is linked to the display of wealth and symbolic meanings obtained from social standing. However, there is a paucity of studies on how the affective response of consumers influences their repurchase intention of luxury goods. Therefore, in this paper, the repurchase intention of luxury goods consumers is investigated, their motivations are examined, and how status consumption affects their affective response will be demonstrated. The sample in this study comprises 568 survey respondents. The findings show …

An Analysis Of The Interplay Between Goal Orientation And Ethical Leadership And The Theoretical Processes Through Which Ethical Leadership Influences Work Outcomes, Dennis John Marquardt

Business Administration Dissertations

Due to recent heightened public awareness of ethics and ethical scandals inbusiness, the ethical leadership construct has become increasingly popular. However, scholars still know little about the predictors of ethical leadership and the specific processes through which ethical leaders influence their followers. Across three different papers, I contribute to the literature by addressing these gaps. The first paper consists of a theoretical review of goal orientation and ethical leadership with specific focus on the interplay between the two constructs. In the second paper I use latent path analysis with a sample of 234 supervisor/subordinate dyads and find leader trait-avoid goal …

Jumps In Natural Gas Prices: Implications For Infrastructure, Charles F. Mason, Neil A. Wilmot

Charles F Mason

No abstract provided.

"First Of It's Kind", Adenike Oyebanjo

Adia Coleman

Getting (And Keeping!) A Graduate Assistantship At U Of I, School Of Information Sciences, Aisha Conner-Gaten

Aisha Conner-Gaten

Cross-Generational Perspectives On Work-Life Balance And Its Impact, D. Roebuck, D. N. Smith, T. El Haddaoui

Deborah N. Smith

This qualitative study focuses on how women of three different generations, Generation Y, Generation X and Baby Boomers, view the concept of work-life balance and what relationship these views have to their attainment of workplace leadership positions. Work-life balance was defined differently across the three generations, but the generational lines faded as most women reported struggling with finding a balance. Some women conveyed choosing not to pursue high-level leadership positions as the personal cost was too high. Those who had obtained high-level leadership positions shared what types of support were most effective in helping them juggle personal and professional obligations. …

Learning From Las Vegas: Addiction, Limbic Capitalism, And Pleasure Meccas, David T. Courtwright

David T. Courtwright

In this Gaming Research Colloquium talk, Courtwright (Presidential Professor, Department of History, University of North Florida) discusses three overlapping features of modern history: the global spread of potentially addictive pleasures, limbic capitalism (the production of goods and services that stimulate pleasure and emotional responses in the brain), and the rise of pleasure meccas. He traces the economic, social, technological, and ideological changes that led to the rise of the meccas, and several potential challenges to them.

My Data Manager App, Customer Care

Mobidia, Inc.

my data manager app, data manager app

Disruption Of Information Technology Projects: The Reactive Decoupling Of Project Management Methodologies, Kurt W. Schmitz

Information Systems & Operations Management Dissertations

Information Technology projects have migrated toward two dominant Project Management (PM) methodologies. Plan-driven practices provide organizational control through highly structured plans, schedules, and specifications that facilitate oversight by hierarchical bureaucracies. In contrast, agile practices emphasize empowered teams using flexible methods aligned to organizational values reinforced by cultural controls and rituals. While project teams mix and combine practices from both traditions, a stylistic bias remains in the initial project management practices established at the onset of IT projects. A review of existing literature on IT project management serve as a filter on the stylistic biases of these dominant PM paradigms that …

Matching Inventory Replenishment Heuristics To Demand Patterns: A Cost/Benefit Approach, Randall A. Napier

Information Systems & Operations Management Dissertations

Behavioral research indicates that bounded rationality and resource constraints support the use of "fast and frugal heuristics" that intentionally exclude some available information from decision models. Inventory replenishment decisions must be made quickly and efficiently, and as such are a promising realm for the use of fast and frugal heuristics. This research includes a simulation study to identify significant relationships among heuristics and demand patterns, yielding inferences regarding the advantages of selecting replenishment models to match demand patterns. Findings from the simulation are validated against three years of actual usage data for 278 independent demand items from a single industrial …

The Ethics Of Student Loans, Theresa Popp Braun

Theresa Popp Braun

No abstract provided.

Generational Cohort Differences In Types Of Organizational Commitment Among Nurses In Alabama, April Lavette Jones

Presidential Alumni Research Dissemination Award

In hospitals in the United States, the ratio of nurses to patients is declining, resulting in an increase in work demands for nurses. Consequently, organizations face challenges with nurses' organizational commitment. Studies have revealed generational differences, as determined by birth year, in employee levels of organizational commitment in a number of organizational settings. However, there is a gap in the literature regarding the impact of generational cohorts on the organizational commitment of nurses. The purpose of this quantitative, nonexperimental, cross-sectional design was to address whether generational cohorts of nurses differed in their levels of organizational commitment, and to investigate whether …

Behavioural Determinants That Drive Luxury Goods Consumption: A Study Within The Tourist Context, Winnie Wing Yin Chan, Chester K.M. To, Alice Wai Ching Chu, Zhiming Zhang

Faculty of Design & Environment (THEi)

Chinese tourists have become the greatest driving force behind global tourism. An increasing number of luxury fashion brands regard these tourists as a potentially significant segment of status-conscious consumers. Yet a limited number of marketing studies have addressed the significance of the intrinsic motivation that drives these tourist consumers to consume luxury goods. This study investigates the significant intrinsic factors that affect the luxury goods buying behavior of tourist consumers. Data are collected from 284 tourist consumers and analyzed by using the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and cluster analysis. The EFA purified the measurement instruments to four factor attributes, namely, …

Tax Receivable Agreements In Initial Public Offerings: An Analysis Of The Innovation Incorporated In Ipo Agreements, Amy Foshee Holmes

Accounting Dissertations

A Tax Receivable Agreement (TRA) is a binding commitment between a newly public firm and the firm's founders to include a tax-sharing arrangement, obligating the IPO firm to make annual cash payments to the pre-IPO owners. The opportunity for shared tax benefits arises when the pre-IPO owners sell equity and achieve a step-up in basis of assets for the IPO firm. The newly created tax assets and the prior existing tax assets can offset future taxable income at ordinary corporate tax rates. This tax-sharing arrangement will typically provide for payments of 85 percent of the tax savings. This type of …

The Impact Of Salesperson Listening: A Multi-Faceted Research Approach, Emily A. Goad

Marketing Dissertations

Relationships are based on communication between parties; an important aspect of communication that is necessary for building long-term relationships is listening (Ingram et al. 1992). In sales, researchers have posited that salespeople's relationships with their customers are strengthened when salespeople consistently have effective listening skills (Ramsey and Sohi 1997; Marshall et al. 2003). Given the importance of listening in relationship building and the sales context, this dissertation examines salesperson listening from varying research approaches in three essays. First, a meta-analysis was conducted to synthesize existing empirical research on listening to empirically assess the research stream of salesperson listening. This meta-analysis …

Real Earnings Management, Habitually Meeting/Closely Beating Analysts' Forecasts, And Firms' Long-Term Economic Performance, Fanghong Jiao

Accounting Dissertations

Real earnings management (REM) has gained more attention due to its more extensive application than that before the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). Analysts' earnings forecast is an important benchmark for both the investors and the managers. Gunny (2010) finds that the signaling of future prospects overcomes the possibility of opportunism in firms that occasionally use REM to meet/closely beat benchmarks. However, the effect of repeatedly using REM to meet/beat earnings benchmarks has not been explored. This paper examines the long-term economic performance (Tobin's Q) of firms that utilize REM to habitually meet/closely beat analysts' earnings forecasts (HabitMBE). The results …

Age Differences In Attraction To Instrumental And Symbolic Organziational Attributes, Katherine Joan Roberto

Management Dissertations

As the demographic landscape in business continues to get more diverse, the need to examine what attracts individuals of different demographic attributes to organizations becomes increasingly more important. This study examined the extent to which individuals across different age groups were attracted to organizations offering different incentives. Specifically, it examined whether the presence of symbolic attributes (work-life balance or corporate social responsibility statements) affected people of different ages in their ratings of attraction to organizations. It also looked at the effect of these symbolic attributes on attraction to an organization over and above the instrumental attribute of pay. The results …

It's A Matter Of Give And Take: Exploring The Role Of Knowledge Transfer In The Supply Chain, Kimberly Whitehead

Business Administration Dissertations

Firm interdependence within supply chains continues to grow. This is driven by the need to leverage tangible and intangible resources within the supply chain for innovation, process management, customer satisfaction and meeting diverse stakeholder expectations. This research expands our understanding of supply chain collaboration by introducing new knowledge-based constructs that operationalize the abilities of a firm to transfer knowledge. These abilities are referred to as distributive capabilities. The distributive capabilities of an organization represent its ability to transfer commercially relevant knowledge through collaboration to a known recipient firm. Earlier research in this domain has focused on the abilities of a …

The Effect Of Marketing Communication On Individuals' Gift-Giving: Role Of Cause Type, Appeal Characteristics, And Donor Mindset, Mehdi Tanzeeb Hossain

Marketing Dissertations

In two essays, this dissertation focuses on an important domain of research in marketing: how marketing communications affect individuals' donation. For example, Globalgiving provides a myriad of projects for potential donors to form their own donation "portfolio". However, research till date has put up little effort in identifying the potential differences between such causes which may influence donors' portfolio decision making process. To address this issue, the first essay breaks down the donation objects/causes into two components--namely environment-focused (e.g., ozone layer depletion) and humanitarian-focused (e.g., poverty)--and examines the differential effects of individuals' holistic/analytic thinking style on environmental/humanitarian gift-giving. Six studies …

Antecedents Of Foreign Corporate Political Activity In American Politics, Lee Warren Brown

Management Dissertations

International firms compete in the United States in both the market and non-market arenas (Doh, & Lucea, 2013). The international management literature has a long history of research focused on market competition but, non-market competition has been largely ignored (Lawton, McGuire & Rajwani, 2013). At the same time, there is a large and increasing amount of money being spent by foreign firms on lobbying and other non-market activities in America. In an effort to aid in our understanding of foreign firms who engage in corporate political activity (CPA) in the United States, I investigated foreign firms that engage in CPA …

Effects Of Operations And Innovation Strategy Fit On Company Performance, James Edward Brown

Business Administration Dissertations

For a company to survive long-term, it must be able to innovate and develop new products and services. There are two types of broad innovation classifications: exploration and exploitation. These two types of innovation require different resources, have different risks, and have different time horizons for the company to receive the benefits. Operations strategies impact the type and quantity of resources available. The concept of fit has been used to match operations strategy and corporate strategy. This dissertation will extend this concept to the relationship between innovation strategy and operations strategy. Building on The Resource Based View and Punctuated Equilibrium, …

The Interactions Between Real Earnings Management And Short Selling Activity, Yu Zhang

Accounting Dissertations

This study builds on two streams of literature that recently draw the attention of researchers: real earnings management (REM) and short selling. Graham et al. (2005) reports that managers choose REM over accounting methods to manage earnings. The survey results suggest that REM is likely to be more prevalent than accrual-based earnings management, and should deserve more attention from academic research. Short selling has become a big concern to researchers due to the recent financial crisis and the combat against naked short sales. I empirically test how short sellers trade on firms' REM information, and whether short selling activity can …

The Fox Is Guarding The Henhouse: Can Interpersonal Conflict Damage An Organization's Information Security?, Ammar Nurbhai

Information Systems & Operations Management Theses

As computer networks grow ever more interconnected, securing an organization's information is becoming increasingly vital. At the forefront of this threat is that of the insider, an individual who is already behind the firewall. Extant literature related to the causes and motivation behind malicious insider behavior is lacking.This study examines whether workplace interpersonal conflict can motivate an individual to retaliate against an organization's digital information assets. The moderating effects of organizational justice and anger control are also explored to determine whether these constructs can mitigate the risk of retaliatory behavior. The link between Anger and subsequent aggression are also examined. …

The Moderating Effect Of Perceived Ethical Leadership On Reduced Audit Quality Behaviors, Kimberly J. Webb

Accounting Dissertations

As auditors perform the audit, they are faced with many decisions that ultimately affect the quality of the audit and can lead to the issuance of an improper audit opinion such as accepting weak management explanations without corroborating evidence, superficial review of client documentation, premature sign off of audit procedures, or underreporting of time spent on audit task. In this study, I investigate the impact of the perceived ethical leadership (EL) of the audit supervisor upon the auditor's propensity to engage in reduced audit quality (RAQ) acts. This question is of particular interest considering the renewed focus placed upon audit …

Perfiles Ocupacionales De La Comunidad Lgbt En Chapinero, Jorge Luis Jiménez Castaño

Economía

Los mercados de trabajo han estado acompañados de mecanismos que discriminan y segregan a ciertos grupos de la sociedad por su orientación sexual, sin importar las capacidades y potencialidades de los individuos. Este trabajo presenta la caracterización de los perfiles empresariales y ocupacionales de la comunidad LGBT en Chapinero. La metodología empleada se basó en la implementación de encuestas semiestructuradas, partiendo de un análisis descriptivo, se encontró: en primer lugar, que la discriminación y segregación ocupacional varía para hombres homosexuales, mujeres lesbianas, personas bisexuales y transgeneristas, es decir, está en función de la identidad, construcción y manifestación corporal de la …

Negative Exchange Spirals: A Process Model Of Incivility Among Coworkers, Jennifer Grace Manegold

Management Dissertations

Increasing instances of incivility (e.g. rudeness or disrespect) in the workplace have led to the growing popularity of incivility research within the mistreatment literature. It is believed that incivility may encourage reciprocated behaviors that escalate in intensity. However, the underlying processes by which these `incivility spirals' occur are not yet well understood. Therefore, based on social exchange theory and theories of emotion and organizational justice, I propose and test a multilevel model that examines the effects of daily experienced incivility on daily negative behaviors (e.g. instigated incivility and counterproductive behaviors) via a desire for revenge and state anger. In addition, …

Agency Costs, Ceo Compensation, And Leasing Activities, Linying Zhou

Accounting Dissertations

Various elements in firms' capital structures have been documented to be associated with conflicts of interests among shareholders, creditors, and managers. In this paper, I hypothesize that the use of leases affects manager incentives and mitigates the conflicts of interests between shareholders and bondholders. I test this hypothesis by examining whether leasing shares in the capital structure are associated with CEO pay-performance sensitivity. My results show that a firm's leasing share is positively associated with its CEO's pay-performance sensitivity, suggesting that leasing activities reduce the agency cost of debt financing. My results remain robust after controlling for recognized mechanisms of …

A Review Of Team Learning, Sunhyung Lee

Management Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to review literature on team learning published from 1985 to 2013. The papers were selected from academic journals from business, as well as psychology, education and management. I examine the various terms and definitions used for team learning, as well as measurement methods. I discuss models of team learning as a process of learning and its placement within the three levels of learning: individual, team, and organizational. I also suggest future directions and areas of focus for future research into team learning and its merits in the workplace.

Cointegration, Causality And Price Discovery In The Nafta Markets: A Study Of Sector Indices And Trade Flow Data From The Perspective Of Us Markets, Aamir Khan

Finance and Real Estate Dissertations

This dissertation examines the long-run linkage among the equity markets and sectors of the NAFTA economies by employing Cointegration and Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) framework. In addition, I also seek to identify the short-run & long-run causality and the direction of adjustment factor among the sectors of the US, Canadian and Mexican markets. Furthermore, I develop a multivariate model to examine the long-run impact of exchange rates on the linkage among the NAFTA markets & sectors. In addition, I also investigate the impact of US trade flow on the causal relationship it has with that of the Canadian & …

Reassessing Anomalies And Puzzles, Keming Li

Finance and Real Estate Dissertations

While standard asset pricing models assume a frictionless environment and investors are risk-averse individuals who maximize their utility based on all the available information in real time. The asset pricing literature has empirically documented numerous anomalies and puzzles, which cannot be explained by the traditional finance theory. Investors are exposed to these entire abnormal phenomenons, but at the same time investors do not fully understand them. This problem motives numbers of recent publications and also my dissertation.My dissertation is consisting of three essays. The first essay looks at the components of information uncertainty. Specically, I decompose information uncertainty into fundamental …